Mrs. Cliff now began to try very hard to live as she ought to live, without pretensions or snobbery, but in a style becoming, in some degree, her great fortune.
There was one thing she determined to do immediately, and that was, to begin a series of hospitalities,—and it made her feel proud to think that she could do this and do it handsomely, and yet do it in the old home where everybody knew she had for years been obliged to practise the strictest economy.
She gave a dinner to which she invited her most select friends. Mr. and Mrs. Perley were there, and the Misses Thorpedyke, two maiden ladies who constituted the family of the highest social pretension of Plainton. There were other people who were richer, but Miss Eleanor Thorpedyke, now a lady of nearly seventy, and her sister Barbara, some ten years younger, belonged to the very best family in that part of the country, and were truly the aristocrats of the place.
But they had always been very friendly with Mrs. Cliff, and they were glad to come to her dinner. The other guests were all good people, and a dinner-party of more distinction could not have been collected in that town.
But this dinner did not go off altogether smoothly. If the people had come merely to eat, they must have[Pg 37] been abundantly satisfied, for everything was of the very best and well cooked, Mrs. Cliff and Willy having seen to that; but there were certain roughnesses and hitches in the management of the dinner which disturbed Mrs. Cliff. In her travels and at the hotels where she had lived she had seen a great deal of good service, and she knew what it was.
Willy, who, being a relative, should really have come to the table, had decidedly declined to do so, and had taken upon herself the principal part of the waiting, assisted by the general servant and a small girl who had been called in. But the dining-room was very small, some of the chairs were but a little distance from the wall, and it was evident that Willy had not a true appreciation of the fact that in recent years she had grown considerably rounder and plumper than she used to be; and it made Mrs. Cliff\'s blood run cold to see how she bumped the back of Mr. Perley\'s chair, as she thrust herself between it and the wall.
The small girl had to be told almost everything that she must do, and the general servant, who did not like to wait on table, only came in when she was called and left immediately when she had done what she had been called for.
When the guests had gone, Mrs. Cliff declared to Willy that that was the last large dinner she would give in that house. "It was not a dinner which a woman of my means should offer to her friends." Willy was amazed.
"I don\'t see how it could have been better," said she,[Pg 38] "unless you had champagne, and I know Mr. Perley wouldn\'t have liked that. Everything on the table was just as good as it could be."
But Mrs. Cliff shook her head. She knew that she had attempted something for which her present resources were insufficient. After this she invited people to dinner once or twice a week, but the company was always very small and suited to the resources of the house.
"I will go on this way for a while," thought the good lady, "and after a time I will begin to spread out and do things in a different style."
Several times she drove over to Harrington, a large town some five miles away, which contained a furniture factory, and there she purchased many articles which would be suitable for the house, always securing the best things for her purposes, but frequently regretting that certain beautiful and imposing pieces of furniture were entirely unsuited to the capacity of her rooms and hallways. But when her dining-room should be finished, and the room above it, she would have better opportunity of gratifying her taste for handsome wood in imposing designs. Then it might be that Harrington would not be able to give her anything good enough.
Her daily mail was now much larger than it ever had been before. Business people sent her cards and circulars, and every now and then she received letters calling her attention to charities or pressing personal needs of the writers, but there were not very many of these; for although it was generally known that Mrs.[Pg 39] Cliff had come into a fortune, her manner of living seemed also a matter of public knowledge. Even the begging letters were couched in very moderate terms; but all these Mrs. Cliff took to Mr. Perley, and, by his advice, she paid attention to but very few of them.
Day by day Mrs. Cliff endeavored to so shape and direct her fortunes that they might make her happy in the only ways in which she could be happy, but her efforts to do so did not always gain for her the approval of her fellow townspeople. There were some who thought that a woman who professed to have command of money should do a good many things which Mrs. Cliff did not do, and there were others who did not hesitate to assert that a woman who lived as Mrs. Cliff should not do a great many things which she did do, among which things some people included the keeping of a horse and carriage. It was conceded, of course, that all this was Mrs. Cliff\'s own business. She had paid the money she had borrowed to go to South America; she had been very kind to some of the poor people of the town, and it was thought by some had been foolishly munificent to old Mrs. Bradley, who, from being a very poor person threatened with the loss of her home, was now an independent householder, and enjoyed an annuity sufficient to support her.
More than that, Mrs. Cliff had been very generous in regard to the church music. It was not known exactly how much she had given towards this object, but there were those who said that she must have given her means a considerable strain when she made[Pg 40] her contribution. That is, if the things were to be done which Mr. Perley talked about.
When Mrs. Cliff heard what had been said upon this subject,—and Willy Croup was generally very well able to keep her informed in regard to what the people of the town said about her,—she thought that the gossips would have been a good deal astonished if they had known how much she had really given to the church, and that they would have been absolutely amazed if they knew how much Mr. Perley had received for general charities. And then she thought, with a tinge of sadness, how very much surprised Mr. Perley would have been if he had known how much more she was able to give away without feeling its loss.
Weeks passed on, the leaves turned red and yellow upon the trees, the evenings and mornings grew colder and colder, and Mrs. Cliff did everything she could towards the accomplishment of what now appeared to her in the light of a great duty in her life,—the proper expenditure of her income and appropriation of her great fortune.
Her labors were not becoming more cheerful. Day after day she said to herself that she was not doing what she ought to do, and that it was full time that she should begin to do something better, but what that better thing was she could not make up her mind. Even the improvements she contemplated were, after all, such mere trifles.
It was a very cold morning in October when Mrs. Cliff went into her parlor and said to Willy that there[Pg 41] was one thing she could do,—she could have a rousing, comfortable fire without thinking whether wood was five, ten, or twenty dollars per cord. When Willy found that Mrs. Cliff wanted to make herself comfortable before a fine blazing fire, she seemed in doubt.
"I don\'t know about the safety of it," she said. "That chimney\'s in a pretty bad condition; the masons told us so years ago, and nothin\' has ever been done to it! There have been fires in it, but they have been little ones; and if I was you, I wouldn\'t have too large a blaze in that fireplace until the chimney has been made all right!"
Mrs. Cliff was annoyed. "Well then, Willy, I wish you would go for the mason immediately, and tell him to come here and repair the chimney. It\'s perfectly ridiculous that I can\'t have a fire in my own parlor when I am able to have a chimney as high and as big as Bunker Hill Monument if I wanted it!"
Willy Croup smiled. She did not believe that Mrs. Cliff really knew how much such a chimney would cost, but she said, "You have got to remember, you know, that we can\'t have the Cuthberts here to dinner to-morrow if the masons come to work at that chimney. Ten to one they will have to take the most part of it down, and we shall be in a general mess here for a week."
Mrs. Cliff sat down with a sigh. "You need not mind to have the wood brought in," she said; "just give me a few sticks and some kindling, so that I can give things a little air of cheerfulness."[Pg 42]
THE GENTLEMAN RAISED HIS HAT AND ASKED IF MRS. CLIFF LIVED THERE THE GENTLEMAN RAISED HIS HAT AND ASKED IF MRS. CLIFF LIVED THERE
As she sat before the gently blazing little fire, Mrs. Cliff felt that things needed an air of cheerfulness. She had that morning been making calculations, and, notwithstanding all she had bought, all she had done, and even including with the most generous margin all she had planned to do, her income was gaining upon her in a most discouraging way.
"I am not fit for it," she said to herself. "I don\'t know how to live as I want to live, and I won\'t live as I don\'t want to live. The whole business is too big for me. I don\'t know how to manage it. I ought to give up my means to somebody who knows how to use them, and stay here myself with just enough money to make me happy."
For the fortieth time she considered the question of laying all her troubles before Mr. Perley, but she knew her pastor. The great mass of her fortune would quickly be swallowed up in some grand missionary enterprise; and this would not suit Mrs. Cliff. No matter how much she was discouraged, no matter how difficult it was to see her way before her, no matter how great a load she felt her wealth to be, there was always before her a glimmering sense of grand possibilities. What they were she could not now see or understand, but she would not willingly give them up.
She was an elderly woman, but she came of a long-lived family, all of whom had lived in good health until the end of their days, and if there was any grand, golden felicity which was possible to her, she[Pg 43] felt that there was reason to believe she would live long to enjoy it when she wanted it.
One morning as Mrs. Cliff sat thinking over these things, there was a knock at the front door, and, of course, Willy Croup ran to open it. No matter where she was, or no matter what she was doing, Willy always went to the door if she could, because she had so great a desire to know who was there.
This time it was a gentleman, a very fine gentleman, with a high silk hat and a handsome overcoat trimmed with fur—fur on the collar, fur on the sleeves, and fur down the front. Willy had never seen such a coat. It was October and it was cool, but there was no man in Plainton who would have worn such a coat as that so early in the season even if he had one.
The gentleman had dark eyes and a very large mustache, and he carried a cane and wore rather bright tan-colored gloves. All these things Willy observed in an instant, for she was very quick in taking notice of people\'s clothes and general appearance.
The gentleman raised his hat and asked if Mrs. Cliff lived there. Now Willy thought he must be an extraordinary fine gentleman, for how should he know that she was not a servant, and in those parts gentlemen did not generally raise their hats to girls who opened front doors.
The gentleman was admitted and was ushered into the parlor, where sat Mrs. Cliff. She was a little surprised at the sight of this visitor, who came in with his hat on, but who took it off and made her a[Pg 44] low bow as soon as he saw her. But she thought she appreciated the situation, and she hardened her heart.
A strange man, so finely dressed, and with such manners, must have come for money, and Mrs. Cliff had already learned to harden her heart towards strangers who solicited. But the hardness of her heart utterly disappeared in her amazement when this gentleman, having pulled off his right glove, advanced toward her, holding out his hand.
"You don\'t remember me, Mrs. Cliff?" he said in a loud, clear voice. "No wonder, for I am a good deal changed, but it is not the same with you. You are the same as ever—I declare you are!"
Mrs. Cliff took the proffered hand, and looked into the face of the speaker. There was something there which seemed familiar, but she had never known such a fine gentleman as this. She thought over the people whom she had seen in France and in California, but she could not recollect this face.
"It\'s a mean thing to be puzzlin\' you, Mrs. Cliff," said the stranger, with a cheery smile. "I\'m George Burke, seaman on the Castor, where I saw more of you, Mrs. Cliff, than I\'ve ever seen since; for though we have both been a good deal jumbled up since, we haven\'t been jumbled up together, so I don\'t wonder if you don\'t remember me, especially as I didn\'t wear clothes like these on the Castor. Not by any means, Mrs. Cliff!"
"I remember you," she said, and she shook his hand[Pg 45] warmly. "I remember you, and you had a mate named Edward Shirley."
"Yes, indeed!" said Mr. Burke, "and he\'s all right, and I\'m all right, and how are you?"
The overcoat with the fur trimmings came off, and, with the hat, the cane, and the gloves, was laid upon a chair, and Burke and Mrs. Cliff sat down to talk over old times and old friends.