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

"I felt sure that you wouldn't be offended with me for speaking so very plainly. I hope you'll keep it entirely private."

"Oh, certainly," said Jim, with the most cheerful goodwill. "When ladies with your tact and skill in human nature talk to us young fellows you never give offense. We take your frankness as a favor."

Mrs. Wouvermans smiled with honest pride. Had she not been warned against talking to this youth as something that was going to be of most explosive tendency? How little could Nellie, or Eva, or any of them, appreciate her masterly skill! She really felt in her heart disposed to regret that so docile a pupil, one so appreciative of her superior abilities, was not a desirable matrimonial parti. Had Jim been a youth of fortune she felt that she could have held up both hands for him.

"He really is agreeable," was her thought, as she shut the door upon him.

CHAPTER XII
WHY CAN'T THEY LET US ALONE?

Harry went out to his office, and Eva commenced the morning labors of a young housekeeper.

What are they? Something in their way as airy and pleasant as the light touches and arrangements which Eve gave to her bower in Paradise – gathering-up stray rose-leaves, tying up a lily that the rain has bent, looping a honeysuckle in a more graceful festoon, and meditating the while whether she shall have oranges and figs and grapes, or guavas and pineapples, for her first course at dinner.

Such, according to Father Milton, were the ornamental duties of the first wife, while her husband went out to his office in some distant part of Eden.

But Eden still exists whenever two young lovers set up housekeeping, even in prosaic New York; only our modern Eves wear jaunty little morning caps and fascinating wrappers and slippers, with coquettish butterfly bows. Eva's morning duties consisted in asking Mary what they had better have for dinner, giving here and there a peep into the pantry, re-arranging the flower vases, and flecking the dust from her pictures and statuettes with a gay and glancing brush of peacock's feathers. Sometimes the morning arrangements included quite a change; as, this particular day, when, on mature consideration, a spray of ivy that was stretching towards the window had been drawn back and forced to wreathe itself around a picture, and a spray of nasturtium, gemmed with half-opened golden buds, had been trained in its place in the window.

One may think this a very simple matter, but whoever knows all the resistance which the forces of matter and the laws of gravitation make to the simplest improvement in one's parlor, will know better.

It required a scaffolding made of a chair and an ottoman to reach the top of the pictures, and a tack-hammer and little tacks. Then the precise air of arrangement and exact position had to be studied from below, after the tacks were driven, and that necessitated two or three descents from the perch to review, and the tumbling of the ottoman to the floor, and the calling of Mary in to help, and to hold the ottoman firm while the persevering little artist finished her work. It is by ups and downs like these, by daily labor of modern Eves, each in their little paradises, O ye Adams! that your houses have that "just right" look that makes you think of them all day, and long to come back to them at night.

"Somehow or other," you say, "I don't know how it is, my wife's things have a certain air; her vines grow just as they ought to, her flowers blossom in just the right places, and her parlors always look pleasant." You don't know how many periods of grave consideration, how many climbings on chairs and ottomans, how many doings and undoings and shiftings and changes produce the appearance that charms you. Most people think that flower vases are very simple affairs; but the keeping of parlors dressed with flowers is daily work for an hour or two for any woman. Nor is it work in vain. No altar is holier than the home altar, and the flowers that adorn it are sacred.

Eva was sitting, a little tired with her strenuous exertions, contemplating her finished arrangement with satisfaction, when the door-bell rang, and Alice came in.

"Why, Allie, dear, how nice of you to be down here so early! I was just wanting somebody to show my changes to. Look there. See how I've looped that ivy round mother's picture; isn't it sweet?" and Eva caressingly arranged a leaf or two to suit her.

"Charming!" said Alice, but with rather an abstracted, preoccupied tone.

"And look at this nasturtium; it's full of buds. See, the yellow is beginning to show. I've fastened it in a wreath around the window, so that the sun will shine through the blossoms."

"It's beautiful," said Alice, still absently and nervously playing with her bonnet strings.

"Why, darling, what's the matter?" said Eva, suddenly noticing signs of some unusual feeling. "What ails you?"

"Well," said Alice, hastily untying her bonnet strings and throwing it down on the sofa, "I've come up to talk with you. I hope," she said, flushing crimson with vexation, "that Aunt Maria is satisfied now; she is the most exasperating woman I ever knew or heard of!"

"Dear me, Allie, what has she done now?"

"Well, what do you think? Last Sunday she came to our house to tea, drawn up in martial array and ready to attack us all for not going to the old church – that stupid, dead old church, where people do nothing but doze and wake up to criticise each other's bonnets – but you really would think to hear Aunt Maria talk that there was a second Babylonian captivity or something of that sort coming on, and we were getting it up. You see, Dr. Cushing has got excited because some of the girls are going up to the mission church, and it's led him to an unwonted exertion; and Aunt Maria quite waked up and considers herself an apostle and prophet. I wish you could have heard her talk. It's enough to make any cause ridiculous to have one defend it as she did. You ought to have heard that witch of a Jim Fellows arguing with her and respectfully leading her into all sorts of contradictions and absurdities till I stopped him. I really wouldn't let him lead her to make such a fool of herself."

"Oh, well, if that's all, Allie, I don't think you need to trouble your head," said Eva. "Aunt Maria, of course, will hold on to her old notions, and her style of argument never was very consecutive."

"But that isn't all. Oh, you may be sure I didn't care for what she said about the church. I can have my opinion and she hers, on that point."

"Well, then, what is the matter?"

"Well, if you'll believe me, she has actually undertaken to tutor Jim Fellows in relation to his intimacy with me."

"Oh, Allie," groaned Eva, "has she done that? I begged and implored her to let that matter alone."

"Then she's been talking with you, too! and I wonder how many more," said Alice in tones of disgust.

"Yes, she did talk with me in her usual busy, imperative way, and told me all that Mrs. Thus-and-so and Mr. This-and-that said – but people are always saying things, and if they don't say one thing they will another. I tried to persuade her to let it alone, but she seemed to think you must be talked with; so I finally told her that if she'd leave it to me I would say all that was necessary. I did mean to say something, but I didn't want to trouble you. I thought there was no hurry."

"Well, you see," said Alice, "Jim went home with her that night, and I suppose she thought the opportunity too good to be neglected. I don't know just what she said to him, but I know it was about me."

"How do you know? Did Jim tell you?"

"No, indeed; catch him telling me! He knows too much for that. Aunt Maria let it out herself."

"Let it out herself?"

"Yes; she blundered into it before she knew what she was saying, and betrayed herself; and then, when I questioned her, she had to tell me."

"How came she to commit herself so?"

"It was just this. You know the little party Aunt Maria had Tuesday evening, – the one you couldn't come to on account of that Stephens engagement."

"Yes; what of it?"

"I really suspect that was all got up in the interest of one of Aunt Maria's schemes to bring me and that John Davenport together. At any rate, there he was, and his sister; and really, Eva, his treatment of me was so marked that it was quite disagreeable. Why, the man seemed really infatuated. His manner was so that everybody remarked it; and the colder and more distant I grew, the more it increased. Aunt Maria was delighted. She plumed herself and rushed round in the most satisfied way, while I was only provoked. I saw he was going to ask to wait on me home, and so I fell back on a standing engagement that I have with Jim, to go with me whenever anybody asks that I don't want to go with. Jim and I have always had that understanding in dancing and at parties, so that we can keep clear of disagreeable partners and people. I was determined I wouldn't walk home with that man, and I told Jim privately that he was to be on duty, and he took the hint in a minute. So when Mr. Davenport wound up his attentions by asking if he should have the pleasure of seeing me home, I told him with great satisfaction that I was engaged, and off I walked with Jim. The girls were in a perfect state of giggle, to see Aunt Maria's indignation."

"And so really you don't like this Mr. Davenport?"

"Like him! Indeeed I don't. In the first place, it isn't a year yet since his wife died; and everybody was pitying him. He could hardly be kept alive, and fainted away, and had to have hot bottles at his feet, and all that. All the old ladies were rolling up their eyes; such a sighing and sympathizing for John Davenport; and now, here he is!"

"Poor man!" said Eva, "I suppose he is lonesome."

"Yes. I suppose, as Irving says, the greatest compliment he can pay to his former wife is to display an eagerness for another; but his attentions are simply disagreeable to me."

"After all, the worst crime you allege seems to be that he is too sensitive to your attractions."

"Yes; and shows it in a very silly way – making me an object of remark! He may be very nice and very worthy, and all that; but in any such relation as that he is so unpleasant to me! I can't bear him, and I'm not going to be talked or maneuvered into anything that might commit me to even consider him. I remember the trouble you had for being persuaded to let Wat Sydney dangle after you. I will not have anything of the kind. I am a decided young woman, and know my own mind."

"Well, how did you learn about Aunt Maria and Jim?"

"How? Oh, well, the next day comes Aunt Maria to talk with Mamma, who wasn't there, by the bye; Papa hates so to go out that she has got to staying at home with him. But the next day came an exaggerated picture of my triumphs to Mamma and a lecture to me on my bad behavior. The worst of all, she said, was the very marked thing of my going home with Jim; and in her heat she let out that she had spoken to him and warned him of what folks would think and say of such appearances. I was angry then, and I expressed my mind freely to Aunt Maria, and we had a downright quarrel. I said things I ought not to say, just as one always does, and – now isn't it disagreeable? Isn't it dreadful?" said Alice, with the earnestness of a young girl whose whole nature goes into her first trouble. "Nothing could be nicer and more just what a thing ought to be than my friendship with Jim. I have influence over him and I can do him good, and I enjoy his society, and the kind of easy, frank understanding that there is between us, that we can say any thing to each other; and what business is it of anybody's? It's our own affair, and no one's else."

"Certainly it is," said Eva, sympathizingly.

"And Aunt Maria said that folks were saying that if we weren't engaged we ought to be. What a hateful thing to say! As if there were any impropriety in a friendship between a gentleman and a lady. Why may not a gentleman and a lady have a special friendship as well one lady with another, or one gentleman with another? I don't see."

"Neither do I," said Eva, responsively.

"Now," said Alice, "the suggestion of marriage and all that is disagreeable to me. I'm thinking of nothing of the kind. I like Jim. Well, I don't mind saying to you, Eva, who can understand me, that I love him, in a sort of way. I am interested for him. I know his good points and I know his faults, and I'm at liberty to speak to him with perfect freedom, and I think there is nothing so good for a young man as such a friendship. We girls, you know, dear, can do a great deal for young men if we try. We are not tempted as they are; we have not their hard places and trials to walk through, and we can make allowances, and they will receive things from us that they wouldn't from any one else, and they show us just the best side of their nature, which is the truest side of everybody."

"Certainly, Alice. Harry was saying only a little while ago that your influence would make a man of Jim; and I certainly think he has wonderfully improved of late – he seems more serious."

"We've learned to know him better; that's all," said Alice. "Young men rattle and talk idly to girls when they don't feel acquainted and haven't real confidence in their friendship, just as a sort of blind. They don't dare to express their real, deepest feelings."

"Well, I didn't know that Jim had any," said Eva, incautiously.

"Why, Eva, how unjust you are to Jim!" said Alice, with flushing cheeks. "I shouldn't have thought it of you; so many kind things as Jim has done for us all!"

"My darling, I beg Jim's pardon with all my heart," said Eva, laughing to herself at this earnest championship. "I didn't mean quite what I said, but you know, Alice, his sort of wild rattling way of talking over all subjects, so that you can't tell which is jest and which is earnest."

"Oh! I can always tell," said Alice. "I always can make him come down to the earnest part of him, and Jim has, after all, really good, sensible ideas of life and aspirations after what is right and true. He has the temptation of having been a sort of spoiled child. People do so like a laugh that they set him on and encourage him in saying all sorts of things he ought not. People have very little principle about that. So that anyone amuses them, they never consider whether he does right to talk as he does; they'll set Jim up to talk because it amuses them, and then go away and say what a rattle he is, and that he has no real principle or feeling. They just make a buffoon of him, and they know nothing about the best part of him."

"Well, Alice, I dare say you do see more of Jim's real nature than any of us."

"Oh! indeed I do; and I know how to appeal to it. Even when I can't help laughing at things he ought not to say – and sometimes they are so droll I can't help it – afterwards I have my say and tell him really and soberly just what I think, and you've no idea how beautifully he takes it. Oh, Jim really is good at heart, there's no doubt about that."

"Do you think Aunt Maria's meddling will make trouble between you?"

"No! only that it's an awkward, disagreeable thing to speak of; but I shall speak to Jim about it and let him understand, if he doesn't now, just what Aunt Maria is, and that he mustn't mind anything she says. I feel rather better, now I've relieved my mind to you, and perhaps shall have more charity for Aunt Maria."

"After all, poor soul," said Eva, "it's her love for us that leads her to vex us in all these ways. She can't help planning and fussing and lying awake nights for us. She failed in getting a splendid marriage for me, and now she's like Bruce's spider, up and at her web again weaving a destiny for you. It's in her to be active; she has no children; her house don't half satisfy her as a field of enterprise, and she, of course, is taking care of Mamma and our family. If Mamma had not been just the gentle, lovely, yielding woman she is, Aunt Maria never would have got such headway in the family and taken such airs about us."

"She perfectly tyrannizes over Mamma," said Alice. "She's always coming up to lecture her for not doing this, that, or the other thing. Now all this talk about our going to Mr. St. John's church; – poor, dear, little Mamma is as willing to let us do as we please as the flowers are to blossom, and then Aunt Maria talks as if she were abetting a conspiracy against the church. I know that we are all living more serious, earnest lives for Mr. St. John's influence. It may be that he is going too far in certain directions; it may be that in the long run such things tend to dangerous extremes, but I don't see any real harm in them so far, and I find real good."

"Well, you know, dear, that Harry isn't of our church – he is a Congregationalist – but his theory is that Christian people should join with any other Christian people who they see are really working in earnest to do good. This church is near by us, where we can conveniently go, and as I have my house to attend to and am not strong you know, that is quite a consideration. I know Harry don't agree with Mr. St. John at all about his ideas of the church, and he thinks he carries some of his ceremonies too far; but, on the whole, he really is doing a great deal of practical good, and Harry is willing to help him. I think it's just lovely in Harry to do so. It is real liberality."

"I wish," said Alice, "that Mr. St. John were a little freer in his way. There is a sort of solemnity about him that is depressing, and it seems to set Jim off in a spirit of contradiction. He says Mr. St. John stirs up the evil within him, and makes him long to break over bounds and say something wicked, just to shock him."

"I've had that desire to shock very proper people in the days of my youth," said Eva. "I don't know what it comes from."

"I think," said Alice, "that, to be sure, this is an irreverent age, and New York is an irreverent place; but yet I think people may carry the outside air of reverence too far. Don't you? They impose a sort of constraint on everybody around them that keeps them from knowing the people they associate with. Mr. St. John, for instance, knows nothing about Jim, he never acts himself out before him."

"Oh, dear me," said Eva, "fancy what he would think if he should see Jim in one of his frolics."

"And yet, Jim, in his queer way, appreciates Mr. St. John," said Alice. "He says he's 'a brick' after all, by which he means that he does good, honest work; and Jim has been enough around among the poor of New York, in his quality of newspaper writer, to know when a man does good among them. If Mr. St. John only could learn to be indulgent to other people's natures he might do a great deal for Jim."

"I rather think Jim will be your peculiar parish for some time to come," said Eva with a smile, "but Harry and I are projecting schemes to draw Mr. St. John into more general society. That's one of the things we are going to try to do in our 'evenings.' I don't believe he has ever been into general society at all; he ought to hear the talk of his day – he talks and feels and thinks more in the past than the present; he's all the while trying to restore an ideal age of reverence and devotion, but he ought to know the real age he lives in. If we could get him to coming to our house every week, and meeting real live men, women and girls of to-day and entering a little into their life, it would do him good."

"I suppose he'd be afraid of any indulgence!"

"We must not put it to him as an indulgence, but a good hard duty," said Eva; "we should never catch him with an indulgence."

"When are you going to begin?"

"I've been talking with Mary about it, and I rather think I shall take next Thursday for the first. I shall depend on you and the girls to help me keep the thing balanced, and going on just right. Jim must be moderated, and kept from coming out too strong, and everybody must be made to have a good time, so that they'll want to come again. You see we want to get them to coming every week, so that they will all know one another by-and-by, and get a sort of home feeling about our rooms; such a thing is possible, I think."

The conversation now meandered off into domestic details, not further traceable in this chapter.