"It won"t do to quote them, I"m afraid. I suppose you"d hardly expect to come up into that row?" said Sunderline, smiling.
"They began, some time," returned Marion.
"Yes; but for one thing, it wasn"t a time when everybody else was beginning. Shall I tell you plainly how it seems to me?"
"I wish you would."
They had walked slowly for the last three or four minutes, till they had come to the beginning of the paling in which, a little further on, was the white gate. They paused here; Frank Sunderline rested his box of tools on the low wall that ran up and joined the fence, and Marion turned and stood with her face toward him in the western light, and her little pink-lined linen sunshade up between her and the low sun,--between her and the roadway also, down which might come any curious pa.s.sers-by.
"It seems to me," said Frank Sunderline, "that women are getting on to the platforms nowadays, not so much for any real errand they have there, as just for the sake of saying, I"m here! I think it is very much the "to be seen of men" motive,--the poorest part of women"s characters,--that plays itself out in this way, as it always has done in dancing and dressing and acting, and what not. It isn"t that a woman might not be on a platform, if she were called there, as well as anywhere else. There never was a woman came out before the world in any grand, true way, that she wasn"t all the more honored and attended to because she _was_ a woman. There are some things too good to be made common; things that ought to be saved up for a special time, so that they may _be_ special. If it falls to a woman to be a Queen, and to open and dismiss her Parliament, n.o.body in all the kingdom but thinks the words come n.o.bler and sweeter for a woman"s saying them. But that"s because she is _put_ there, not because she climbs up some other way. If a woman honestly has something that she must say--some great word from the Lord, or for her country, or for suffering people,--then let her say it; and every real woman"s husband, and every real mother"s son, will hear her with his very heart. Or if even she has some sure wonderful gift,--if she can sing, or read, or recite; if she can stir people up to good and beautiful things as _one in a thousand_, that"s her errand; let her do it, and let the thousand come to hear. But she ought to be certain sure, or else she"s leaving her real errand behind. Don"t let everybody, just because the door is open, rush in without any sort of a pa.s.s or countersign. That"s what it"s coming to. A _sham trade_, like hundreds of other sham trades; and the shammer and the shamefuller, because women demean themselves to it.
I can"t bear to see women changing so, away from themselves. We shan"t get them back again, this generation. The _homes_ are going.
Young men of these days have got to lose their wives--that they ought to have--and their homes that they looked forward to, such as their mothers made. It"s hard upon them; it takes away their hopes and their motives; it"s as bad for them as for the women. It"s the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place. There"s no end to the mischief; but it works first and worst with exactly girls of your cla.s.s--_our_ cla.s.s, Marion. Girls that are all upset out of their natural places, and not really fit for the new things they undertake to do. As I said,--how long will it last? How long will the Mr. Hamilton Leverings put you forward and find chances for you?
Just as long as you are young and pretty and new. And then, what have you got left? What are you going to turn round to?"
Sunderline stopped. The color flushed up in his face. He had spoken faster and freer and longer than he had thought of; the feeling that he had in him about this thing, and the interest he had in Marion Kent, all rushed to words together, so that he almost forgot that Marion Kent in bodily presence stood listening before him, he was dealing so much more with his abstract thought of her, and his notion of real womanhood.
But Marion Kent did stand there. She flushed up too, when he said, "We are going to lose our wives by it." What did he mean? Would he lose anything, if she took to this that she thought of, and went abroad into the world, and before it? Why didn"t he say so, then?
Why didn"t he give her the choice?
But what difference need it make, in any such way? Why shouldn"t a girl be doing her part beforehand, as a man does? He was getting ahead in his trade, and saving money. By and by, he would think he had got enough, and then he would ask somebody to be his wife. What should the wife have been doing in the mean time--before she was sure that she should ever be a wife? Why shouldn"t she look out for herself?
She said so.
"I don"t see exactly, Mr. Sunderline."
She called him "Mr. Sunderline," though she remembered very well that in the earnestness of his talk he had called her "Marion." They had grown to that time of life when a young man and a girl who have known each other always, are apt to drop the familiar Christian name, and not take up anything else if they can help it. The time when they carefully secure attention before they speak, and then use nothing but p.r.o.nouns in addressing each other. A girl, however, says "Mr." a little more easily than a man says "Miss." The girl has always been "Miss" to the world in general; the boy grows up to his manly t.i.tle, and it is not a special personal matter to give it to him. There is something, even, in the use of it, which delicately marks an att.i.tude--not of distance, but of a certain maidenly and bewitching consciousness--in a girl friend grown into a woman, and recognizing the man.
"I don"t see, exactly, Mr. Sunderline," said Marion. "Why shouldn"t a girl do the best she can? Will she be any the worse for it afterwards? Why should the wives be all spoilt, any more than the husbands?"
"Real work wouldn"t spoil; only the sham and the show. Don"t do it, Marion. I wouldn"t want my sister to, if I had one--there!"
He had not meant so directly to answer her question. He came to this end involuntarily.
Marion felt herself tingle from head to foot with the suddenness of the negative that she had asked for and brought down upon herself.
Now, if she acted, she must act in defiance of it. She felt angrily ashamed, too, of the position in which his words put her; that of a girl seeking notoriety, for mere show"s sake; desiring to do a sham work; to make a pretension without a claim. How did he know what her claim might be? She had a mind to find out, and let him see. Sister!
what did he say that for? He needn"t have talked about sisters, or wives either, after that fashion. Spoilt! Well, what should she save herself for? It was pretty clear it wouldn"t be much to him.
The color died down, and she grew quiet, or thought she did. She meant to be very quiet; very indifferent and calm. She lifted up her eyes, and there was a sort of still flash in them. Now that her cheek was cool, they burned,--burned their own color, blue-gray that deepened almost into black.
"I"ve a good will, however," she said slowly, "to find out what I _can_ do. Perhaps neither you nor I know that, yet. Then I can make up my mind. I rather believe in taking what comes. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Very likely n.o.body will ever care particularly whether I"m spoilt or not. And if I"m spoilt for one thing, I may be made for another. There have got to be all sorts of people in the world, you know."
She was very handsome, with her white chin up, haughtily; her nose making its straight, high line, as she turned her face half away; her eyes so dark with will, and the curve of hurt pride in her lips that yet might turn easily to a quiver. She spoke low and smooth; her words dropped cool and clear, without a tone of temper in them; if there was pa.s.sionate force, it was from a fire far down.
If she could do so upon a stage; if she could look like that saying other people"s words--words out of a book: if she could feel into the pa.s.sions of a world, and interpret them; then, indeed! But Marion Kent had never entered into heights and depths of thought and of experience; she knew only Marion Kent"s little pa.s.sions as they came to her, and spoke themselves in homely, unchoice words. Mrs.
Kemble or Charlotte Cushman might have made a study from that face that would have served for a Queen Katharine; but Queen Katharine"s grand utterances would never have thrilled Marion Kent to wear the look as she wore it now, piqued by the plain-speaking--and the _not_ speaking--of the young village carpenter.
"I hope you don"t feel hurt with me; I"ve only been honest, and I meant to be kind," said Frank Sunderline.
"No, indeed; I dare say you did," returned Marion. "After all, everybody has got to judge for themselves. I was silly to think anybody could help me."
"Perhaps you could help yourself better," said the young man, loth to leave her in this mood, "if you thought how you would judge for somebody you cared for. If your own little sister"--
Now the quiver came. Now all the hurt, and pique, and shame, and jealous disappointment rushed together to mingle and disguise themselves with a swell and pang that always rose in her at the name of her little dead sister,--dead six years ago, when she was nine and Marion twelve.
The tears sprang to the darkened eyes, and quenched down their burning; the color swept into her face, like the color after a blow; the lips gave way; and with words that came like a cry she exclaimed pa.s.sionately,--
"Don"t speak of little Sue! I can"t bear it! I never could! I don"t know what I say now. Good-night, good-by."
And she left him there with his box upon the wall; turned and hurried along the path, and in through the little white gate.
CHAPTER IV.
NINETY-NINE FAHRENHEIT.
Rodney Sherrett got up from the breakfast table, where he had eaten half an hour later than the rest of the family, threw aside the newspaper that had served to accompany his meal as it had previously done his father"s, and walked out through the conservatory upon the slope of lawn scattered over with bright little flower-beds, among which his sister, with a large shade hat on, and a pair of garden scissors and a basket in her hands, was moving about, cutting carnations and tea-roses and bouvardia and geranium leaves and bits of vines, for her baskets and sh.e.l.ls and vases.
"I say, Amy, why haven"t you been over to the Argenters" this long while? Why don"t you get Sylvie here?"
"Why, I did go, Rod! Just when you asked me to. And she has been here; she called three weeks ago."
"O, poh! After the spill! Of course you did. Just called; and she called. Why need that be the end of it? Why don"t you make much of her? I can tell you she"s a girl you _might_ make much of. She behaved like a lady, that day; and a _woman_,--that"s more. She was neither scared nor mad; didn"t scream, nor pout; nor even stand round to keep up the excitement. She was just cool and quiet, and took herself off properly. I don"t know another girl that would have done so. She saved me out of the sc.r.a.pe as far as she was concerned; she might have made it ten times the muss it was. I"d rather run down a whole flock of sheep than graze the varnish off a woman"s wheel, as a general principle. There"s real backbone to Sylvie Argenter, besides her prettiness. My father would like her, I know.
Why don"t you bring her here; get intimate with her? I can"t do it,--too fierce, you know."
Amy Sherrett laughed.
"What a nice little cat"s-paw a sister makes! Doesn"t she, Rod?"
"I wonder if cats don"t like chestnuts too, sometimes," said Rod; and then he whistled.
"What a worry you are, Rod!" said Amy, with a little frown that some pretty girls have a way of making; half real and half got up for the occasion; a very becoming little pucker of a frown that seems to put a lovely sort of perplexed trouble into the beautiful eyes, only to show how much too sweet and tender they really are ever to be permitted a perplexity, and what a touching and appealing thing it would be if a trouble should get into them in any earnest. "In term time I"m always wishing it well over, for fear of what dreadful thing you may do next; and when it is vacation, it gets to be so much worse, here and there and everywhere, that I"m longing for you to be safe back in Cambridge."
"Coming home Sat.u.r.day nights? Well, you do get about the best of me so. And we fellows get just the right little sprinkle of family influence, too. It loses its affect when you have it all the time.
That"s what I tell Truesdaile, when he goes on about home, and what a thing it is to have a sister,--he doesn"t exactly say _my_ sister; I suppose he believes in the tenth commandment. By the way, he"s knocking round at the seash.o.r.e some where using up the time. I"ve half a mind to hunt him up and get him back here for the last week or so. I think he"d like it."
"Nonsense, Rod! You can"t. When Aunt Euphrasia"s away."
"She would come back, if you asked her; wouldn"t she? I think it would be a charity. Put it to her as an opportunity. She"d drop anything she might be about for an opportunity. I wonder if she ever goes back upon her tracks and finishes up? She"s something like a mowing machine: a grand good thing, but needs a scythe to follow round and pick out the stumps and corners."
Amy shook her head.
"I don"t believe I"ll ask her, Rod. She"s perfectly happy up there in New Ipswich, painting wild flowers and pressing ferns, and swinging those five children in her hammock, and carrying them all to drive in her pony-wagon, and getting up hampers of fish and baskets of fruit, and beef sirloins by express, and feeding them all up, and paying poor dear cousin Nan ten dollars a week for letting her do it. I guess it"s my opportunity to get along here without her, and let her stay."
"Incorruptible! Well--you"re a good girl, Amy. I must come down to plain soft-sawder. Put some of those things together prettily, as you know how, and drive over and take them to Sylvie Argenter this afternoon, will you?"
"Fish and fruit and sirloins!"