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A short story by Agnes Blake Poor |
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Three Cups Of Tea |
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Title: Three Cups Of Tea Author: Agnes Blake Poor [More Titles by Poor] "Mrs. Samuel N. Brackett, at home Wednesday, December Tenth, As Miss Caroline Foster, after lunch on the tenth of December, inspected the cards and notes which encircled her mirror in a triple row, she selected these three as calling for immediate attention. Of course she meant to go to all: when was she ever known to refuse an invitation? Though young and pretty, well connected and well dowered, and far from stupid, she occupied in society the position of a down-trodden pariah or over-worked galley-slave, for the reason that she never could say no to anyone. She had nothing--money, time, sympathy--that was not at the service of anyone who chose to beg or borrow them. At parties she put up with the left-over partners, and often had none--for even the young men had found out that she could always be had when wanted. Perhaps this was the reason why, with all her prettiness and property, she was not already appropriated in marriage. Of course she had hosts of friends, who all despised her; but one advantage she did enjoy, for which others might have been willing to barter admiration and respect; no one, man, woman, or child, was ever heard to speak harshly to Caroline Foster, or to say anything against her. Malice itself must have blushed to say that she was too complying, and malice itself could think of nothing else. This tenth of December marked an uncommon event in her experience, for on it she had, for the first time in her life, made up her mind to refuse an asked-for gift; and the consciousness of this piece of spirit, and of a beautiful new costume of dark-blue velvet trimmed with otter fur, which set off her fair hair and fresh face to perfection, gave her an air of unwonted stateliness as she stepped into a handsome coupé and drove off alone. She was by no means an independent or unguarded young woman; but her aunt, with whom she lived, had two committee meetings that afternoon, and told Caroline that she might just as well go to Miss Caldwell's little tea for ladies only, alone. They would meet at Mrs. Brackett's; and if they didn't they could tell everyone they were trying to--which would do just as well. Miss Caldwell lived in an old house on Mount Vernon Street which gave the impression that people had forgotten to pull it down because it was so small; but within it looked spacious, as it sheltered only one lady and two maids. Everything about it had an air of being fresh and faded at once. The little library in front was warm dull olive-green; and the dining-room at the back soft deep grey-blue; and the drawing-room, up one flight of an unexpected staircase, was rich dark brick-red--all very soothing to the eye. They were full of family portraits, and old brass and pewter, and Japanese cabinets, and books bound in dimly gilded calf-skin, and India chintzes, all of which were Miss Caldwell's by inheritance. Even sunlight had a subdued effect in these rooms; and now they were lighted chiefly by candles, and none too brilliantly. Miss Caldwell had been receiving her guests in the drawing-room; but there were not many, and being a lady accustomed to do as she pleased, she had followed them down to the dining-room, which was just comfortably full. Conversation was, as it were, forced to be general, and the whole room heard Mrs. Spofford remark that "Malcolm Johnson would be a very poor match for Caroline Foster." "Caroline Foster and Malcolm Johnson, is that an engagement?" asked the stout, good-natured Mrs. Manson, who was tranquilly eating her way through the whole assortment of biscuits and bonbons on the table. "Well, Caroline is a dear, sweet girl--just the kind to make a good wife for a widower." "With five children to start with, and no means that I know of!" said Miss Caldwell, scornfully. "I am sure I hope not!" "I have heard it on the best authority," said the first speaker. "It will take better authority than that to make me believe it." "If he proposes to her," said Mrs. Manson, "I should say she would take him. I never knew Caroline to say no to anyone." "Well," said Miss Caldwell, "I suppose it's natural for a woman to be a fool in such matters--for most women," she corrected herself; "but if Caroline marries Malcolm Johnson I shall think her too foolish--and she has never seemed to me to be lacking in sense." "Perhaps," said the pourer out of tea, a pretty damsel with large dark eyes, a little faded to match the room--"perhaps she wants a sphere." "As if her aunt could not find her fifty spheres if she wanted them!" "Too many, perhaps," said a tall lady with a sensible, school-teaching air. "I have sometimes thought that Mrs. Neal, with managing all her own children's families and her charities, had not much time or thought to spare for poor little Caroline. She is kind to her, but I doubt if she gives her much attention." "A woman likes something of her own," said Mrs. Manson. "Her own!" said Miss Caldwell. "How much good of her own is she likely to have if she marries Malcolm Johnson?" "Yes," said Mrs. Spofford, "his motives would be plain enough; I dare say he's in love with her. Caroline is a lovely girl, but of course in such a case her money goes for something." "But she has not so very much money," said Mildred, dropping a lump of sugar into a cup--"plenty, I suppose, for herself, but it would not support a large family like Mr. Johnson's." "It would pay his taxes, my dear, and buy his coal," said Miss Caldwell, "and he has kept house long enough to appreciate the help that would be." "Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Manson, "coal is so terribly high this winter!" "It would be a saving for him to marry anybody," said a thin lady with a sweet smile, slightly soiled gloves, and her bonnet rather on one side. "He tells me that his housekeepers are no end of trouble. He is always changing them, and his children are running wild with it all. He's a very old friend of mine," she added with a conscious air. "They are very troublesome children," said Miss Caldwell. "I hear them crying a great deal." "Poor little things!--they need training," said Mrs. Manson. "Caroline would never train them; she is too amiable." "They have so much illness," said Mrs. Eames, the "old friend." "Poor Malcolm tells me he is afraid that little Willie has incipient spine complaint; he is in pain most of the time. The poor child was always delicate, and his mother watched him most carefully. She was a most painstaking mother, poor thing, though I don't imagine there was much congeniality between her and Malcolm. I wish I could do something for them, but I have such a family of my own." "Someone ought to warn Caroline," said Miss Caldwell. "I wonder he has the audacity to ask her. If he wasn't a widower he wouldn't dare to." "If he wasn't a widower," said Miss Mildred, "her loving him in spite of all his drawbacks would seem more natural." "If he wasn't a widower," said Mrs. Manson, "he wouldn't have the drawbacks, you know." "If he wasn't a widower," said Mrs. Eames, "he might not be so anxious to marry her. Good-by, dear Miss Caldwell. Such a delightful tea! I may take some little cakes to the dear children?" "Good-by," said Mrs. Manson, swallowing her last macaroon. She turned back as she reached the doorway; and her ample figure, completely filling it up, gave opportunity for a young lady who had been standing in the shadow of the staircase to dart across the hall unseen. Miss Caroline Foster had sought her hostess in the drawing-room, but finding it empty, had come downstairs again, and had been obliged to listen to the conversation, which she had not the courage to interrupt; and she now threw on her wrap and rushed past the astonished maid out of the house before Mrs. Manson's slow progress could reach the cloak-room. * * * * * At half-past five o'clock the Brackett tea was in full swing. The occupants of the carriages at the end of the long file were getting out and walking to the door, and some of the more prudent were handing in their cards and departing, judging from the crush that if their chance of getting in was but small, their chance of getting away was none at all. The Bracketts were at home; but of their home there was nothing to be seen for the crowd, except the blazing chandeliers overhead, the high-hung modern French pictures in heavy gilded frames, the intricate draperies of costly stuffs and laces at the tops of the tall windows, here and there the topmost spray of some pyramid or bank of flowers, and the upper part of the immense mirrors which reflected over and over what they could catch of the scene. The hostess was receiving in the middle drawing-room; but it was a work of time and pains to get so far as to obtain a view of the sparkling aigret in her hair. A meagre, carefully dressed woman had accomplished this duty, and might now fairly be getting off and leaving her place for someone else; yet she lingered near the door of the outer room, loath to depart, looking with an anxious eye for familiar faces, with an uneasy incipient smile waiting for the occasion to call out. Sometimes it grew more marked, and she made a tentative step forward; and if the person went by with scant greeting or none at all, she would draw back and patiently repair it for future use. For the one or two who stopped to speak to her she kept it carefully up to, but not beyond, a certain point, while still her restless eye strayed past them in search of better game. Just as she had exchanged a warmer greeting than her wont with a quiet, lady-like woman who was forced on inward by the crowd, she was startled by a smart tap on her shoulder, and as she turned sharp round towards the wall, the rich brocade window-curtains waved, and a low voice was heard from behind them. "Come in here, won't you, Miss Snow?" Miss Martha Snow, bewildered, drew aside the heavy folds, and found herself face to face with a richly arrayed, distinguished-looking, though passée woman, who had settled herself comfortably on the cushioned seat between the lace curtains without and the silk within. "My dear Mrs. Freeman! how do you do? How you did frighten me!" "I have been trying to get at you for an age," said Mrs. Thorndike Freeman, laughing. "I thought you would never have done falling into the arms of that horrid Hapgood woman." "I could not help it. She would keep me. She is one of those people you can't shake off, you know." "I! I don't know her." "But why are you here, out of sight of everyone? Are you waiting for a chance to get at Mrs. Brackett?" hurried on Miss Snow. "I'm waiting for a chance to get away from her. I would not be seen speaking to her for any consideration whatever." "I--I was surprised to meet you here!" "I came because I wanted to see what it would be like, but I had no conception it would be so bad. Did you ever see such a set as she has collected?" "It does seem mixed." "Unmixed, I should call it. I have been waiting for half an hour to see a soul of my acquaintance. Sit down here, and let us have a nice talk." A nice talk with Mrs. Thorndike Freeman foreboded a dead cut from her the next time you met her; for she never took anyone up without as violently putting them down again--and then there was no one now to see and envy. However, Miss Snow dared not refuse, and seating herself with a conciliatory, frightened air, somewhat like a little dog in the cage of a lioness, asked in timid tones: "Why do you stay? Is not your carriage here?" "I want to get something to eat first," said Mrs. Freeman, "for I suppose their spread is something indescribable." "Oh, quite! The whole middle of the table is a mass of American Beauty roses as large as--as cabbages, and around that a bank of mignonette like--like small cauliflowers, and all over beneath it is covered with hothouse maiden-hair ferns, and----" "And what's the grub?" "I--did not eat much; I only wanted to see it; but I had a delicious little paté--chicken done in cream, somehow; and I saw aspic jelly with something in it handed round; and the ices--they are all in floral devices, water lilies floating on spun sugar, and roses in gold baskets, and cherries tied in bunches with ribbons, and grapes lying on tinted Bohemian glass leaves--and------" "It sounds appetising. I'll wait till I see a man that doesn't know me, and he shall get me some. I don't want it known that I ever entered their doors." "Shall I not go back to the dining-room and send a waiter to you?" "No, indeed--he would be sure to know me, and I should get put on the list." "The stationers who sent out the invitations will do that." "Oh, well--I can only say I never came. But the waiter would swear to me, and very likely describe my dress. No, I shall wait a little longer. Stay here and keep me company." "Oh, it will be delightful!" quavered Miss Snow, though worrying at the prospect of getting away late on foot, and ill able to afford cab-hire. "You've heard of the engagement, I suppose?" "Which of them?" asked Miss Snow, skilfully hedging. "Why, the only one, so far as I know. Why, haven't you heard? Ralph Underwood and Winnie Parke." "Oh, yes! has that come out? I have been away from home for a few days, and had not heard. Very pleasant, I'm sure." "Very--for her. It was her sister who did it, Mrs. Al Smith. She's a very clever young woman; fished for Al herself in the most barefaced way, and now she's caught Ralph for her sister; and she's not nearly so good-looking, either, Winnie Parke, though I should say she had a better temper than Margaret. You know Margaret Smith of course?" "Not very well," said Miss Snow, deprecatingly. "I thought when you spoke of an engagement you meant Malcolm Johnson and Caroline Foster." "That never will be an engagement!" said Mrs. Freeman scornfully. "Oh! I am very glad to hear you say so--only I have met him so much there lately, and it quite worried me; it would be such a bad thing for dear Caroline; she is a sweet girl." "You need not worry about it any longer, for I know positively that she has refused him." "I am very glad. I was so afraid that Caroline--she is so amiable a girl, you know, and so apt to do what people tell her to--I was afraid she might say yes for fear of hurting his feelings." "She would never dream of his having feelings--her position is so different. Why, Caroline is a cousin of my own." "Oh, yes, of course--only he would doubtless be so much in love; and many people think him delightful--he was very handsome." "Before Caroline was born, maybe. No, no, Caroline has plenty of sense, though she looks so gentle--and then the family would never hear of it. His affairs are in a shocking condition. Why, you know what he lost in Atchison--and I happen to know that his other investments are in a very shaky condition." "He has that handsome house." "Mortgaged, my dear, mortgaged up to its full value. No, he's badly off--and then there are such discreditable rumours about him; Thorndike knows all about it." "Dear me! I never heard anything against his character." "I could tell you plenty," said Mrs. Freeman, with a little shrug. "And then he drinks, or at least he probably will end in drinking--they always do when they are driven desperate. Oh, no, Caroline is a cousin of mine, and a most charming girl. Don't for heaven's sake hint at such a thing." "Oh, I assure you, I never have. I am always so careful." "Yes, I never say a thing that I am not certain is true," said Mrs. Freeman, yawning. "Why, where do all these lovely youths come from? Ah! I see; past six o'clock; the shop is closed, and they have turned the clerks on duty here. Well, now, I can get something to eat, for I never buy anything of them. Tell that one over there to come to me, the light-haired one, I mean; he looks strong and good-humoured." As Miss Snow rose to obey this order, a fair-haired girl in a dark-blue velvet gown, who on entering had been pinned close against the wall within hearing by the crowd, made a frantic struggle for freedom, and succeeded in reaching the entrance hall, to the amazement of the other guests, who did not look for such a display of strength in so gentle-looking and painfully blushing a creature. * * * * * At half-past six a select party was assembling in Miss Grace Deane's own room, the prettiest room, it was said, in Boston, in the handsomest of the new Charlesgate houses; a corner room, with a bright sunny outlook over the long extent of waterside gardens. The high wainscot, the chimney-piece, the bed on its alcoved and curtained haut pas were of cherry wood, the natural colour, carved with elaborate and unwearied fancy; and its rich hue showed here and there round the Persian rugs on the floor. At the top of the wall was a painted frieze of cherry boughs in bloom, with now and then one loaded with fruit peeping through, and the same idea was imitated in the chintzes. The wall space left was papered in a shade of spring green so delicate and elusive that no one could decide whether it verged on gold or silver, almost hidden with close-hung water colours and autotypes; and the ceiling showed between cherry beams an even softer tint in daintily stained woods. The Minton tiles around the fireplace and lining the little adjoining bathroom were all in different designs of pale green and white sparingly dashed with coral pink. There were sofas and low chairs and bookcases and cabinets and a tiny piano and a writing-desk and a drawing-table, and a work-table and yet more tables, all covered with smaller objects. Useless, and especially cheap, bric-à-brac was Miss Deane's abomination, but everything she used was exquisite. The bed and dressing-table were covered with finest linen, drawn and fretted by the needle, into filmy gossamer; and from the latter came a subdued glitter of a hundred silver trifles of the toilet, beaten and chiselled like the fine foamy crest of the wave. Miss Deane, the owner of this pretty room, for whom and by whom it had been devised and decked with abundant means held well in check by taste, was very seldom in it. The Deanes had two country houses, and they spent a great deal of time abroad, and in the winter they often went to California or Florida or Bermuda; and when they were at their town houses they were usually out. But Miss Deane did sometimes sleep there, and when she had a cold and had to keep in she could not but look around it with gratification. It certainly was a pleasant room to give a little tea in. Its being her bedroom only made the effect more piquant. She believed the ladies of the last century used to have tea in their bedrooms; and this was quite in antique style--yes, the tea-table and some of the chairs were real antiques. By the time she had arranged the flowers to her taste and sat down arrayed in a tea-gown of rose-coloured China crape and white lace to make tea in a Dresden service with little rosebuds for handles, she felt quite well again, and ready to greet a dozen or so of her dearest friends, who ran upstairs unannounced and threw off their own wraps on the lace-covered bed. Some of these young women were beautiful, and all looked pretty, their charms equalised by their clothes and manners. They had all been on the most intimate terms with each other from babyhood, and they had the eagerness to please anyone and everyone, characteristic of the American girl. Each talked to the other as if that other were a lover, and they had the sweetest smiles for the maid. "So it was pleasant at the Bracketts'?" asked Grace, beginning to fill her cups. "Oh, delightful!" exclaimed the whole circle; "that is"--with modified energy--"it was crowded of course, and very hot, and it was hard to get at people, and there was no time to talk when you did; but everybody was there," they concluded with revived spirit. "I was not there," sighed Mildred; "I had to make tea for Miss Caldwell--mother said I must--and some of the people stayed so late that it was no use thinking of the other place, though I put on this gown to be all ready. I thought it would do to pour out at such a little tea"--surveying her pale fawn cloth gown dashed with dark velvet worked in gold. "Oh, perfectly! most appropriate!" said the others. "Who else poured out?" said Grace. "Why, she told me that Caroline Foster was coming, and I was so delighted; but when I got there I found Mrs. Neal had sent a note saying she could not allow Caroline to give up the Bracketts' altogether; and Miss Caldwell had invited that Miss Leggett, whom I hardly know--wasn't it unpleasant? And she wore regular full dress, pink India silk and chiffon, cut very low--the effect was dreadful!" "Horrid!" murmured her sympathising friends. "Caroline was there, I suppose?" queried one. "No--she never came at all." "Probably she went to the Bracketts' first, and couldn't get away," said Grace. "I wonder she isn't here by this time. Who saw her there?" General silence was the sole answer, and she looked round her only to have it re-inforced by a more emphatic "I didn't." "Why, she must have been there! She told me she should surely go. How odd--" but her words died away, and the group regarded each other with looks of awe, till one daring young woman broke the spell with, "Do you think--can it be possible--that she's really engaged?" "To Mr. Johnson?" broke out the whole number. "Oh! I hope not! It would be shocking--dreadful--too bad!" "We shouldn't see a thing of her; she would be so tied down," murmured Dorothy Chandler, almost in tears. "Everyone who marries is tied down, for that matter," cheerfully remarked a blooming young matron, who had been the rounds of the teas. "I assure you," she went on, nibbling a chocolate peppermint with relish, "I am doing an awful thing myself in being here at this hour; aren't you, Anna?"--addressing a mate in like condition, who blushed, conscience-stricken as she said, "Perhaps Caroline is in love with Mr. Johnson." "I don't see how any one can fall in love with a widower," said Mildred. "That depends on the widower," said the pretty Mrs. Blanchard. "I do think Mr. Johnson is rather too far gone." "Oh, yes," said Mildred; "he looks so--so--I don't know how to express it." "What you would call dowdy if he were a woman," said her more experienced friend. "He looks as if he wanted a wife; but I don't see why someone else would not do as well as Caroline--some respectable maiden lady who could sew on his buttons and make his children stand round. I don't think Caroline would be of the least use to him." "It would be almost impossible to keep her up," said Grace. "Yes," said Mrs. Blanchard; "I'm very fond of Caroline, but I'm afraid I could never get Bertie up to the point of intimacy with Malcolm Johnson; he thinks him underbred--says his hats show it." "Is your tea too strong, Harriet, dear? There is no hot water left," said Grace, ringing her little silver bell with energy. But no one came. "I told Marguerite to keep in the sewing-room, in hearing," she went on, ringing it again. "I thought I heard her at the door just now," said the outermost of the circle. "Would you mind looking, dear? If she's not there I'll ring the other bell for someone from downstairs." No Marguerite was at the door, the sounds laid to her charge having been caused by the precipitate retreat of a young lady who had come late and, running quickly upstairs unannounced, had paused at the room door to recover her breath, and had just time to do so and to fly downstairs again and out of the house without encountering anyone. Caroline--for it was she--hurried round the corner; for her home was so near that she had dismissed her carriage. The house was empty and dark. Mrs. Neal had gone to spend the evening with one of her married daughters and had not thought it necessary to provide any dinner at home. There was no neglect in this. There were plenty of cousins at whose houses Caroline could have dined and welcome; or if she did not choose to do so, there was abundance in the larder, and if her teas had left her any appetite she had but to give the order herself and sit down alone to her cold meat and bread and butter. As we know, her teas had been feasts of Tantalus; but she did not feel hungry--for food. She hastened up to her room without a word to the maid, lighted her gas, took a key from her watch-chain, opened her writing-desk, and took out a letter which she read, not for the first time, with attention.
"MOUNT VERNON STREET. After Caroline had read this letter twice, she drew out another, spotless and freshly written, and breaking the seal, read:
This letter, which Caroline had spent three hours in writing, and copied six times, she now tore into small pieces and threw them into the fireplace. The fire was out, and the grate was black, so she lighted a match and watched till every scrap was consumed to ashes, when she sat down at her desk and, heedless of the chilly room, wrote with a flying pen:
If Caroline, by writing this letter, constituted herself a lunatic in the judgment of all her friends, it must be allowed, as Miss Caldwell had said, that she was not quite lacking in sense. Unlike either a fool or the heroine of a novel, she rang the bell for no servant, sent for no messenger, but when she had sealed and stamped her letter she tripped downstairs with it and, having slipped back the latch as she opened the door, walked as far as the nearest post-box and dropped it in herself. [The end] GO TO TOP OF SCREEN |