Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, September, 1880

"From the very first moment I saw her, when she entered the dining-room, her cheeks brilliant from the cold, her lovely eyes, blinded by the light, peering through their long lashes, a little becoming embarrassment in her air as she saw your humble servant—laden down with your bundles, and your children, as usual, clinging to her skirts."

"Dick, how disagreeable you are!" and Mrs. Pinckney began to pout again.

"We are all her lovers," he maliciously continued—"all the men here—Doctor Harris, Mr. Brown and—" he bowed expressively.

"Doctor Harris?" exclaimed his sister-in-law. This defection cut her to the heart.

"The day my namesake and godchild, little Dick, was ill I went to the nursery, as in duty bound: you know how fond I am of that child. There was Miss Featherstone, not the nurse, interested and concerned, sitting by the patient. There was Doctor Harris, interested and absorbed with Miss Featherstone. His looks were unmistakable: I saw it at a glance. And as for Mr. Brown, he raves about this 'dear mees' or 'cette chère mademoiselle' by the hour together. She carried his heart by storm the first time he saw her, as she did mine."

"How far does your admiration lead you? Do you wish any assistance from me?"

"As you please: I am indifferent," he returned, shrugging his shoulders. "Seriously, Virginia—I say this in my character of guardian and adviser-general to the family—I think what you give her is a beggarly pittance in return for all she does, and I suggest that you raise her salary."

Miss Featherstone, although prejudiced at first against Colonel Pinckney, grew by degrees to like him. His manner to her was grave and respectful; he carried off the children, quite conveniently sometimes, when she was almost worn out with fatigue; and the air of friendly interest with which his dark eyes rested upon her was in a manner comforting. Their little interviews, although she was unconscious of it, gave zest to her life.

One cold morning, as she sat before breakfast with little Harry on her lap, warming his hands before the dining-room fire, Colonel Pinckney exclaimed, "Miss Featherstone, did you have the care of that child last night?"

"Yes," as she pressed the fat little hands in hers.

"And dressed him this morning?"

"Why, yes. Colonel Pinckney, excuse me: why shouldn't I?"

"Virginia is the most selfish human being I ever knew in my life," he burst forth. "You, after working like a slave during the day, cannot even have your night's rest undisturbed. I'll speak to her, and insist upon it that this state of things shall not continue any longer."

Miss Featherstone looked annoyed: "Mr. Pinckney"—she never would, if she remembered it, call him "Colonel"—"I beg that you will do nothing of the kind. Mrs. Pinckney is quite ill with a cold: she can scarcely speak above a whisper, and she required Adèle's services during the night. I volunteered—it was my own arrangement—sleeping with the child," eagerly.

"Oh yes," he returned, "you are remarkably well suited to each other—you and Virginia: you give, and she takes," sarcastically. "Listen, Miss Featherstone. I have known that woman twelve years—it is exactly twelve years since my unfortunate brother married her—and in all that time I never knew her consider but one human being, and that was herself."

"Indeed, you're very much mistaken, Colonel—that is, Mr.—Pinckney, as far as I am concerned. Mrs. Pinckney is really very kind to me. I am exceedingly fond of her, but I cannot bear to see things going wrong, and when I can I make them right. Mrs. Pinckney is in delicate health."

"That's all nonsense," he interrupted. "She spends her time studying her sensations. If she were poor she'd have something better to do. I think you are doing wrong morally, Miss Featherstone. You are encouraging her in idleness and selfishness by taking her duties and bearing them on your young shoulders.—Now, Harry, come here," to that small individual, who slowly and unwillingly descended from the governess's lap: "leave Miss Featherstone, my young friend, to pour out the coffee and eat her own breakfast. Adèle is with mamma, is she? Well, Uncle Dick will give Harry his breakfast."

The cold was intense the following day, yet Miss Featherstone, well muffled up, was on her way to the hall-door, where the sleigh was waiting to take her to the station.

"Forgive me," exclaimed Colonel Pinckney, who waylaid her, much to her annoyance, "but what are you going to do for the family now?"

"I am going to New York to get a cook," she replied with a decided air.

"Do you know the state of the thermometer?"

"I don't care anything about it," with some obstinacy, tugging at the button of her glove.

"But I do," he said. "Now, Miss Featherstone, while I'm here I am master of the house, and if it's necessary to go to town it's I that am going—to use Pat's vernacular—and not you. Give me directions, and I'll follow them implicitly."

"So Dick went, did he?" said Mrs. Pinckney. She was propped up in bed with large pillows: Miss Featherstone, still in her bonnet, sat by her side.

"Yes: it was very kind, for I don't know what would have become of the children all day, poor things! and you sick."

Mrs. Pinckney glanced searchingly at her. "Dick is very kind when he pleases, and exceedingly efficient," returned the invalid: "I've no doubt he'll bring back a capital cook."

"I had a great prejudice against Mr. Pinckney," said Miss Featherstone, slowly smoothing out her gloves, "but I confess it has vanished, there is something so straightforward and manly about him; and he certainly is very kind."

"He does not flatter you at all?"

"Oh no; and that is one reason I like him. I detest the gallant, tender manner which many men affect toward women."

"Doctor Harris, for instance?"

"Well, Doctor Harris, for instance," returned Miss Featherstone, smiling, and blushing a little.

"Doctor Harris has certainly made love to her, and Dick as certainly hasn't. I wonder—oh, how I wonder!—whether he was in earnest the other day?" Her large blue eyes were fixed scrutinizingly on the governess, although she thought, not said, these things. "He thinks you do a great deal too much in the house, and was quite abusive to me about it: he actually swore when he discovered the amount of your salary. Now, my dear Miss Featherstone, you may name your own price: I'll give you anything you ask, for no amount of money can represent the comfort you are to me."

"I don't want one cent more than I at present receive," replied the governess, kissing her fondly.

A few days after Colonel Pinckney—a self-constituted committee, apparently, for the prevention of cruelty to governesses—surprised Miss Featherstone in the school-room. She was seated before the fire in a low chair, little Harry, who was fretful from a cold, lying on her lap, the other children clustered around her. As he softly opened the door he heard these words: "'Blondine,' replied the fairy Bienveillante sadly,' no matter what you see or hear, do not lose courage or hope.'" As she told the story in low, drowsy tones she was also mending the heel of a little stocking.

"It is abominable!" the colonel cried: "you are worn out with fatigue: I hear it in your voice. I called you a 'white slave' to Virginia: nothing is truer. You've today given out supplies from the store-room, you were in the kitchen a long time with the new cook, you set the lunch-table—don't deny it, for I saw you—besides taking care of the children and hearing their lessons."

"While Mrs. Pinckney is ill this is absolutely necessary," she returned with decision: "of course it makes some confusion having a new cook—"

"Children," he interrupted, "this séance is to be broken up: scamper off to Adèle to get ready: I'll ask mamma to let you drive to the station in the coupé to meet Mr. Brown: there will certainly be room for such little folks.—And as to you, Miss Featherstone, as head of the house pro tem. I order you to put on your hat and cloak and walk in the garden for a while with me: the paths are quite hard and dry."

"Mamma! mamma! we are to drive to the station: Uncle Dick says so," shrieked the children, breaking up a delicious little doze into which Mrs. Pinckney had fallen while Adèle sat at her sewing in the darkened room.

"Is Uncle Dick going with you?"

"No, he is going to walk in the garden with Miss Featherstone."

Mrs. Pinckney felt quite cross: "He is positively insolent, ordering things about in this way, interrupting my nap and all. What, under Heaven, should I do without her if he is in earnest about Miss Featherstone?"

If she could have heard what Colonel Pinckney was saying in the garden she would have been still crosser.

"I want to enlighten you a little as to my fair sister-in-law," he began after a few commonplaces.

"Oh, please don't, Colonel Pinckney"—unconsciously she was sliding into the "Colonel." "I'd much rather you wouldn't. I think—" and she hesitated.

"What do you think?"

"Why"—and she looked embarrassed—"I am afraid I shall not love Mrs. Pinckney as well if you analyze and show up all her little weaknesses.

We could none of us bear it," she continued warmly. "Remember that line— Be to her faults a little blind.

I like to love people, and feel like a woman in some novel I've read: 'Long and deeply let me be beguiled with regard to the infirmities of those I love.'"

"You're an angel!" he cried.

Miss Featherstone looked startled and annoyed.

Colonel Pinckney, with much self-possession, recovered himself immediately. "We all know it," he continued jestingly—"Mr. Brown, the children, servants and all; but, in spite of this, you shall not be imposed upon. Now, I wish to give you a résumé of Mrs. Pinckney's life—"

"Oh, Colonel Pinckney! when we are under her roof!"

"It is a shelter bought with my father's money," he returned. "But you must and shall hear me: it is necessary. She is the incarnation of selfishness: in a young person it could go no further. One can pardon anything rather than selfishness. She entirely exhausted our charity during poor Harry's long illness. She travelled with every comfort that money could give: she had her maid, Harry had his man, the children were left with my mother. One winter they went to Nassau, the next to the south of France: from both places she wrote such despairing letters that my poor old father and mother were nearly beside themselves. It was like the explosion of a bomb-shell in the household when a letter came from Virginia. Sometimes I used to read and suppress them: they were filled with shrieks and lamentations. Harry was in a rapid decline; the mental torture was more than she could bear; some one must come immediately out to her, etc. The first winter my eldest brother went, to the serious injury of his business: he is a lawyer. I went when they were in Europe, my wound not yet healed. By George! Harry looked in better health than I: every one thought I was the invalid. The doctor was called in immediately, who said I had endangered my life by the expedition. I found out my lady had been to balls and on excursions all the time she was writing those harrowing letters."

"Is it possible," said Miss Featherstone, "that you think Mrs. Pinckney is false—that she deliberately tells untruths?"

"Not a bit of it," interrupted Colonel Pinckney. "She loves to complain and make herself an object of sympathy. Poor Harry, of course, had a constant cough, and whenever he took cold all his distressing symptoms were aggravated: then she'd write her letters. By the time they were received he would be pretty well again. You can see for yourself what she is: she sends for Doctor Harris, has Adèle sleep on a mattress on the floor in her room, leaving little Harry to keep you awake all night—a fine preparation for the drudgery of the next day—then toward evening she rises, makes a beautiful toilette, and drives with me several miles to a dinner-party. Not a month ago, you remember, this occurred when we went to Judge Lawrence's. To go back to my poor brother: let me tell you what happened from her crying wolf so often. The next winter they went to St. Augustine: we live in Virginia, you know. A few weeks after their arrival the alarming letters began and continued to appear. I took it upon myself to suppress most of them, for really I had grown scarcely to believe a word she said with regard to her husband, and, as I am sanguine, thought poor Harry would overcome the disease, as our father had before him, and live to a good old age. One morning, however, a telegram came: he was dead!" Colonel Pinckney could scarcely speak. Recovering himself a little, he continued in husky tones: "He died alone with his nurse: Virginia, taking care of herself as usual, was in another room asleep."

"I wonder what they are talking about?" thought Mrs. Pinckney, twisting her pretty neck in all directions so she could see them from her bed.

Their two heads were close together: he was speaking earnestly, and Miss Featherstone's eyes were on the ground.

Mrs. Pinckney dressed and went down to dinner, although she had not quite recovered the use of her voice. "Dick," she whispered, "it was a fine move, your sending the children away this afternoon, so that you could have Miss Featherstone all to yourself. Did you come to the point?"

"No, but I will one of these days: I am preparing her mind," he added mischievously.

As time went on a vague uneasiness seized the young governess. She imagined Mrs. Pinckney was growing cool in her manner toward her: certainly, Doctor Harris, who was constantly at the house, was becoming importunate in his attentions. Once she looked up suddenly at as prosaic a place as the dinner-table. Colonel Pinckney was gazing both ardently and admiringly upon her. "Certainly I must be losing my senses to imagine these men in love with me: it's preposterous."

Mr. Brown put the matter at rest, as far as he was concerned, for one day, as she returned from a walk, he accosted her on the veranda, and with a series of the most violent grimaces and gesticulations, his eyes flashing, his face working in every possible direction, he told her that he was dèsolè: his life depended upon her. He was so odd and absurd in his avowal that she burst out laughing: then, as she beheld an indignant, inquiring expression on his honest red countenance, she grew frightened, sank on a seat and wept hysterically. This encouraged him: he sat down beside her and exclaimed, "Dear mees"—and he peered at her blandly—"your life is empty: so is mine. Let it be for me—oh, so beautiful!"—and he spread out his little fat hands with rapture—"to comfort and console one heavenly existence, ensemble." He placed a hand on each stout knee and gazed benignly down upon her.

She hung her head as sheepishly as if she returned the little foreigner's affection—afraid of wounding him, she was speechless—when at this unlucky moment Colonel Pinckney, coming suddenly round the house, walked up the steps. She saw him glance at her—Mr. Brown's back was toward him—and a smile he evidently couldn't restrain stole over his face.

"Oh, Mr. Brown, I'm so sorry!" she found courage at length to say. "You are very kind—you've always been kind to me from the moment I entered the house—but indeed you must never speak on this subject again." She shook hands with him in her embarrassment, apparently as a proof of friendship, then ran into the house.

"Virginia, what do you think has happened to me?" cried Colonel Pinckney, bursting into his sister-in-law's room, which he seldom invaded. "Yesterday, as I came up the steps, I surprised Mr. Brown, who was offering himself—bad English, poverty and all—to Miss Featherstone. This minute—by George!—I stumbled into the dining-room, and there is Doctor Harris going through the same performance."

"Sit down and tell me all about it," exclaimed Mrs. Pinckney, her curiosity overcoming her pique.

"Each time," continued Colonel Pinckney, "the lover's back was turned toward me, while I had a most distinct view of Miss Featherstone, who was blushing, hanging her head and looking as distressed as possible, poor little soul!"

"Why! won't she accept the doctor?" said Mrs. Pinckney with animation.

"It didn't look like it. I couldn't hear what he said, but his back had a hopeless expression. Did you know that she came from one of the best families in Philadelphia, that most aristocratic of cities, and that they were very wealthy? Her only brother was killed in the war, and she is the sole unfortunate survivor."

"She might do many a worse thing than marry Doctor Harris: he is well educated and a gentleman."

"She could do a better thing, and that is to marry me," exclaimed the colonel. "I'm going to give her a chance, and will tell you the result immediately. I wonder who'll stumble in upon my wooing?" and with mirthful eyes he darted out of the room.

"I never knew a man so changed," soliloquized Mrs. Pinckney. "He used to be haughty and reserved: now he talks a great deal, uses slang expressions and romps and plays with the children like any ordinary mortal. One can never tell whether he is in earnest or not. I don't believe he'd have told me if he'd really meant to offer himself."

A day or two afterward Miss Featherstone had occasion to go to town. It was exceedingly inconvenient, for she was needed everywhere as usual, but gloves and boots must be replenished, even by impecunious heroines. As she came down Colonel Pinckney handed her into the carriage and followed her. She felt a little annoyed, but supposed he was driving only to the station: however, he sent the coachman home, and when the cars came up he entered and took his seat beside her.

"You look depressed, Miss Featherstone: I hope that my going to New York meets with your approbation? I've been neglecting a thousand necessary matters, and the pleasure of your company to-day gave me the necessary incentive."

He was so frank as to his motives that Miss Featherstone laid aside her reserve in a measure, and became communicative. "Everything has changed, Colonel Pinckney," she said with a sigh. "Mrs. Pinckney has grown decidedly cool, and I think you have opened my eyes so that I don't love her quite as much as I did. I am sorry: I should rather have been blind. Then—" She paused, feeling that her confidences must go no further.

"Then," he continued, "it makes it very embarrassing that the tutor and family physician should both have fallen in love with you."

"I think of leaving," she continued, neither admitting nor contradicting his assertion. "Forgive me: you have spoken from the best motives, but I think you have made trouble," she added hesitatingly. "Mrs. Pinckney is now continually on the alert to prevent my working; she will no longer let little Harry sleep in my room; she orders the dinner for the first time since I've been in the house; the children are swooped off by Adèle as soon as their school-hours are over; and everything is odd, strange and uncomfortable. I think I must go away. I wrote an advertisement to put in the papers: perhaps you could do it for me?" she said timidly: "I dread going to the offices."

"Certainly," he replied courteously, and put it in his pocket.

Colonel Pinckney appeared to share her depression, and he sat for some time silent: then he said in an agitated voice, "It will be a sorrowful day for that house when you leave it: I never knew such a transformation as you have effected. Until this winter my only associations with it have been of dirt, gloom and disorder: the children were neglected and fretful, the dinners shocking and ill served; and this with an army of servants and money spent ad libitum. Now, on the contrary, the rooms are fresh, cheerful and agreeable; there are pleasant odors, bright fires, attractive meals; the children perfect both in appearance and manner; and all this owing to the influence—perhaps I ought to say labors—of one young, inexperienced girl. I've always imagined I disliked efficient women: I've changed my mind. When I was young a fair, indolent creature, always well dressed and smiling, was my beau ideal: now a brunette, bright and energetic—some one who never thinks of herself, but is making everybody else happy and comfortable—this is my present divinity." He smiled tenderly upon her.

Miss Featherstone endeavored to shake off her embarrassment. He was a frank, kind-hearted man, entirely unlike his sister-in-law's idea of him, with an exaggerated gratitude for her exertions in his brother's family. She would not be so silly as to imagine every man was being transformed into a lover. "You are kinder to me than I deserve," she said, then changed the conversation.

She expected to meet him as she took the train to return, but he was nowhere to be seen. He did not even appear when the train stopped, and she had a solitary drive to the house.

"Did you know that Dick had gone?" said Mrs. Pinckney at the dinner-table, levelling scrutinizing glances from her lovely blue eyes.

"No," answered the governess with sudden depression and embarrassment: "he said nothing about leaving this morning. You know Colonel Pinckney went to New York in the train that I did."

"You didn't see him after your arrival?"

"No: he put me on a car and left me."

"I suspect it was an after-thought," said Mrs. Pinckney. "I had a telegram, directing me to send on his travelling-bag by express: the rest of his luggage was to be left until further orders.—Is it possible that she has refused him?" thought Mrs. Pinckney behind her fan. She was occupying her usual seat by the fire: Miss Featherstone was in a low chair, with Harry on her lap, the other children hanging about her. She was telling them a story, but they were not as well entertained as usual. The young governess was unlike herself to-night, and little touches, dramatic effects and gay inflections of the voice were lacking.

A month passed, and nothing had been heard from Colonel Pinckney. "He might have written just one line," said his sister-in-law querulously. She was in her favorite position, propped up by pillows on the bed, Miss Featherstone at her side waiting to receive orders, for gradually all her old duties had been permitted to slip back into her willing hands. "Certainly he seemed to enjoy himself when he was here; yet not one line of thanks or remembrance have I received. I heard," she said mysteriously, "that Dick was very devoted to Miss Livingstone at Saratoga last summer—there's no end to the women who have been in love with him: perhaps this sudden move has something to do with her. Nothing but a great emergency can excuse him," petulantly.

That day, for the first time, the children wearied Miss Featherstone, and she carried them in a body to Adèle, saying that she had a violent headache and was going out in the garden for a walk. As she paced slowly up and down the tears fell over her pale cheeks. The only window from which she could be seen was Mrs. Pinckney's, and that lady, she knew, was too much absorbed in her own sensations to give her a thought. "How I despise myself!" she murmured, "how degraded I am in my own eyes! Can I ever recover my self-respect? I'm so miserable that I should like to die because Colonel Pinckney has left the house, and"—she hesitated—"because his sister-in-law thinks he was drawn away by Miss Livingstone, Oh!"—and she groaned and clasped her hands frantically together—"and all this agony for a man who has never uttered a word of love to me!" Here a remembrance of his whole air and manner rather contradicted this thought. "Everything wearies me: I am actually impatient of the children, and when Mrs. Pinckney wails and complains I can scarcely listen with decency. I want to burst out upon her and say, 'You silly, tiresome woman! you have had your dream of love and your husband; you have still four dear children; you have a home, plenty of money, hosts of friends, besides youth and good looks; while I am—oh, how desolate!'"

This imaginary attack upon Mrs. Pinckney seemed to comfort her somewhat, for she dried her tears and tried to form a plan of action: "He evidently didn't put my advertisement in the paper, for I've looked in vain for it. I must go away where I shall never see Colonel Pinckney again. I'll stifle, throttle, this miserable love, and endeavor once more to be enduring and courageous."

Just then the house-door opened: some one walked down the veranda steps and came rapidly in her direction.

"I have been looking everywhere for you," cried Colonel Pinckney; and he seized both her hands: "no one seemed to know where you had gone."

The bright color rose in her cheeks, and in spite of her resolve her eyes beamed with delight. She murmured inarticulately that she had told Adèle, then relapsed into silence.

"I have to implore your forgiveness for neglecting to obey as to the advertisement, but the truth is–" and he hesitated—"I have a plan. It may not meet with your concurrence," he added, "but I wished to submit it before you made other and irrevocable arrangements."

"You have thought of some position for me?" she forced herself to say, all the bloom and delight vanishing from her face.

"Yes. I know an individual who wants precisely such a person as you are, for—a wife."

"Colonel Pinckney!" she exclaimed indignantly.

"Do forgive me, dear Miss Featherstone. I am such a confounded poltroon"—and he seized her hands again—"that I dare not risk my fate; but that person is"—and he looked down upon her, his heart beating so violently that he could scarcely speak—"that person is—myself!"

Of what happened then Mrs. Pinckney, roused by her brother-in-law's return, was cognizant, for actually, in the open air, with her blue eyes bent eagerly upon them, he clasped the governess in his arms. "It is a fact accomplished!" cried the fair widow with a sigh, and sank back upon her pillows.