Mrs. Darlington sighed deeply as she replied--
"Yes, yes, Edith. Ah, the thought makes me miserable!"
"No more of that sweet drawing together in our own dear home circle,"
remarked Edith, sadly.
"Henceforth we are to bear the constant presence and intrusion of strangers, with whom we have few or no sentiments in common. We open our house and take in the ignorant, the selfish, the vulgar, and feed them for a certain price! Does not the thought bring a feeling of painful humiliation? What can pay for all this? Ah me! The antic.i.p.ation had in it not a glimpse of what we have found in our brief experience.
Except Mr. and Mrs. Ring, there isn"t a lady nor gentleman in the house. That Mason is so rudely familiar that I cannot bear to come near him. He"s making himself quite intimate with Henry already, and I don"t like to see it."
"Nor do I," replied Mrs. Darlington. "Henry"s been out with him twice to the theatre already."
"I"m afraid of his influence over Henry. He"s not the kind of a companion he ought to choose," said Edith. "And then Mr. Barling is with Miriam in the parlour almost every evening. He asks her to sing, and she says she doesn"t like to refuse."
The mother sighed deeply. While they were conversing, a servant came to their room to say that Mr. Ring was in the parlour, and wished to speak with Mrs. Darlington. It was late in the afternoon of the day on which the Scraggs had made their appearance.
With a presentiment of trouble, Mrs. Darlington went down to the parlour.
"Madam," said Mr. Ring, as soon as she entered, speaking in a firm voice, "I find that my wife has been grossly insulted by a fellow whose family you have taken into your house. Now they must leave here, or we will, and that forthwith."
"I regret extremely," replied Mrs. Darlington, "the unpleasant occurrence to which you allude; but I do not see how it is possible for me to turn these people out of the house."
"Very well, ma"am. Suit yourself about that. You can choose between us.
Both can"t remain."
"If I were to tell this Mr. Scragg to seek another boarding-house, he would insult me," said Mrs. Darlington.
"Strange that you would take such a fellow into your house!"
"My rooms were vacant, and I had to fill them."
"Better to have let them remain vacant. But this is neither here nor there. If this fellow remains, we go."
And go they did on the next day. Mrs. Darlington was afraid to approach Mr. Scragg on the subject. Had she done so, she would have received nothing but abuse.
Two weeks afterward, the room vacated by Mr. and Mrs. Ring was taken by a tall, fine-looking man, who wore a pair of handsome whiskers and dressed elegantly. He gave his name as Burton, and agreed to pay eight dollars. Mrs. Darlington liked him very much. There was a certain style about him that evidenced good breeding and a knowledge of the world.
What his business was he did not say. He was usually in the house as late as ten o"clock in the morning, and rarely came in before twelve at night.
Soon after Mr. Burton became a member of Mrs. Darlington"s household, he began to show particular attentions to Miriam, who was in her nineteenth year, and was, as we have said, a gentle, timid, shrinking girl. Though she did not encourage, she would not reject the attentions of the polite and elegant stranger, who had so much that was agreeable to say that she insensibly acquired a kind of prepossession in his favour.
As now const.i.tuted, the family of Mrs. Darlington was not so pleasant and harmonious as could have been desired. Mr. Scragg had already succeeded in making himself so disagreeable to the other boarders, that they were scarcely civil to him; and Mrs. Grimes, who was quite gracious with Mrs. Scragg at first, no longer spoke to her. They had fallen out about some trifle, quarrelled, and then cut each other"s acquaintance. When the breakfast, dinner, or tea bell rang, and the boarders a.s.sembled at the table, there was generally, at first, an embarra.s.sing silence. Scragg looked like a bull-dog waiting for an occasion to bark; Mrs. Scragg sat with her lips closely compressed and her head partly turned away, so as to keep her eyes out of the line of vision with Mrs. Grimes"s face; while Mrs. Grimes gave an occasional glance of contempt towards the lady with whom she had had a "tiff."
Barling and Mason, observing all this, and enjoying it, were generally the first to break the reigning silence; and this was usually done by addressing some remark to Scragg, for no other reason, it seemed, than to hear his growling reply. Usually, they succeeded in drawing him into an argument, when they would goad him until he became angry; a species of irritation in which they never suffered themselves to indulge. As for Mr. Grimes, he was a man of few words. When spoken to, he would reply; but he never made conversation. The only man who really behaved like a gentleman was Mr. Burton; and the contrast seen in him naturally prepossessed the family in his favour.
The first three months" experience in taking boarders was enough to make the heart of Mrs. Darlington sick. All domestic comfort was gone.
From early morning until late at night, she toiled harder than any servant in the house; and, with all, had a mind pressed down with care and anxiety. Three times during this period she had been obliged to change her cook, yet, for all, scarcely a day pa.s.sed that she did not set badly cooked food before her guests. Sometimes certain of the boarders complained, and it generally happened that rudeness accompanied the complaint. The sense of pain that attended this was always most acute, for it was accompanied by deep humiliation and a feeling of helplessness. Moreover, during these first three months, Mr.
and Mrs. Grimes had left the house without paying their board for five weeks, thus throwing her into a loss of forty dollars.
At the beginning of this experiment, after completing the furniture of her house, Mrs. Darlington had about three hundred dollars. When the quarter"s bill for rent was paid, she had only a hundred and fifty dollars left. Thus, instead of making any thing by boarders, so far, she had sunk a hundred and fifty dollars. This fact disheartened her dreadfully. Then, the effect upon almost every member of her family had been bad. Harry was no longer the thoughtful affectionate, innocent-minded young man of former days. Mason and Barling had introduced him into gay company, and, fascinated with a new and more exciting kind of life, he was fast forming a.s.sociations and acquiring habits of a dangerous character. It was rare that he spent an evening at home; and, instead of being of any a.s.sistance to his mother, was constantly making demands on her for money. The pain all this occasioned Mrs. Darlington was of the most distressing character. Since the children of Mr. and Mrs. Scragg came into the house, Edward and Ellen, who had heretofore been under the constant care and instruction of their mother, left almost entirely to themselves, a.s.sociated constantly with these children, and learned from them to be rude, vulgar, and, in some things, even vicious. And Miriam had become apparently so much interested in Mr. Burton, who was constantly attentive to her, that both Mrs. Darlington and Edith became anxious on her account. Burton was entire stranger to them all, and there were many things about him that appeared strange, if not wrong.
So much for the experiment of taking boarders, after the lapse of a single quarter of a year.
CHAPTER V.
ABOUT this time a lady and gentleman, named Marion, called and engaged boarding for themselves and three children. In Mrs. Marion there was something that won the heart at first sight, and her children were as lovely and attractive as herself; but towards her husband there was a feeling of instant repulsion. Not that he was coa.r.s.e or rude in his exterior--that was polished; but there were a sensualism and want of principle about him that could be felt.
They had been in the house only a week or two, when their oldest child, a beautiful boy, was taken ill. He had fever, and complained of distress in his back and pain in his head. The mother appeared anxious, but the father treated the matter lightly, and said he would be well again in a few hours.
"I think you"d better call in a doctor," Mrs. Darlington heard the mother say, as her husband stood at the chamber door ready to go away.
"Nonsense, Jane," he replied. "You are easily frightened. There"s nothing serious the matter."
"I"m afraid of scarlet fever, Henry," was answered to this.
"Fiddlesticks! You"re always afraid of something," was lightly and unkindly returned.
Mrs. Marion said no more, and her husband went away. About half an hour afterwards, as Mrs. Darlington sat in her room, there was a light tap at her door, which was immediately opened, and Mrs. Marion stepped in.
Her face was pale, and it was some moments before her quivering lips could articulate.
"Won"t you come up and look at my w.i.l.l.y?" she at length said, in a tremulous voice.
"Certainly, ma"am," replied Mrs. Darlington, rising immediately. "What do you think ails your little boy?"
"I don"t know, ma"am; but I"m afraid of scarlet fever--that dreadful disease."
Mrs. Darlington went up to the chamber of Mrs. Marion. On the bed lay w.i.l.l.y, his face flushed with fever, and his eyes wearing a gla.s.sy l.u.s.tre.
"Do you feel sick, my dear?" asked Mrs. Darlington, as she laid her hand on his burning forehead.
"Yes, ma"am," replied the child.
"There are you sick?"
"My head aches."
"Is your throat sore?"
"Yes, ma"am."
"Very sore?"
"It hurts me so that I can hardly swallow."
"What do you think ails him?" asked the mother, in anxious tones.
"It"s hard to say, Mrs. Marion; but, if it were my case, I would send for a doctor. Who is your physician?"
"Dr. M----."