Pink and White Tyranny: Chapter 2

Chapter 2

WHAT SHE THINKS OF IT.

Springdale was one of those beautiful rural towns whose flourishing
aspect is a striking exponent of the peculiarities of New-England
life. The ride through it presents a refreshing picture of wide, cool,
grassy streets, overhung with green arches of elm, with rows of large,
handsome houses on either side, each standing back from the street
in its own retired square of gardens, green turf, shady trees, and
flowering shrubs. It was, so to speak, a little city of country-seats.
It spoke of wealth, thrift, leisure, cultivation, quiet, thoughtful
habits, and moral tastes.

Some of these mansions were of ancestral reputation, and had been in
the family whose name they bore for generations back; a circumstance
sometimes occurring even in New-England towns where neither law nor
custom unites to perpetuate property in certain family lines.

The Seymour house was a well-known, respected mansion for generations
back. Old Judge Seymour, the grandfather, was the lineal descendant of
Parson Seymour; the pastor who first came with the little colony of
Springdale, when it was founded as a church in the wilderness, amid
all the dangers of wild beasts and Indians.

This present Seymour mansion was founded on the spot where the
house of the first minister was built by the active hands of his
parishioners; and, from generation to generation, order, piety,
education, and high respectability had been the tradition of the
place.

The reader will come in with us, on this bright June morning, through
the grassy front yard, which has only the usual New-England fault of
being too densely shaded. The house we enter has a wide, cool hall
running through its centre and out into a back garden, now all aglow
with every beauty of June. The broad alleys of the garden showed
bright stores of all sorts of good old-fashioned flowers, well tended
and kept. Clumps of stately hollyhocks and scarlet peonies; roses of
every hue, purple, blush, gold-color, and white, were showering down
their leaves on the grassy turf; honeysuckles climbed and clambered
over arbors; and great, stately tufts of virgin-white lilies exalted
their majestic heads in saintly magnificence. The garden was Miss
Grace Seymour's delight and pride. Every root in it was fragrant with
the invisible blossoms of memory,--memories of the mother who loved
and planted and watched them before her, and the grandmother who had
cared for them before that. The spirit of these charming old-fashioned
gardens is the spirit of family love; and, if ever blessed souls from
their better home feel drawn back to any thing on earth, we think it
must be to their flower-garden.

Miss Grace had been up early, and now, with her garden hat on, and
scissors in hand, was coming up the steps with her white apron full
of roses, white lilies, meadow-sweets, and honeysuckle, for the
parlor-vases, when the servant handed her a letter.

"From John," she said, "good fellow;" and then she laid it on the
mantel-shelf of the parlor, while she busied herself in arranging her
flowers.

"I must get these into water, or they will wilt," she said.

The large parlor was like many that you and I have seen in a certain
respectable class of houses,--wide, cool, shady, and with a mellow
_old_ tone to every thing in its furniture and belongings. It was
a parlor of the past, and not of to-day, yet exquisitely neat and
well-kept. The Turkey carpet was faded: it had been part of the
wedding furnishing of Grace's mother, years ago. The great, wide,
motherly, chintz-covered sofa, which filled a recess commanding the
window, was as different as possible from any smart modern article of
the name. The heavy, claw-footed, mahogany chairs; the tall clock
that ticked in one corner; the footstools and ottomans in faded
embroidery,--all spoke of days past. So did the portraits on the wall.
One was of a fair, rosy young girl, in a white gown, with powdered
hair dressed high over a cushion. It was the portrait of Grace's
mother. Another was that of a minister in gown and bands, with
black-silk gloved hands holding up conspicuously a large Bible. This
was the remote ancestor, the minister. Then there was the picture of
John's father, placed lovingly where the eyes seemed always to be
following the slight, white-robed figure of the young wife. The walls
were papered with an old-fashioned paper of a peculiar pattern, bought
in France seventy-five years before. The vases of India-china that
adorned the mantels, the framed engravings of architecture and
pictures in Rome, all were memorials of the taste of those long passed
away. Yet the room had a fresh, sweet, sociable air. The roses and
honeysuckles looked in at the windows; the table covered with books
and magazines, and the familiar work-basket of Miss Grace, with its
work, gave a sort of impression of modern family household life. It
was a wide, open, hospitable, generous-minded room, that seemed to
breathe a fragrance of invitation and general sociability; it was a
room full of associations and memories, and its daily arrangement and
ornamentation made one of the pleasant tasks of Miss Grace's life.

She spread down a newspaper on the large, square centre-table, and,
emptying her apronful of flowers upon it, took her vases from the
shelf, and with her scissors sat down to the task of clipping and
arranging them.

Just then Letitia Ferguson came across the garden, and entered the
back door after her, with a knot of choice roses in her hand, and a
plate of seed-cakes covered with a hem-stitched napkin. The Fergusons
and the Seymours occupied adjoining houses, and were on footing of the
most perfect undress intimacy. They crossed each other's gardens, and
came without knocking into each other's doors twenty times a day,
_apropos_ to any bit of chit-chat that they might have, a question to
ask, a passage in a book to show, a household receipt that they had
been trying. Letitia was the most intimate and confidential friend of
Grace. In fact, the whole Ferguson family seemed like another portion
of the Seymour family. There were two daughters, of whom Letitia
was the eldest. Then came the younger Rose, a nice, charming,
well-informed, good girl, always cheerful and chatty, and with a
decent share of ability at talking lively nonsense. The brothers of
the family, like the young men of New-England country towns generally,
were off in the world seeking their fortunes. Old Judge Ferguson was
a gentleman of the old school,--formal, stately, polite, always
complimentary to ladies, and with a pleasant little budget of
old-gentlemanly hobbies and prejudices, which it afforded him the
greatest pleasure to air in the society of his friends. Old Mrs.
Ferguson was a pattern of motherliness, with her quaint, old-fashioned
dress, her elaborate caps, her daily and minute inquiries after the
health of all her acquaintances, and the tender pityingness of her
nature for every thing that lived and breathed in this world of sin
and sorrow.

Letitia and Grace, as two older sisters of families, had a peculiar
intimacy, and discussed every thing together, from the mode of
clearing jelly up to the profoundest problems of science and morals.
They were both charming, well-mannered, well-educated, well-read
women, and trusted each other to the uttermost with every thought and
feeling and purpose of their hearts.

As we have said, Letitia Ferguson came in at the back door without
knocking, and, coming softly behind Miss Grace, laid down her bunch of
roses among the flowers, and then set down her plate of seed-cakes.

Then she said, "I brought you some specimens of my Souvenir de
Malmaison bush, and my first trial of your receipt."

"Oh, thanks!" said Miss Grace: "how charming those roses are! It was
too bad to spoil your bush, though."

"No: it does it good to cut them; it will flower all the more. But try
one of those cakes,--are they right?"

"Excellent! you have hit it exactly," said Grace; "exactly the right
proportion of seeds. I was hurrying," she added, "to get these flowers
in water, because a letter from John is waiting to be read."

"A letter! How nice!" said Miss Letitia, looking towards the shelf.
"John is as faithful in writing as if he were your lover."

"He is the best lover a woman can have," said Grace, as she busily
sorted and arranged the flowers. "For my part, I ask nothing better
than John."

"Let me arrange for you, while you read your letter," said Letitia,
taking the flowers from her friend's hands.

Miss Grace took down the letter from the mantelpiece, opened, and
began to read it. Miss Letitia, meanwhile, watched her face, as we
often carelessly watch the face of a person reading a letter.

Miss Grace was not technically handsome, but she had an interesting,
kindly, sincere face; and her friend saw gradually a dark cloud rising
over it, as one watches a shadow on a field.

When she had finished the letter, with a sudden movement she laid her
head forward on the table among the flowers, and covered her face with
her hands. She seemed not to remember that any one was present.

Letitia came up to her, and, laying her hand gently on hers, said,
"What is it, dear?"

Miss Grace lifted her head, and said in a husky voice,--

"Nothing, only it is so sudden! John is engaged!"

"Engaged! to whom?"

"To Lillie Ellis."

"John engaged to Lillie Ellis?" said Miss Ferguson, in a tone of
shocked astonishment.

"So he writes me. He is completely infatuated by her."

"How very sudden!" said Miss Letitia. "Who could have expected it?
Lillie Ellis is so entirely out of the line of any of the women he has
ever known."

"That's precisely what's the matter," said Miss Grace. "John knows
nothing of any but good, noble women; and he thinks he sees all this
in Lillie Ellis."

"There's nothing to her but her wonderful complexion," said Miss
Ferguson, "and her pretty little coaxing ways; but she is the most
utterly selfish, heartless little creature that ever breathed."

"Well, _she_ is to be John's wife," said Miss Grace, sweeping the
remainder of the flowers into her apron; "and so ends my life
with John. I might have known it would come to this. I must make
arrangements at once for another house and home. This house, so
much, so dear to me, will be nothing to her; and yet she must be its
mistress," she added, looking round on every thing in the room, and
then bursting into tears.

Now, Miss Grace was not one of the crying sort, and so this emotion
went to her friend's heart. Miss Letitia went up and put her arms
round her.

"Come, Gracie," she said, "you must not take it so seriously. John is
a noble, manly fellow. He loves you, and he will always be master of
his own house."

"No, he won't,--no married man ever is," said Miss Grace, wiping her
eyes, and sitting up very straight. "No man, that is a gentleman, is
ever master in his own house. He has only such rights there as his
wife chooses to give him; and this woman won't like me, I'm sure."

"Perhaps she will," said Letitia, in a faltering voice.

"No, she won't; because I have no faculty for lying, or playing
the hypocrite in any way, and I shan't approve of her. These
soft, slippery, pretty little fibbing women have always been my
abomination."

"Oh, my _dear_ Grace!" said Miss Ferguson, "do let us make the best of
it."

"I _did_ think," said Miss Grace, wiping her eyes, "that John had some
sense. I wasn't such a fool, nor so selfish, as to want him always to
live for me. I wanted him to marry; and if he had got engaged to your
Rose, for instance ... O Letitia! I always did so _hope_ that he and
Rose would like each other."

"We can't choose for our brothers," said Miss Letitia, "and, hard as
it is, we must make up our minds to love those they bring to us. Who
knows what good influences may do for poor Lillie Ellis? She never has
had any yet. Her family are extremely common sort of people, without
any culture or breeding, and only her wonderful beauty brought them
into notice; and they have always used that as a sort of stock in
trade."

"And John says, in this letter, that she reminds him of our mother,"
said Miss Grace; "and he thinks that naturally she was very much such
a character. Just think of that, now!"

"He must be far gone," said Miss Ferguson; "but then, you see, she is
distractingly pretty. She has just the most exquisitely pearly, pure,
delicate, saint-like look, at times, that you ever saw; and then she
knows exactly how she does look, and just how to use her looks; and
John can't be blamed for believing in her. I, who know all about her,
am sometimes taken in by her."

"Well," said Miss Grace, "Mrs. Lennox was at Newport last summer at
the time that she was there, and she told me all about her. I think
her an artful, unscrupulous, unprincipled woman, and her being made
mistress of this house just breaks up our pleasant sociable life here.
She has no literary tastes; she does not care for reading or study;
she won't like our set here, and she will gradually drive them from
the house. She won't like me, and she will want to alienate John from
me,--so there is just the situation."

"You may read that letter," added Miss Grace, wiping her eyes, and
tossing her brother's letter into Miss Letitia's lap. Miss Letitia
took the letter and read it. "Good fellow!" she exclaimed warmly, "you
see just what I say,--his heart is all with you."

"Oh, John's heart is all light enough!" said Miss Grace; "and I don't
doubt his love. He's the best, noblest, most affectionate fellow in
the world. I only think he reckons without his host, in thinking he
can keep all our old relations unbroken, when he puts a new mistress
into the house, and such a mistress."

"But if she really loves him"--

"Pshaw! she don't. That kind of woman can't love. They are like cats,
that want to be stroked and caressed, and to be petted, and to
lie soft and warm; and they will purr to any one that will pet
them,--that's all. As for love that leads to any self-sacrifice, they
don't begin to know any thing about it."

"Gracie dear," said Miss Ferguson, "this sort of thing will never do.
If you meet your brother in this way, you will throw him off, and,
maybe, make a fatal breach. Meet it like a good Christian, as you
are. You know," she said gently, "where we have a right to carry our
troubles, and of whom we should ask guidance."

"Oh, I do know, 'Titia!" said Miss Grace; "but I am letting myself be
wicked just a little, you know, to relieve my mind. I ought to put
myself to school to make the best of it; but it came on me so _very_
suddenly. Yes," she added, "I am going to take a course of my Bible
and F�nelon before I see John,--poor fellow."

"And try to have faith for her," said Miss Letitia.

"Well, I'll try to have faith," said Miss Grace; "but I do trust it
will be some days before John comes down on me with his raptures,--men
in love are such fools."

"But, dear me!" said Miss Letitia, as her head accidentally turned
towards the window; "who is this riding up? Gracie, as sure as you
live, it is John himself!"

"John himself!" repeated Miss Grace, becoming pale.

"Now do, dear, be careful," said Miss Letitia. "I'll just run out this
back door and leave you alone;" and just as Miss Letitia's light heels
were heard going down the back steps, John's heavy footsteps were
coming up the front ones.

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