Portia - Margaret Wolfe Hungerford (top 100 books of all time checklist txt) 📗

/> She has evidently made it straight with cook, as that formidable old party is standing at her right hand with her arms akimbo, and on her face a fat and genial smile. She has, furthermore, been so amiable as to envelop Dulce in a _second_ apron; one out of her own wardrobe, an article of the very hugest dimensions, in which Dulce's slender figure is utterly and completely lost. It comes up in a little square upon her bosom and makes her look like a delicious over-grown baby, with her sleeves tucked up and her bare arms gleaming like snow-flakes.

Opposite to her is the footman, and very near her the upper housemaid. Dulce being in her most moral mood, has seized this opportunity to reform the manners of the household.

"You are most satisfactory, you know, Jennings," she is saying in her soft voice that is trying so hard to be mistress-like, but is only sweet. "Most so! Sir Christopher and I both think that, but I do wish you would try to quarrel just a _little_ less with Jane."

At this Jane looks meekly delighted while the footman turns purple and slips his weight uneasily from one leg to the other.

"It isn't all my fault, ma'am," he says at length, in an aggrieved tone.

"No, I can quite believe that," says his mistress, kindly. "I regret to say I have noticed several signs of ill temper about Jane of late."

Here Jane looks crestfallen, and the footman triumphant.

"I wish you would _both_ try to improve," goes on Dulce, in a tone meant to be still dignified, but which might almost be termed entreating. "_Do_ try. You will find it so much pleasanter in the long run."

Both culprits, though silent, show unmistakable signs of giving in.

"If you only knew how unhappy these endless dissensions make me, I am sure you _would_ try," says Miss Blount, earnestly, which, of course, ends all things. The maid begins to weep copiously behind the daintiest of aprons; while the footman mutters, huskily:

"Then I _will_ try, ma'am," with unlooked-for force.

"Oh, _thank_ you," says Dulce, with pretty gratitude, under cover of which the two belligerents make their escape.

"Well done," says Sir Mark at this moment; "really, Dulce, I didn't believe it was in you. Such dignity, such fervor, such tact, such pathos! We are all very nearly in tears. I would almost promise not to blow up Jane myself, if you asked me like that."

"What a shame!" exclaims Dulce, starting and growing crimson, as she becomes aware they have all been listening to her little lecture. "I call it right down _mean_ to go listening to people behind their backs. It is horrid! And you, too, Portia! So shabby!"

"Now who is scolding," says Portia; "and after your charming sermon, too, to Jennings, all about the evil effects of losing one's temper."

"If you only knew how unhappy it makes us," says Dicky Browne, mimicking Dulce's own manner of a moment since so exactly that they all laugh aloud; and Dulce, forgetting her chagrin, laughs, too, even more heartily than they do.

"You shan't have one bit of my jam," she says, threatening Dicky with a huge silver spoon; "see if you do! After all, cook," turning to that portly matron, "I think I'm tired to-day. Suppose you make this jam; and I can make some more some other time."

As she says this, she unfastens both the aprons and flings them far from her, and pulls down her sleeves over her pretty white arms, to Gower's everlasting regret, who cannot take his eyes off them, and to whom they are a "joy forever."

"Come, let us go up-stairs again," says Dulce to her assembled friends, who have all suddenly grown very grave.

In silence they follow her, until once more the hall is gained and the kitchen forgotten. Then Dicky Browne gives way to speech.

"I am now quite convinced," he says, slowly, "that to watch the making of plum jam is the most enthralling sport in the world. It was so kind of you, dear Dulce, to ask us to go down to see it. I don't know _when_ I have enjoyed myself so much."

"We have been disgracefully taken in," says Julia, warmly.

"And she didn't even offer us a single plum!" says Mr. Browne, tearfully.

"You shall have some presently, with your tea," says Dulce, remorsefully. "Let us go and sit upon the verandah, and say what we thought of our dance. No one has said anything about it yet."

Though late in September, it is still "one of those heavenly days that cannot die." The sun is warm in the heavens, though gradually sinking, poor tired god, toward his hard-earned rest. There are many softly-colored clouds on the sky.

Tea is brought to them presently, and plums for Dicky; and then they are all, for the most part, happy.

"Well, I think it was a deadly-lively sort of an evening," says Mr. Browne, candidly, _apropos_ of the ball. "Every one seemed cross, I think, and out of sorts. For my own part, there were moments when I suffered great mental anguish."

"Well, I don't know," says Sir Mark, "for my part, I enjoyed myself rather above the average. Good music, good supper--the champagne I must congratulate you about, Dulce--and very pretty women. What more could even a Sybarite like Dicky desire? Mrs. George Mainwaring was there, and I got on capitally with her. I like a woman who prefers sitting it out, _some_ times."

"I don't think I even saw Mrs. George," says Dulce. "Was she here?"

"You couldn't see her," says Roger; "she spent her entire evening in the rose-colored ante-room with Gore."

"What a shameless tarradiddle," says Sir Mark.

"What did she wear?" asks Julia.

"I can't remember. I think, however, she was all black and blue."

"Good gracious!" says Dicky Browne, "has George Mainwaring been at it again? Poor soul, it _is_ hard on her. I thought the last kicking he had from her brother would have lasted him longer than a month."

"Nonsense, Dicky," says Dulce; "I hear they are getting on wonderfully well together now."

"I'm glad to hear it," says Dicky, in a tone totally unconvinced.

"I don't think she is at all respectable," says Mrs. Beaufort, severely; "she--she--her dress was _very_ odd, I thought--"

"There might, perhaps, have been a little more of it," says Dicky Browne. "I mean, it was such a pretty gown, that we should have been glad to be able to admire another yard or two of it. But perhaps that terrible George won't give it to her; and perhaps she liked herself as she was. '_Nuda veritas_.' After all, there is nothing like it. 'Honesty is the best policy,' and all that sort of thing--eh?"

"Dicky," says Sir Mark, austerely, "go away! We have had quite enough of you."

"How did you all like the McPhersons?" Dulce asks, hurriedly.

"Now, there was one thing," says Dicky, who is not to be repressed, "how could any fellow enjoy himself in the room with the McPhersons? That eldest girl clings on to one like ivy--and precious tough old ivy too. She clung to me until I was fain to sit down upon the ground and shed salt and bitter tears. I wish she had stayed amongst her gillies, and her Highland flings, and those nasty men who only wear breeks, instead of coming down here to inflict herself upon a quiet, easy-going county."

"Why didn't you get her another partner, if you were tired of her?"

"I couldn't. I appealed to many friends, but they all deserted me in my hour of need. They wouldn't look at her. She was 'single in the field, yon solitary Highland lass.' She wasn't in the swim at all; she would have been as well--I mean, much better--at home."

"Poor girl," says Portia.

"She isn't poor, she's awfully rich," says Roger. "They are all rich. They positively look at the world through a golden veil."

"They'd want it," says Dicky, with unrelenting acrimony; "I christened 'em the Heirs and Graces--the boys are so rich, and the girls think themselves so heavenly sweet. It is quite my own joke, I assure you. Nobody helped me." Here he laughs gaily, with a charming appreciation of his own wit.

"Did she dance well?" asks Stephen, waking up suddenly from a lengthened examination of the unconscious Dulce's fair features. An examination, however, overseen by Roger, and bitterly resented by him.

"She didn't dance at all, she only galumphed," says Dicky, wrathfully. "She regularly took the curl out of me; I was never so fatigued in my life. And she is so keen about it, too; she will dance, and keeps on saying, 'Isn't it a pity to lose this lovely music?'--and so on. I wished myself in the silent grave many times."

"Well, as bad as she is, I'd make an even bet she will be married before her sister," says Stephen.

"I don't think either of them will be married before the other," says Mr. Browne, gloomily; "one might go much farther than them without faring worse. I laughed aloud when at last I got rid of the elder one; I gave way to appropriate quotation; I fell back on my Wordsworth; I said:


'Nor am I loth, but pleased at heart,
Sweet (?) Highland girl, from thee to part.'"


The query represents the expression of Mr. Browne's face as he mentions the word that goes before it.

"Well done, Dicky!" says Sir Mark.

"What has Dicky been saying now?" asks Fabian, who has been wandering in a very sad dreamland, and just come back to a sadder earth at this moment. "Has he been excelling himself?"

"I'll say it all over again for you, if you like," says Dicky, kindly; "but for nobody else."

"Thanks, but later on," says Fabian, smiling.

He is sitting near Portia, but not very near. Now Dicky, filled with a desire to converse with Miss Vibart, gets off his seat and flings himself on a rug at her feet. Sir Mark, who is always kindly, though a trifle cynical at times, and thoughtful towards those he likes, is displeased at this change that Dicky has made. Fabian he likes--nay, if there be one friend in the world he _loves_, it is Fabian Blount. Portia, too, is a favorite of his, so great a favorite that he would gladly see her throw some sunshine into Fabian's life. To make these two come together, and by Portia's influence to induce Fabian to fling away from him and to conquer the terrible depression that has desolated his life ever since the fatal affair of the forged check, has become one of Sir Mark's dearest dreams.

Now it seems to him that when Fabian has so far overcome his settled determination to avoid society as to find a seat beside Portia, and to keep it for at least an hour, it is a vile thing in the thoughtless Dicky to intrude his person where so plainly it is not wanted.

Making some idle excuse, he brings the reluctant Dicky to his side.

"Can't you keep away from them?" says Sir Mark, in an angry whisper.

"Away from whom?" asks Dicky, resentfully.

"From them," with a gentle motion of the hand in the direction of Portia and Fabian.

"What on earth for?" says Dicky Browne, still more resentfully.

"Don't you see he _likes_ her?" says Sir Mark,