a few weeks later, miss trevennon found herself domesticated in her cousin’s house in washington, with surroundings so unfamiliar and circumstances so new to her that she found something to excite her interest and surprise almost every hour in the day. the perfect appointments of the house, which was gotten up with all the appliances of modern art, delighted and diverted her at every turn. “the mud-scraper,” she wrote her mother, in her first letter home, “is a thing of beauty, and the coal-scuttle a joy forever.”
there were no children in the family, which consisted only of general and mrs. gaston and a bachelor brother of the former, who made his home with them, although a large portion of his time was spent in new york. margaret had already been an inmate of the house for ten days, and as yet had not seen him. mrs. gaston, however, informed her that he might appear at any moment, his trips to and from new york being too frequent to entail the formality of announcing himself.
mrs. gaston was a very clever and agreeable woman and pretended, with some reason, to know the world. her marriage had been considered quite a brilliant one, as general gaston’s position, both social and official, was extremely good, and he had quite a large private fortune in addition to his pay. he was not so clever as his wife, but more thoughtful and perhaps more sincere. it was a successful marriage, and the gaston establishment was tasteful and well ordered. mrs. gaston, whose health was indifferent, kept her room a good deal when she could escape the exactions of society, which she never allowed herself to shirk; and her husband was so much absorbed in his official and social duties that margaret was often alone.
“i am afraid you are frequently dull, my dear,” mrs. gaston said to her cousin one morning, as the latter sat beside her couch in the little dressing-room where the invalid was taking her breakfast. “it will be brighter for you when the season fairly opens; but i purposely begged you to come now, so that we might have time to make acquaintance while we are quiet. i wish louis would come home, but there’s never any counting on him, he’s so frightfully busy all the time. i never saw a man work so hard in my life.”
margaret looked a little puzzled: “i thought you told me——” she began,
“that he is well off? so he is. he has quite a nice little fortune and there’s no earthly reason why he should work so hard, except that he likes it; and from that point of view i don’t blame him. ‘pleasure the way you like it,’ is an axiom for which i have a profound respect, and louis undoubtedly finds his chief pleasure in application to his profession.”
“what is his profession?” margaret asked; for, although it was evident that mrs. gaston was very fond of her brother-in-law, she had, for some reason, said very little about him to her cousin.
“he’s an architect—i thought you knew—ames & gaston. have you never heard of them?”
“no,” said margaret, shaking her head and smiling, “but that does not go for much. i am finding out that i have never heard of most things.”
“it’s really quite delightful that you never heard of ames & gaston,” said cousin eugenia, laughing. “i shall inform louis promptly, though he won’t believe it, or if he does he’ll set it down to the obtuseness of southern people—a foregone conclusion in his mind! i must tell you that i anticipate some pleasure in seeing you enlighten him on that score.”
“i am afraid i shall not be able to do much,” said margaret. “i do feel myself extremely ignorant by the side of general gaston and yourself, especially when you talk of modern literature and art and music.”
“you need not, i assure you. we are neither of us more than ‘cleverly smattered’ on these subjects. edward knows more than i do, though every one, himself included, believes the contrary. it’s quite another thing with louis, however; he’s a swell at that sort of thing, and is really thorough, and yet, do you know, i sometimes manage to impose on him immensely and make him think i’ve penetrated to the very root and fibre of a matter, when in reality i have only the most superficial knowledge of it? but all this is a digression. there was something i wanted to say to you. it was about edward’s people. you know about the gastons, i suppose?”
margaret looked slightly puzzled. “what do you mean?” she said.
“oh! i mean about their name and history and family traditions. it’s an old puritan family and one of the most illustrious in new england. i read somewhere the other day, that it was one of the few really historical families in america, and i have no desire to speak disrespectfully of them, only i do think they make an unnecessary amount of fuss with themselves. oh! i must tell you about my first interview with mr. alexander m. gaston. you know who he is!”
“really, i do not,” said margaret, lifting her eyebrows with a deprecating smile.
“well, you are green! but, however, it’s unnecessary to enlighten you now, except to say that he is edward’s uncle, and the head of the great house of gaston. he’s been governor and senator and foreign minister and all sorts of things, and is now one of the most eminent men in new england, and a very excellent and accomplished gentleman. well, soon after i became engaged to edward he came to call upon me, and i must say his whole manner and attitude toward me were rather amazing. he was good enough to say that he welcomed me into the family, but he took pains to intimate that i was about to be the recipient of a great honor. the gastons, he explained, had been for centuries leaders of public thought and opinion in their own state, and he was obliging enough to supply me with the dates of the landing in new england of the founders of the house, and to dwell upon their prominence among the early puritans. i listened respectfully to this tirade, and by the time it came to a conclusion i had my little speech ready, and when he took my hand and formally welcomed me into the great house of gaston, i replied by saying that i knew it ought to be a source of much satisfaction to edward and myself that we were, in our small way, doing something toward healing an old breach. ‘my ancestors were cavaliers,’ i said, ‘and for a cavalier to marry a puritan, is, even at this late day, helping at least a little to wipe out the memory of a long-standing feud.’ now, i flatter myself that was rather neat.”
“oh, cousin eugenia, how perfectly delicious!” exclaimed margaret, with an outburst of gay laughter. “and what did he say?”
“i don’t exactly remember, my dear, but it was something clever and adroit. i know he retired very gracefully, and bore me no malice. he has been very kind to me always, and i am said to be his favorite of all his nephews’ wives. he is really a dear old boy, and quite worthy of all the adulation he receives, if only they wouldn’t put it on the ground of ancestry. why, the founder of the family was engaged in some sort of haberdashery business in london! it’s odd, the inconsistencies one meets with! but i’m inured to it all now, and have learned to pose as a gaston, like the rest of them! but what i wanted particularly to tell you, and what it concerns you to know is, that the gastons—edward and louis as well as the others—are greatly prejudiced against southerners. that was one reason why i asked you here.”
“it may make matters very difficult for me,” said margaret, smiling.
“not in the least, my dear. you have only to be yourself, assuming nothing. i feel a delightful security in letting matters take their course. you will know perfectly what to do, and i think nothing could be more inspiring than forcing people to abandon foolish prejudices. i should not be sorry to have your chance myself.”
“surely, the same opportunity must once have been yours.”
“oh no, they won’t accord me that for a moment. they say, with truth, that merely to have been born in the south does not make me a southerner, and that, having spent as much time in the north—and, for that matter, the east and west—as in the south, i must be set down as a cosmopolitan.”
“i am almost surprised to hear you say they are prejudiced,” said margaret; “i should suppose they were too intelligent for that.”
“just what i’ve always said. for my part, i haven’t an atom of prejudice in my composition. it is unworthy of enlightened human beings, and so i tell edward and louis.”
“and what do they say?”
“oh, that they are not prejudiced, of course. denial is the only answer such people can give. but, for all that, they are. i think northern people, as a rule, are more prejudiced than southerners.”
“they must go great lengths, if they are,” said margaret; “but i am not speaking of the more enlightened ones, and i have always supposed that the existence of such feelings in bassett was due to the fact that it is such a small place, and so shut off from contact with the world. and then, too, i think much of it is to be attributed to the fact that those poor people suffered so terribly by the war.”
“exactly. i often tell edward and louis that they are so much less justifiable, because they were the victors. i’m sure i feel it a very easy thing to be magnanimous toward a person i’ve got the better of. but i’ve long since ceased to apply arguments to a prejudice. finding they did not answer, i thought a practical illustration might.”
a moment’s silence ensued, which margaret presently broke by saying:
“is mr. louis gaston younger or older than your husband?”
“younger, of course,—years younger. he’s not quite thirty.”
“is he a bachelor or a widower?”
“a bachelor, of course. fancy louis being a widower! he stands on the high vantage-ground of lofty impregnability. he is not in love, and he would fain have it believed he never has been, or at least only in a careless and off-hand manner. not that he avoids women. on the contrary, he goes into society, and enjoys it very much when he has time, which is not very often.”
“do you mean that he works out of office hours?”
“he has no particular office hours, and he works at all times, early and late. his partner lives in new york and he is there a great deal, and there most of the work is done; but he is always drawing plans and making estimates here at home, and has a branch office down the street. sometimes he works in his room, and sometimes i persuade him to bring his designs down into the library, when there seems a likelihood of our having a quiet evening. i pretend i’m interested in them, to please him,—he does a great deal to please me; but i’m not so, really.”
“they must be interesting to him, at any rate, to absorb him so completely.”
“i should think so! why, i’ve known louis, when there was a stress of work, to sit up the entire night, and then take a cold bath and come down to breakfast perfectly fresh, and be ready afterward to go off down town and be at it again until night. it’s enough to make one yawn to think of it.”
mrs. gaston, suiting the action to the word, was settling herself more comfortably among the pillows, and so failed to observe the look of eager interest her words had called up in her companion’s face. she had just arranged her position to her satisfaction, and turned to continue the conversation, when a quick step was heard ascending the staircase.
“that’s louis’ step,” she said suddenly. “close the door, please; he will probably stop to speak to me.”
margaret obeyed in silence, and the next moment the footsteps stopped at the door, and a very pleasantly modulated voice said:
“any admittance to a repentant renegade, who comes to make his peace?”
“no,” said mrs. gaston, quietly; “i’m not well—worse than usual, indeed—used up with recent exertions and in no mood to show clemency to offenders.”
“and pray, in what have the recent exertions consisted?” the voice replied.
“oh, the usual round of wearing domestic affairs, with a new item added.”
“ahem!” exclaimed the voice; “it would seem the young southerner has arrived. is it so?”
“yes,” said mrs. gaston, dryly, “she has.”
“if i were not too generous, i should say, ‘i told you so,’” went on the voice. “i have observed that southern importations into northern climates are usually attended with certain disadvantages.”
“oh, she’s a very nice little thing,” said mrs. gaston, carelessly, “i think something can be made of her.”
“and you are to have the pleasure of conducting the process of development, and edward and i that of looking on at it—is that it? where is she, by-the-way? is there any danger of one’s meeting her on the stairs, and having to account for one’s self? a civilized man, encountered unexpectedly, might unsteady the nerves of the importation—might he not?”
“possibly,” said mrs. gaston; “but there’s no danger. i’ve given her a room far away from yours; so you will still have the privilege of keeping unearthly hours without disturbing any one.”
“thank you; that’s very considerate; but i must be off. i want to get some papers from my room, and then i must go to keep an appointment.”
“of course! i shouldn’t know you if you hadn’t an appointment. it wouldn’t be you. go on; but be prompt at dinner.”
“you may count upon me. and, by-the-way, you’ll let me know whenever you’d like me to do anything for your young friend’s entertainment. i shall not be likely to know the tastes and predilections of the importation, but if you think of anything i can do, i am at your service.”
“thank you; but i let her look after herself pretty much. i fancy there will be no occasion to call on you.”
she threw an amount of careless weariness into her voice as she said this, that contrasted strongly with the smile of unmixed amusement with which she turned her eyes on margaret a moment afterward, as the footsteps outside were heard ascending the staircase.
“well,” she said quietly, “that’s louis. what do you think of him?”
“how can i possibly say?” said margaret, divided between amusement and indignation.
“surely you must have some impression of him,” mrs. gaston urged.
“he has a very pleasant voice.”
“you couldn’t fail to notice that. i was sure you would. new englanders are somewhat maligned in the matter of voices, i think. that dreadful nasal twang, where it exists at all among the more cultivated, usually belongs to the women; though i must say edward has some relations, male and female, who set my teeth on edge whenever they come near me. but a really beautiful voice, such as louis’, is a rarity anywhere, and he pronounces his words so exquisitely! only to hear him say ‘matthew arnold’ rests every bone in one’s body. i dare say you would have expected to hear the endless succession of double o’s, always attributed to noo englanders!”
“oh, no!” said margaret. “i always supposed cultivated new englanders quite superior to that.”
“they suppose themselves to be so, also,” said cousin eugenia; “but they are not in all cases, by any means. edward himself had a decided tendency in that direction when i married him. i have often told him that what first suggested to me to accept him was a curiosity to see whether he would address me as ‘oogenia,’ when he grew sentimental; and i protest he did!”
margaret could not help laughing at this, but she soon became grave again, and said seriously:
“i am afraid i must be rather a bête noir to mr. gaston.”
“it would seem so,” said cousin eugenia.
“i hope you will never call upon him to escort me anywhere, or do anything whatever for my entertainment,” margaret continued. “i wish you would promise me not to.”
“with all my heart. i promise it as solemnly and bindingly as you like.”
at this point the footsteps were heard returning down the stairs, and again they paused outside.
“can you come and take this?” the pleasant voice called softly.
“open the door and hand it through a little crack,” mrs. gaston answered.
the knob was turned from without, and the door pushed open just wide enough to admit the entrance of a neatly done-up parcel, held in a large, finely formed hand.
mrs. gaston motioned to margaret, who sat just behind the door, to take the parcel, and, not daring to protest, the girl moved forward and received it.
“shake hands, in token of pardon for my slurs at the importation,” the voice said, in a tone of quiet amusement, and margaret, obeying another peremptory nod and glance from mrs. gaston, transferred the parcel to her left hand, and put her right one for a moment into that of louis gaston.
“i perceive that the toilet is indeed in its initial stages,” he said, “not a ring in place as yet! i hardly seem to know your hand in its present unfettered condition. i even think it seems slighter and colder than usual. the importation must have taken a good deal out of you already.”
not choosing to have her hand imprisoned longer in that firm and friendly clasp, margaret forcibly withdrew it and stepped back, while mrs. gaston said, naturally:
“cease your invidious remarks and go to your appointment, louis. thank you for the candy.”
the door was immediately closed from without, and again the footsteps retreated.
“i am glad you’ve shaken hands with louis,” mrs. gaston said; “it’s an initiation to a friendship between you, and, in the end, you and louis must be friends, though there will be certain inevitable obstructions at first. he is really the best and dearest creature that ever lived. he had a dreadful illness once from studying too hard for his college examinations, and edward and i nursed him through it, and you don’t know how we did yearn over that boy! he’s been devoted to me ever since, one proof of which is, that he always brings me this candy from new york. have some. i’m sure he ought to be good to me,” she said, critically peering into the box from which margaret had just helped herself, and selecting a plump chocolate drop; “i certainly spoil him sufficiently. still, there isn’t very much one can do for a man like that. he has such frugal habits, it’s quite baffling. but tell me what you think of him, after a second encounter.”
“why, nothing more than i thought before, except that he has a beautiful hand.”
“margaret, you are never disappointing,” said cousin eugenia, warmly. “i felt sure you would observe that. go now and write the letters that you spoke of while i dress, and then we’ll go for a drive before lunch. and, by-the-way, while i think of it, put on your long black dress this evening, and wear the black lace at the throat and hands, as you had it the evening that the kents were here. don’t wear any color, not even a bit of gold. you know you gave me leave to make suggestions when you came, and it’s the first time i’ve used my privilege, though i think i am usually rather fond of suggesting. ring for lucy, please, and then hurry through your letters, that we may have a nice long drive.”
