Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905

The phrase “chaperon us” was pleasant to him; it implied they had a common interest in being together, and her companionship meant much to him. He smiled persuasively – waiting, hat in hand, for her answer.

Deena felt an almost irresistible desire to say yes – to follow the suggestions of this overmastering delightful companion who seemed to make her happiness his care, but she managed to refuse.

“Thank you very much,” she murmured, “it is quite impossible.”

It was not at all impossible, as Stephen knew, and he turned away with a short good-night. He wondered whether his friend’s wife were a prude.

Undoubtedly the refusal was prudent, whether Mrs. Ponsonby were a prude or no, but it had its rise in quite a different cause. She had no dress she considered suitable for such an occasion. Her wedding dress still hung in ghostly splendor in a closet all by itself, but that was too grand, and the others of her trousseau had been few in number and plain in make, and would now have been consigned to the rag bag had she seen any means of supplying their place. They were certainly too shabby to grace one of Stephen’s beautiful little dinners, which were the pride of Harmouth.

Deena’s ideas of French in his own entourage as opposed to him in hers were amusing. Viewed in the light of Simeon’s friend, voluntarily seeking their companionship and sharing their modest hospitality, they met on terms of perfect equality; but when associated with his own surroundings he seemed transformed into a person of fashion, haughty and aloof. It was quite absurd. Stephen was as simple and straightforward in one relation as the other, but perhaps the truth was that Deena was afraid of his servants.

The house was the most attractive in the town, and stood in the midst of well-kept grounds with smooth lawns and conservatories, and Deena felt oppressed by so much prosperity. On the few occasions when Simeon had taken her there to lunch on Sunday – the only dissipation he allowed himself – she had thought the butler supercilious, and the maid who came to help her off with her wraps, snippy. She had suspected the woman of turning her little coat inside out after it was confided to her care, and sneering at its common lining.

Deena was too superior a woman not to be ashamed of such thoughts, but the repression of her married life had developed a morbid sensitiveness, and she was always trying to adjust the unadjustable – Simeon’s small economies to her own ideas of personal dignity; she hardly realized how much the desire to live fittingly in their position had to do with her wish to earn an income.

While Stephen’s criticisms were still fresh in her mind she rewrote her story, and when she read it again – which was not till several days had passed – she felt she had made large strides in the art she so coveted.

CHAPTER IV

When affairs of a family once begin to stir, they seem unable to settle till a flurry takes place quite bewildering to the stagnant ideas of the easy-going. The fact that Deena was coming back to her old quarters in the third story was the first event to excite a flutter of interest in the Shelton home circle; with Mr. Shelton, because she was his favorite child; with Mrs. Shelton, because Deena would both pay and help; with the children, because they could count upon her kindness no matter how outrageous their demands. The next thing that happened, while it hastened her coming, entirely eclipsed it. Fortunately it was delayed until the day before the Ponsonby house was to be handed over to its new tenant, Mrs. Barnes.

Mrs. Shelton was busy clearing a closet for her daughter’s use when she heard her husband calling to her from below.

“Mary,” he said, “here is a telegram.”

They were not of everyday occurrence, and Mrs. Shelton’s fears were for Polly, her one absent child, as she joined her husband and stretched out her hand for the yellow envelope.

The magnetic heart of a mother is almost as invariably set to the prosperous daughter as to the good-for-nothing son; there is a subtle philosophy in it, but quite aside from the interest of this story.

The telegram said:

Mrs. Thomas Beck’s funeral will take place on Thursday at 11 A. M.

It was dated Chicago, and signed “Herbert Beck.”

“Who is Mrs. Beck?” asked Mr. Shelton, crossly; the morning was not his happiest time.

“She is my first cousin, once removed,” Mrs. Shelton answered, with painstaking accuracy. “You must remember her, John. She was my bridesmaid, and we corresponded for years after she married and moved to Chicago until” – here Mrs. Shelton’s pale face flushed – “I once asked her to lend me some money, and told her how badly things were going with us, and she refused – very unkindly, I thought at the time; but perhaps it was just as well – we might never have paid it back.”

It was Mr. Shelton’s turn to flush, but he only said, irritably:

“And why the devil should they think you want to go to her funeral?”

Mrs. Shelton professed herself unable to guess, unless the fact that the family was nearly extinct had led her cousin to remember her on her deathbed.

“Well, they might have saved themselves the expense of the telegram,” Mr. Shelton grumbled, adding, sarcastically, “unless they would like to pay our expenses to Chicago, and entertain us when we get there!”

It appeared later that was exactly what they hoped to do. A registered letter, written at Mrs. Beck’s request, when her death was approaching, arrived within an hour. She begged her cousin’s forgiveness for past unkindness, told her that she had left her the savings of her lifetime – though the main part of the estate passed to Mr. Beck’s nephew – and besought Mrs. Shelton, as her only relation, to follow her to her grave. Young Mr. Beck, the said nephew, who wrote the letter, added that the house should be kept up for Mrs. Shelton’s convenience till after her visit, and that his aunt had expressed a wish that her clothes and jewels should be given to Mrs. Shelton.

“We’ll go, Mary!” said Mr. Shelton, blithe as a lark – several things had raised his spirits! – and Mrs. Shelton, with a burst of her old energy, borrowed some mourning, packed her trunk, summoned Deena and caught the train, with five minutes to spare.

And so it happened that when Mr. French called, as was his daily custom, to take his last cup of tea with Mrs. Ponsonby before her flitting, he found the house in the temporary charge of the servant and Master Dicky Shelton, a shrimpish boy of thirteen, whose red hair and absurd profile bore just enough likeness to his sister’s beauty to make one feel the caricature an intentional impertinence.

French had got into the drawing room before he understood what the servant was saying. Deena had gone, leaving no message for him! His first feeling of surprise was succeeded by one of chagrin; these afternoon chats by her fireside had become so much to him, so much a part of his daily life, that he hated to think they had no corresponding value to her. He was recalled from these sentimental regrets by the irate voice of Master Shelton in dispute with Bridget.

“She —said– there – was cake! Mrs. Ponsonby —said– there – was – cake – and – that I – could – have some!” each word very emphatic, judicial and accusative. Then followed a rattling tail to the sentence: “And if you have eaten it all, it was horridly greedy in you, and I hope it will disagree with you – so I do!”

Bridget now came forward and addressed French.

“There ain’t so much as a cheese-paring left in the house, Mr. French. Mrs. Ponsonby’s gone off at a moment’s notice, and I’m off myself to-morrow; and there sits that boy asking for cake! He’s been here now the better part of an hour, trackin’ mud over the clean carpets till I’m a’most ready to cry.”

Dick seized his hat and moved sulkily to the door, hurling back threats as he walked.

“Just you wait! We’ll see – you think I won’t tell, but I will!”

French perceived that the case was to be carried to the Supreme Court for Deena’s decision, and to save her annoyance at a time when he felt sure she was both tired and busy, he made a proposition to the heir of the Sheltons that established his everlasting popularity with that young person.

“Come home with me, Dicky,” he said, “and if my people haven’t any cake, I can at least give you all the hothouse grapes you can eat, and some to carry home. How does that strike you?”

“Done!” cried Dicky, slipping his hand under Stephen’s arm, and, after one horrid grimace at Bridget, he allowed himself to be led away.

The sun had nearly disappeared when they reached French’s house, which was a little outside of the town, and he reflected that he must quickly redeem his promise, and dispatch his young companion home before the darkness should make his absence a cause of alarm. He rang the bell by way of summoning a servant, and then, opening the door with his latchkey, he invited Dicky to enter.

It was a most cheerful interior. The staircase, wide and old-fashioned, faced you at the far end of the hall, and on the first landing a high-arched window was glowing with the level rays of the setting sun. A wood fire blazed on the hearth, and on the walls the portraits of all the Frenches, who for two hundred years had made a point of recording their individualities in oil, looked down to welcome each arrival.

Dicky, who wore no overcoat, presented his nether boy to the fire, while he gazed at the portraits with a frown. He thought them extremely plain.

A servant came from some hidden door, took his master’s coat and hat and received an order in which such inspiring words as “cakes, or chocolates, or dessert of any kind,” gave the earnest of things hoped for.

“And, Charles,” Mr. French concluded, “tell Marble to bring the things as quickly as he can to the library, with a good supply of grapes.”

Dicky smiled a slow smile. He could even allow his mind to wander to other things, now that his refreshment was drawing nigh.

“I say, Mr. French, who is that old cove over the door, with a frill on his shirt and a ribbon to his eyeglass? He is nearly as ugly as brother Simeon.”

Stephen felt genuine alarm; he was unused to children.

“That,” he said, “is my great-grandfather. I don’t think he is much like your brother-in-law, I must confess.”

“He doesn’t look quite so musty,” said Dicky, reflectively. “Did it ever seem strange to you, Mr. French, that a pretty girl like Deena could marry Mr. Ponsonby?”

“He is a very distinguished man,” Stephen replied, in an agony of embarrassment. “You ought to appreciate what an honor it is to be connected by marriage with Professor Ponsonby.”

“We ain’t intimate,” said Dicky, lightly, and his tone betrayed how much Simeon was the loser by a restricted intercourse.

“One of these days when you are a little older you will be very proud of his reputation,” Stephen protested.

Dicky walked to the end of the great Persian rug on the blue pattern – it was evidently a point of honor to avoid the red – before he answered: