We and Our Neighbors: or, The Records of an Unfashionable Street

CHAPTER XV
GETTING READY TO BEGIN

"Having company" is one of those incidents of life which in all circles, high or low, cause more or less searchings of heart.

Even the moderate "tea-fight" of good old times necessitated not only anxious thought in the hostess herself, but also a mustering and review of best "bibs and tuckers," through the neighborhood.

But to undertake a "serial sociable" in New York, in this day of serials, was something even graver, causing many thoughts and words in many houses.

Witness the following specimens:

"I confess, Nellie, I can't understand Eva's ways," said Aunt Maria, the morning of the first Thursday. "She don't come to me for advice; but I confess I don't understand her."

Aunt Maria was in a gloomy, severe state of mind, owing to the contumacy and base ingratitude of Alice in rejecting her interposition and care, and she came down this morning to signify her displeasure to Nellie at the way she had been treated.

"I don't know what you mean, sister," said Mrs. Van Arsdel, deprecatingly. "I'm sure I don't know of anything that Eva's been doing lately."

"Why, these evenings of hers; I don't understand them. Setting out to have receptions in that little out-of-the-way shell of hers! Why, who'll go? Nobody wants to ramble off up there, and not get to anything after all. It's going to be a sort of mixed-up affair – newspaper men, and people that nobody knows – all well enough in their way, perhaps; but I shan't be mixed up in it." Aunt Maria nodded her head gloomily, and the bows and feathers on her hat quivered protestingly.

"Oh, they are going to be just unpretending sociable little gatherings," said Mrs. Van Arsdel. "Just the family and a few friends; and I think they are going to be pleasant. I wish you would go, Maria. Eva will be disappointed."

"No, she won't. It's evident, Nelly, that your girls don't any of them care about me, or regard anything I say. Well, I only hope they mayn't live to repent it; that's all."

Aunt Maria said this with that menacing sniff with which people in a bad humor usually dispense Christian charity. The dark awfulness of the hope expressed really chilled poor little Mrs. Van Arsdel's blood. From long habits of dependence upon her sister, she had come to regard her displeasure as one of the severer evils of life. To keep the peace with Maria, as far as she herself was concerned, would have been easy. Contention was fatiguing to her. It was a trouble to have the responsibility of making up her own mind; and she was quite willing that Maria should carry her through the journey of life, buy her tickets, choose her hotels, and settle with her cabmen. But, complicated with a husband, and a family of bright, independent daughters, each endowed with a separate will of her own, Mrs. Van Arsdel led on the whole a hard life. People who hate trouble generally get a good deal of it. It's all very well for a gentle acquiescent spirit to be carried through life by one bearer. But when half a dozen bearers quarrel and insist on carrying one opposite ways, the more facile the spirit, the greater the trouble.

Mrs. Van Arsdel, in fact, passed a good deal of her life in being talked over to one course of conduct by Aunt Maria, and talked back again by her girls. She resembled a weak, peaceable hamlet on the border-land between France and Germany, taken and retaken with much wear and tear of spirit, and heartily wishing peace at any price.

"I don't see how Eva is going to afford all this," continued Aunt Maria gloomily.

"Oh! there's to be no evening entertainment, nothing but a little tea, and biscuit, and sponge cake, in the most social way," pleaded Mrs. Van Arsdel.

"But all this, every week, in time comes to a good deal," said Aunt Maria. "Now, if Eva would put all the extra trouble and expense of these evenings into one good handsome party of select people and have it over with, why that would be something worth while, and I would help her get it up. Such a party stands for something. But she doesn't come to me for advice. I'm a superannuated old woman, I suppose," and Aunt Maria sighed in a way heart-breaking to her peace-loving sister.

"Indeed, Maria, you are wrong. You are provoked now. You don't mean so."

"I'm —not provoked. Do you suppose I care? I don't! but I can see, I suppose! I'm not quite blind yet, I hope, and I sha'n't go where I'm not wanted. And now, if you'll give me those samples, Nellie, I'll go to Arnold's and Stewart's and look up that dress for you, and then I'll take your laces to the mender's. It's a good morning's work to go up to that dark alley where she rooms; but I'll do it, now I'm about it. I'm not so worn out yet but what I am acceptable to do errands for you," said Aunt Maria, with gloomy satisfaction.

"Oh, Maria, how can you talk so!" said little Mrs. Van Arsdel, with tears in her eyes. "You really are unjust."

"There's no use in discussing matters, Nellie. Give me the patterns and the laces," said Aunt Maria, obdurately. "Here! I'll sort 'em out. You never have anything ready," she said, opening her sister's drawer, and taking right and left such articles as she deemed proper, with as much composure as if her sister had been a seven-year-old child. "There!" she said, shutting the drawer, "now I'm ready. Good morning!" – and away she sailed, leaving her sister abased in spirit, and vaguely contrite for she couldn't tell what.

Aunt Maria had the most disagreeable habit of venting her indignation on her sister, by going to most uncomfortable extremes of fatiguing devotion to her service. With a brow of gloom and an air of martyrdom, she would explore shops, tear up and down stair-cases, perform fatiguing pilgrimages for Nellie and the girls; piling all these coals of fire on their heads, and looking all the while so miserably abused and heart-broken that it required stronger discrimination than poor Mrs. Van Arsdel was gifted with not to feel herself a culprit.

"Only think, your Aunt Maria says she won't go this evening," she said in a perplexed and apprehensive tone to her girls.

"Glad of it," said Alice, and the words were echoed by Angelique.

"Oh, girls, you oughtn't to feel so about your aunt!"

"We don't," said Alice, "but as long as she feels so about us, it's just as well not to have her there. We girls are all going to do our best to make the first evening a success, so that everybody shall have a good time and want to come again; and if Aunt Maria goes in her present pet, she would be as bad as Edgar Poe's raven."

"Just fancy our having her on our hands, saying 'nevermore' at stated intervals," said Angelique, laughing; "why, it would upset everything!"

"Angelique, you oughtn't to make fun of your aunt," said Mrs. Van Arsdel, with an attempt at reproving gravity.

"I'm sure it's the nicest thing we can make of her, Mammy dear," said Angelique; "it's better to laugh than to cry any time. Oh, Aunt Maria will keep, never fear. She'll clear off by-and-by, like a northeast rain-storm, and then we shall like her well as ever; sha'n't we, girls?"

"Oh, yes; she always comes round after a while," said Alice.

"Well, now I'm going up to help Eva get the rooms ready," said Angelique, and out she fluttered, like a flossy bit of thistle-down.

Angelique belonged to the corps of the laughing saints – a department not always recognized by the straiter sort in the church militant, but infinitely effective and to the purpose in the battle of life. Her heart was a tender but a gay one – perhaps the lovingness of it kept it bright; for love is a happy divinity, and Angelique loved everybody, and saw the best side of everything; besides, just now she was barely seventeen, and thought the world a very nice place. She was the very life of the household, the one who loved to run and wait and tend; who could stop gaps and fill spaces, and liked to do it: and so, this day, she devoted herself to Eva's service in the hundred somethings that pertain to getting a house in order for an evening reception.

On the opposite side of the way, the projected hospitalities awoke various conflicting emotions.

"Dinah, I don't really know whether I shall go to that company to-night or not," said Mrs. Betsey confidentially to Dinah over her ironing-table.

"Land sakes, Mis' Betsey," said Dinah, with her accustomed giggle, "how you talk! What you 'feard on?"

Mrs. Betsey had retreated to the kitchen, to indulge herself with Dinah in tremors and changes of emotion which had worn out the patience of Miss Dorcas in the parlor. That good lady, having made up her mind definitively to go and take Betsey with her, was indisposed to repeat every half hour the course of argument by which she had demonstrated to her that it was the proper thing to do.

But the fact was, that poor Mrs. Betsey was terribly fluttered by the idea of going into company again. Years had passed in that old dim house, with the solemn clock tick-tocking in the corner, and the sunbeam streaming duskily at given hours through the same windows, with no sound of coming or going footsteps. There the two ancient sisters had been working, reading, talking, round and round on the same unvarying track, for weeks, months and years, and now, suddenly, had come a change. The pretty, gay, little housekeeper across the way had fluttered in with a whole troop of invisible elves of persuasion in the very folds of her garments, and had cajoled and charmed them into a promise to be supporters of her "evenings," and Miss Dorcas was determined to go. But all ye of womankind know that after every such determination comes a review of the wherewithal, and many tremors.

Now Miss Dorcas was self-sufficing, and self-sustained. She knew herself to be Miss Dorcas Vanderheyden, in the first place; and she had a general confidence, by right of her family and position, that all her belongings were the right things. They might be out of fashion – so much the worse for the fashion; Miss Dorcas wore them with a cheerful courage. Yet, as she frequently remarked, "sooner or later, if you let things lie, fashion always comes round to them." They had come round to her many times in the course of her life, and always found her ready for them. But Mrs. Betsey was timorous, and had a large allowance of what the phrenologists call "approbativeness." In her youth she had been a fashionable young belle, and now she had as many flutters and tremors about her gray curls and her caps as in the days when she sat up all night in an arm-chair with her hair dressed and powdered for a ball. In fact, an old lady's cap is undeniably a tender point. One might imagine it to be a sort of shrine or last retreat in which all her youthful love of dress finds asylum; and, in estimating her fitness for any scene of festivity, the cap is the first consideration. So, when Dinah chuckled, "What ye 'feard on, honey?" Mrs. Betsey came out with it:

"Dinah, I don't know which of my caps to wear."

"Lor' sakes, Mis' Betsey, wear yer new one. What's to hender?"

"Well, you see, it's trimmed with lilac ribbons, and the shade don't go with my new brown gown; they look horridly together. Dorcas never does notice such things, but they don't go well together. I tried to tell Dorcas about it, but she shut me up, saying I was always fussy."

"Well, laws! then, honey, wear your other cap – it's a right nice un now," said Dinah in a coaxing tone.

"Trimmed with white ribbon – " said Mrs. Betsey, ruminating; "but you see, Dinah, that ribbon has really got quite yellow; and there's a spot on one of the strings," she added, in a tone of poignant emotion.

"Well, now, I tell ye what to do," said Dinah; "you jest wear your new cap with them laylock ribbins, and wear your black silk: that are looks illegant now."

"But my black silk is so old; it's pieced under the arm, and beginning to fray in the gathers."

"Land sake, Mis' Betsey! who's agoin' to look under your arm?" said Dinah. "They a'n't agoin' to set you up under one o' them sterry scopes to be looked at, be they? You'll do to pass now, I tell ye; now don't go to gettin' fluttered and 'steriky, Mis' Betsey. Why don't ye go right along, like Mis' Dorcas? She don't have no megrims and tantrums 'bout what she's goin' to wear."

Dinah's tolerant spirit in admitting this discussion was, however, a real relief to Mrs. Betsey. Like various liquors which are under a necessity of working themselves clear, Mrs. Betsey found a certain amount of talk necessary to clear her mind when proceeding to act in any emergency, and for this purpose a listener was essential; but Dorcas was so entirely above such fluctuations as hers – so positive and definite in all her judgments and conclusions – that she could not enjoy in her society the unlimited amount of discussion necessary to clarify her mental vision.

It was now about the fifth or sixth time that all the possibilities with regard to her wardrobe had been up for consideration that day; till Miss Dorcas, who had borne with her heroically for a season, had finally closed the discussion by recommending a chapter in Watts on the Mind which said a great many unpleasant things about people who occupy themselves too much with trifles, and thus Mrs. Betsey was driven to unbosom herself to Dinah.

"Then, again, there's Jack," she added; "I'm sure I don't know what he'll think of our both being out; there never such a thing happened before."

"Land sake, Mis' Betsey, jest as if Jack cared! Why, he'll stay with me. I'll see arter him– I will."

"Well, you must be good to him, Dinah," said Mrs. Betsey, apprehensively.

"Ain't I allers good to him? I don't set him up for a graven image and fall down and washup him, to be sure; but Jack has good times with me, if I do make him mind."

The fact was, that Dinah often seconded the disciplinary views of Miss Dorcas with the strong arm, pulling Jack backward by the tail, and correcting him with vigorous thumps of the broomstick when he fell into those furors of barking which were his principal weakness.

Dinah had all the sociable instincts of her race; and it moved her indignation that the few acquaintances who found their way to the forsaken old house should be terrified and repelled by such distracted tumults as Jack generally created when the door-bell rang. Hence her attitude toward him had so often been belligerent that poor Mrs. Betsey felt small confidence in leaving him to the trying separation of the evening under Dinah's care.

"Well, Dinah, you won't whip Jack if he does bark? I dare say he'll be lonesome. You must make allowances for him."

"Oh, laws, yes, honey, I'll make 'lowance, never you fear."

"And you really think the black dress will do?"

"Jest as sartin as I be that I'm here a ironin' this 'ere pillow-bier. Why, honey, you'll look like a pictur, you will."

"Oh, Dinah, I'm an old woman."

"Well, honey, what if you be? Land sakes, don't I remember when you was the belle of New York city? Lord love ye! Them was days! When 'twas all comin' and goin', hosses a-prancin', house full, and fellers fairly a-tumblin' over each other jest to get a look at ye. Laws, honey, ye was wuth lookin' at in dem days."

"Oh, Dinah, you silly old soul, what nonsense you talk!"

"Well, honey, you know you was de handsomest gal goin'. Now you knows you was," said Dinah, chuckling and shaking her portly sides.

"I suppose I wasn't bad looking," said Mrs. Betsey, laughing in turn; and the color flushed in her delicate, faded cheeks, and her pretty bright eyes grew misty with a thought of all the little triumphs, prides, and regrets of years ago.

To say the truth, Mrs. Betsey, though past the noon-time of attraction, was a very pretty old woman. Her hands were still delicate and white, her skin was of lily fairness, and her hair like fine-spun silver; and she retained still all the nice instincts and habits of the woman who has known herself charming. She still felt the discord of a shade in her ribbons like a false note in music, and was annoyed by the slightest imperfection of her dress, however concealed, to a degree which seemed at times wearisome and irrational to her stronger minded sister.

But Miss Dorcas, who had carried her in her arms, a heart-broken wreck snatched from the waves of a defeated life, bore with her as heroically as we ever can bear with another whose nature is wholly of a different make and texture from our own.

In general, she made up her mind with a considerable share of good sense as to what it was best for Betsey to do, and then made her do it, by that power which a strong and steady nature exercises over a weaker one.

Miss Dorcas had made up her mind that more society, and some little change in her modes of life, would be a benefit to her sister; she had taken a strong fancy to Eva, and really looked forward to her evenings as something to give a new variety and interest in life.

"Now, Jim," said Alice, in a monitory tone, "you know we all depend on you to manage this thing just right to-night. You mustn't be too lively and frighten the serious folks; but you must keep things moving, just as you know how."

"Well, are you going to have 'our rector?'" said Jim.

"Certainly. Mr. St. John will be there."

"And of course, our little Angie," said Jim.

"Certainly. Angie, and Mamma, and Papa, and I, shall all be there," said Alice, with dignity. "Now, Jim!"

The exclamation was addressed not to anything which this young gentleman had said, but to a certain wicked sparkle in his eye which Alice thought predicted coming mischief.

"What's the matter now?" said Jim.

"I know just what you're thinking," said Alice; "and now, Jim, you mustn't look that way to-night."

"Look what way!"

"Well, you mustn't in any way – look, sign, gesture or word – direct anybody's attention to Mr. St. John and Angie. Of course there's nothing there; it's all a fancy of your own – a very absurd one; but I've known people made very uncomfortable by such absurd suggestions."

"Well, am I to wear green spectacles to keep my eyes from looking?"

"You are to do just right, Jim, and nobody knows how that is to be done better than you do. You know that you have the gift of entertaining, and there isn't a mortal creature that you can't please, if you try; and you mustn't talk to those you like best to-night, but bestow yourself wherever a hand is needed. You must entertain those old ladies over the way, and get acquainted with Mr. St. John, and talk to the pretty Quaker woman; in short, make yourself generally useful."

"O. K.," said Jim. "I'll be on hand. I'll make love to all the old ladies, and let the parson admonish me, as meek as Moses; and I'll look right the other way, if I see him looking at Angie. Anything more?"

"No, that'll do," said Alice, laughing. "Only do your best, and it will be good enough."

Eva was busy about her preparations, when Dr. Campbell came in to borrow a book.

"Now, Dr. Campbell," said she, "you're just the man I wanted to see. I must tell you that one grand reason why I want to be sure and secure you for our evenings, and this one in particular, is I have caught our rector and got his promise to come, and I want you to study him critically, for I'm afraid he's in the way to get to heaven long before we do, if he isn't looked after. He's not in the least conscious of it, but he does need attention."

Dr. Campbell was a hale young man of twenty-five; blonde, vigorous, high-strung, active, and self-confident, and as keen set after medical and scientific facts as a race-horse for the goal. As a general thing, he had no special fancy for clergymen; but a clergyman as a physical study, a possible verification of some of his theories, was an object of interest, and he readily promised Eva that he would spare no pains in making Mr. St. John's acquaintance.

"Now, drolly enough," said Eva, "we're going to have a Quaker preacher here. I went in to invite Ruth and her husband; and lo, they have got a celebrated minister staying with them, one Sibyl Selwyn. She is as lovely as an angel in a pressed crape cap and dove-colored gown; but what Mr. St. John will think about her I don't know."

"Oh, Mrs. Henderson, there'll be trouble there, depend on it," said Dr. Campbell. "He won't recognize her ordination, and very likely she won't recognize his. You see, I was brought up among the Friends. I know all about them. If your friend Sibyl should have a 'concern' laid on her for your Mr. St. John, she would tell him some wholesome truths."

"Dear me," said Eva. "I hope she won't have a 'concern' the very first evening. It would be embarrassing."

"Oh, no; to tell the truth, these Quaker preachers are generally delightful women," said Dr. Campbell. "I'm sure I ought to say so, for my good aunt that brought me up was one of them, and I don't doubt that Sibyl Selwyn will prove quite an addition to your circle."

Well, the evening came, and so did all the folks. But what they said and did, must be told in another chapter.