“You have been more than a friend to me,” he answered. “I feel as though you were my sister — only, if you were, I suppose I should be less grateful.”
“No, you would not,” said Totty with a smile of genuine pleasure produced of course by the success of her operations. “Do you want to do something to please me? Something to show your gratitude?”
“Whatever I can — —”
“Come and spend the summer with us — no, I do not mean you to make a visit of a month or six weeks. Pack up all your belongings, come down with us and be one of the family, till we are ready to come back to town. Make your headquarters with us, write your book, go away and make visits for a week when you like, but consider that our house is your home. Will you?”
“But, Totty, you would be sick of the sight of me — —” Visions of an enchanted existence by the river rose before George’s eyes. He was to some extent intellectually demoralised, and every agreeable prospect in the future resolved itself into the thought of mental rest superinduced by boundless luxury and material comfort.
“What an idea!” exclaimed Totty indignantly. “Besides, if you knew how interested I am in making the proposal, you would see that you would be conferring a favour instead of accepting one.”
She laughed softly when she had finished the sentence, thinking how very true her words were.
“I cannot understand how,” George answered. “Please explain. I really cannot see how I shall be conferring a favour by eating your wonderful dinners and drinking that champagne of Sherry’s.”
Totty laughed again.
“I wish you would finish it! It would be ever so much better for his liver, if you would.”
She wondered what George would think if he knew that a fresh supply of that particular brand of brut was already on its way from France, ordered in the hope that he might accept the invitation she was now pressing upon him.
“And as for the cook,” she continued, “he will do nothing unless there is a man in the party. That is it, George. I have told you now. Dear Sherry is not coming back until the autumn, and Mamie and I feel dreadfully unprotected down there all by ourselves. Please, please come and take care of us. I knew you would come — oh, I am so glad! It is such a relief to feel that you will be with us!”
As indeed it was, since if George was under Totty’s personal supervision there would be no chance of his returning to his former allegiance to Constance. George himself saw that her reasons were not serious, and considering the previous conversation and its earnest tone, he thought that he saw through Totty’s playfulness and kindly wish to do a very friendly action.
“I will tell you what I will do,” he said. “I will come for a month — —”
“No — I will not have you for a month, nor for two months — the whole summer or nothing.”
So George at last consented, and left town two or three days later with Mrs. Sherrington Trimm and her daughter. He had felt that in some way he was acting weakly, and that he had yielded too easily to his cousin’s invitation, but if he had been in any doubt about her sincere desire to keep him during the whole season, his anxiety was removed when as soon as he was established in his new quarters Totty immediately began to talk of plans for the months before them, in all of which George played a principal part, and Mamie took it for granted that there was to be no separation until they should all go back to New York together. During the first few days George allowed himself to be utterly idle and let the hours pass with an indifference to all thought which he had never known before.
He had been transported into a sort of fairyland, of which he had enjoyed occasional glimpses at other times, but which he had never had an opportunity of knowing intimately. It was unlike anything in his experience. Even the journey had not reminded him of other journeys, for it had been performed in that luxurious privacy which is dear to the refined American. Mr. Craik’s yacht was permanently at his sister’s disposal, and on the morning appointed for the departure she and Mamie and George had driven down to the pier at their leisure and had gone on board. It had been but a step from the perfectly appointed house in the city to the equally perfect dwelling on the water, and only one step more from the snowy deck of the yacht to the flower garden before the country mansion on the banks of the great river. Everything had been ready for them, on board and on shore, and George could not realise when the journey was over that he had been carried over a distance which he formerly only traversed in the heat and dust of a noisy train, or on the crowded deck of a river steamboat. He had passed the hot hours sitting under the cool shade of a double awning, in the most comfortable of chairs beside Mamie Trimm and opposite to her mother. There had been no noise, no tramping of sailors, no blowing of whistles, no shouting of orders. From time to time, indeed, he caught a glimpse of the captain’s feet as he paced the bridge, but that was all. At mid-day a servant had appeared and Totty had glanced at him, glanced at the table beside her and nodded. Immediately luncheon had been served and George had recognised the touch of the master in the two or three delicacies he had tasted, and had found in his glass wine of the famous brand which was said to have caused Sherry Trimm’s sufferings. He had divided with Mamie a priceless peach, which had no natural right to be ripe on the last day of May, and Totty had selected for him a little bunch of muscat grapes such as he might not have eaten in the south before September. George tasted the ambrosia and swallowed the nectar, and enjoyed the beautiful scenery, the two pretty faces and the pleasant voices in his ear, thinking, perhaps, of the old times when after a desperate morning’s work at reviewing trash, he had sat down to a luncheon of cold meat, pickles and tea. The thought of the contrast made the present more delightful.
The spell was not broken, and Totty’s country-house prolonged without interruption the series of exquisite sensations which had been intermittent during the last month in New York. If Totty had intended to play the part of the tempter instead of being the chief comforter, she could not have done it with a more diabolical skill. She believed that a man could always be more easily attacked by the senses than by his intelligence, and she put every principle of her belief into her acts. She partly knew, and partly guessed, the manner of George’s former life, the absence of luxury, the monotony of an existence in which common necessities were always provided for in the same way, without stint but without variety. Her art consisted in creating contrasts of unlike perfections, so that the senses, unable to decide between the amount of pleasure experienced yesterday, enjoyed to-day and anticipated to-morrow, should be kept in a constant state of suspended judgment. She had practised this system with her husband and it had often succeeded in persuading him to let her have her own way, and she practised it continually for her own personal satisfaction, as being the only means of extracting all possible enjoyment from her existence.
George fell under the charm without even making an effort to resist it. Why, he asked himself dreamily, should he resist anything that was good in itself and harmless in its consequences? His life had all at once fallen in pleasant places. Should he disappoint Totty and give Mamie pain by a sudden determination to break up all their plans and return to the heat of the city? He could work here as well as anywhere else, better if there was any truth in the theory that the mind should be more active when the body is subject to no pain or inconvenience. A deal of asceticism had been forced upon him since he had been seventeen years old, and he believed that a surfeit of luxuries would do him no harm now. He would get tired of it all, no doubt, and would be very glad to go back to his more simple existence.
Totty, however, was far too accomplished an Epicurean to allow her patient a surfeit of anything. She watched him more narrowly than he supposed and was ready with a change, not when she saw signs of fatigue in his manner, his face or his appetite, but before that, as soon as she had seen that he was pleased. She was playing a great game and her attention never relaxed. There was a fortune at stake of which he himself did not dream, and of which even she
did not know the extent. She had everything in her favour. The coast was clear, for Sherrington was in Europe. The final scene was prepared, since Mamie was already in love with George. She herself was a past master of scene-shifting and her theatre was well provided with properties of every description. All that was necessary was that the hero should take a fancy to the heroine. But the very fact that it all looked so easy aroused Totty’s anxiety. She said to herself that what appeared to be most simple was often, in reality, most difficult, and she warned herself to be careful and diffident of success.
Fortunately Mamie was all she could desire her to be. She did not believe in beauty as a means of attracting a disappointed man. Beauty could only draw his mind into making comparisons, and comparisons must revive recollection and reawaken regret. She had more faith in Mamie’s subtle charm of manner, voice and motion than she would have had in all the faultless perfections of classic features, queenly stature and royal carriage. That charm of hers, gave her an individuality of her own, such as Constance Fearing had never possessed, unlike anything that George had ever noticed in other girls or women. Doubtless he might have too much of that, too, as well as of other things, but Totty was even more cautious of the effects she produced with Mamie than of those she brought about by her minute attention to the management of her house. And here her greatest skill appeared, for she had to play a game of three-sided duplicity. She had to please George, without wearying him, to regulate the intercourse between the two so as to suit her own ends, and to invent reasons for making Mamie behave as she desired that she should without communicating to the girl a word of her intentions. If George appeared to have been enjoying especially a quiet conversation with Mamie, he must be prevented from talking to her again alone for at least twenty-four hours, and even then he must be allowed to please himself in the matter. This was not easy, for Mamie was by this time blindly in love with him, and if she were not watched would be foolish enough to bore him by her frequent presence at his side. To keep her away from him long enough to make him want her company needed much diplomacy. If George went out for a turn in the garden, and if Mamie joined him without an invitation, Totty could not pursue the pair in order to protect George from being bored. Hitherto also, Mamie had made no confidences to her mother and did not seem inclined to make any. Manifestly, if an accident could happen by which Mamie could be brought to betray herself to her careful parent, great advantages would ensue. The careful parent would then appear as the firm and skilful ally of the love-lorn daughter, the two would act in concert and great results might be effected. Totty was not only really fond of George, in her own way, but it would not have suited her that a hair of his head should be injured. Nevertheless, she nourished all sorts of malicious hopes against him at this stage. She wished that he might be thrown from his horse and brought home unhurt but insensible, or that he might upset his boat on the river under Mamie’s eyes — in short that something might happen to him which should give Mamie a shock and throw her into her mother’s arms.
Providence, however, did not come to Totty’s assistance and she was thrown upon her own resources, aided in some small degree by an extraneous circumstance. The marriage of John Bond and Grace Fearing had been talked of for a long time, and Totty one morning learned that it was to take place immediately. She could not guess why they had chosen to be married in the very middle of the summer, when all their friends were out of town, and she had no inclination to go to the wedding, which was to be conducted without any great gathering or display of festivity. John Bond, as being Sherrington Trimm’s partner and an old friend of Totty’s, urged her of course to come down to town for the occasion and to bring Mamie, but the heat was intense, and as there would be nothing to see and no one present with whom she would care to talk, and nothing good to eat, and, on the whole, nothing whatever to do except to grin and look pleased, Totty made up her mind that she would have nothing to do with the affair, beyond sending Grace an expensive present. There were no regular invitations sent out, and George received no notice of what was happening. Totty, however, did not lose the opportunity of talking to Mamie about it all, with a view to sounding her views upon matrimony in general and upon her own future in particular.
“Johnnie Bond is such a fine fellow!” said Totty to her daughter, when they had been talking for some time.
Mamie admitted that he was a very fine fellow, indeed.
“Tell me, Mamie,” said her mother, assuming a tone at once cheerful and confidential, “is not Johnnie Bond very nearly your ideal of what a husband ought to be?”
“Not in the least!” answered the young girl promptly. Totty looked very much surprised.
“No? Why, Mamie, I thought you always liked him so much!”
“So I do, in a way. But he is not at all in my style, mamma.”
“What is your style, as you call it?” Totty seemed intensely interested as she paused for an answer. Mamie blushed, and looked down at a piece of work she was holding.
“Well — to begin with,” she said, speaking quickly, “Mr. Bond is three-quarters lawyer and one-quarter idiot. At least I believe so. And all the rest of him is boating and tennis and — everything one does, you know — sport and all that. I never heard him make an intelligent remark in his life, though papa says he is as clever as they make them, for a lawyer of course. You know what I mean, mamma. He is one of those dreadfully earnest young men, who do everything with a purpose, as if it meant money, and they meant to get it. Oh, I could not bear to marry one of them! They are all exactly alike — so many steam engines turned out by the same maker!”
“Dear me, Mamie!” laughed Mrs. Trimm. “What very decided opinions you have!”
“I suppose Grace Fearing has decided opinions, too, in the opposite direction, or she would not have married him. I never can understand her, either, with those great dark eyes and that determined expression — she looks like a girl out of a novel, and I believe there is no more romance about her than there is in a hat-stand! There cannot be, if she likes Master Johnnie Bond — and there is no reason why she should marry him unless she does like him, is there?”
“None that I can see, but that is a very good one — good enough for any one, I should think. You would not care for Johnnie Bond, but you may care for some one else. You have not told me what your ideal would be like.”
“Where is the use? You ought to know, mamma, without being told.”
“Of course I ought, child — only I am so stupid. Would he be dark or fair?”
“Dark,” answered the young girl, bending over her work.
“And clever, I suppose? Of course. And slender, and romantic to look at?”
“Oh, don’t, mamma! Talk about something else.”
“Why? I am not sure that we might not agree about the ideal.”
“No!” exclaimed Mamie with a little half scornful laugh. “We should never agree about him, because I would like him poor.”
“You can afford to marry a poor man, if you please,” said Totty, thoughtfully. “But would you not be afraid that he loved your money better than yourself?”
“No indeed! I should love him, and then — I should believe in him, of course.”
“Then I do not see why you should not marry your ideal after all, my dear. Come, darling — we both know whom we are talking about. Why not say it to each other? I would help you then. I am almost as fond of him as you are.”
Mamie blushed quickly and then turned pale. She looked suspiciously at her mother.
“You are not in earnest, mamma,” she said, after a short pause.
“Indeed I am, child,” answered Mrs. Trimm, meeting her gaze fearlessly. “Do you think that I have not known it for a long time? And do you think I would have brought him here if I had not been perfectly willing that you should marry him?”
The young girl suddenly sprang up and threw her arms round her mother’s neck.
“Oh mamma, mamma! This is too good! Too good! Too good!”
“De
ar child!” exclaimed Totty, kissing her affectionately. “Is not your happiness always the first thing in my mind? Would I not sacrifice everything for that?”
“Yes — you are so sweet and dear. I know you would,” said Mamie, sitting down beside her and resting her head upon her mother’s plump little shoulder. “But you see — I thought that nobody knew, because we have always been together so much. And then I thought you would think what you just said, about the money, you know. But it is not true — I mean it would not be true. He would never care for that.”
“No,” answered Totty, almost forgetting herself. “I should think not! I mean — with his character — he is so honourable and fair — like your papa in that. But Mamie, darling, do you think he —— ?”
Totty stopped, conveying the rest of her question by means of an inquiringly sympathetic smile. Mamie shook her head a little sadly, and looked down.
“I am afraid he never will,” she said, in a low voice. “And yet he should, for I — oh mother! I love him so — you will never know!”
She buried her face and her blushes in her hands upon her mother’s shoulder. Totty patted her head affectionately and kissed her curls several times in a very motherly way. Her own face was suffused with smiles for she felt that she had done a very good day’s work, and was surprised to think that it had been accomplished so easily. The fact was that Mamie was only too ready to speak of what filled her whole life, and had more than once been on the point of telling her mother all she felt. She had supposed, however, that she knew the ways of her mother’s wisdom, and that George’s poverty would always be an insuperable obstacle. She did not now in the least understand why Totty made so light of the question of money, and even in her great happiness at finding such ready sympathy she thought it very strange that she should have so completely mistaken her mother’s character.
From that day, however, there was a tacit understanding between the two. Mamie was in that singular and not altogether dignified position in which a woman finds herself when she loves a man and has determined to win him, though she is not loved in return. There are doubtless many young women in the world who, whether for love or for interest, have wooed and won their present husbands, though the latter have never found it out, and would not believe it if it were told to them. Mamie differed from most of these, however, in that she was as modest as she was loving, and in her real distrust of her own advantages, which defect, or quality, was perhaps at the root of her peculiar charm. She knew that she was not beautiful, and she believed that beauty was a woman’s strongest weapon. She had yet to learn that the way to men’s hearts is not always through their eyes.
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 512