Miss Parker

“ But if God had endowed Parker with a noble intellect and he had honestly multiplied his five talents to ten, there was yet a greater gift which he possessed in still richer measure. The strong, clear head was second to the warm, true heart. Parker loved his friends with a devotion of which men in our day so rarely give proof, that we claim it as the privilege of a woman to know its happiness, albeit such love becomes as much the manliness of a man as the womanliness of a woman. ”

“ Yes, Miss Parker knew an old lady; had had her in mind all the week; had wondered how she could set to work to interest her dear girls in her. She needed a great deal of help, and Miss Parker had very little of this world’s goods. She knew that some of her girls came from homes where there was plenty. “But I do not like to be always begging,” she told her mother. Then she had asked the Lord Jesus to show her some way of interesting the girls in poor Grandmother Blakslee. And here they were asking for the name of an old lady whom they could help! What a lovely answer it was to her prayer. ”

“ Parker, and I do not believe there is a living soul besides myself that recollects your proper style and title should be Sarah Parker, spinster. Don't you see that you have everything to lose and nothing whatever to gain in marrying Sir Arthur Prynne's coachman? Why, he has I don't know how many children, and they will be the death of you, Parker; plague your life out. Now, do make up your mind to be a sensible woman and stay where you are, and I will see that you shall never come to want when your working days are over. ”

“ Will your ladyship take anything?"
"No, no," said the vision hastily, "nothing, thanks. I'll wait. Good evening, Mr. Parker. Where's Peter?"
"He has been called out, Lady Mary," said Parker. "I can't think why he isn't back yet. Do sit down."
"Where did he go?"
"To Scotland Yard—but that was about six o'clock. I can't imagine—"
Lady Mary made a gesture of despair.
"I knew it. Oh, Mr. Parker, what am I to do?"
Mr. Parker was speechless.
"I must see Peter," cried Lady Mary. "It's a matter of life and death. Can't you send for him?"
"But I don't know where he is," said Parker. ”

“ Parker, girls. You just adore girls, don't you, Mr. Parker?"
Mr. Parker, who was in a measure the Beau Brummel of Richmond, assured us he did and immediately took stock of our charms, at least that was his air, as Mabel, with many flourishes, presented us. She was quite impressive in her manner of introducing Tweedles and Annie Pore, and I heard her whisper behind her hand that Annie was a "descendant of nobilities." She almost ignored me altogether, but finally brought me in as "little Miss Allison from the country," and pretended to have entirely forgotten Mary's name. ”

“ It’s been told all over the map, and printed and reprinted till you’d think the mama would be ashamed to show herself on a platform. Of course, I figure there was a good deal of truth in it, though I’ll admit it was a pretty fresh thing to say. Mrs. Parker is a grand old gal, but she’s one of these eight-day, self-winding, Do-Gooders—you know! Always cleaning up a slum or starting a movement or something, and I guess Peter’s just [123] naturally so sick of it he goes the limit the other way. ”

“ He said softly and firmly, “You’ll always tell me when you throw things away—won’t you, Mrs. Parker?” And he walked off very well pleased with himself, convinced, in fact, he’d shown Mrs. Parker that under his apparent carelessness he was as vigilant as a woman. ”

“ She might take a notion to come with us. I thought sure Kenelm would, but he's gone on a cruise of his own somewheres. He hustled outdoor soon as breakfast was over.”
Emily burst out laughing. “Excuse me, please,” she said, “but I've been dying to do this for so long. That—that Miss Parker is the oddest person!”
The captain grinned. “Thinkin' about that 'diagram' yarn?” he asked. “'Tis funny when you hear it the first four or five times. Hannah Parker can get more wrong words in the right places than anybody I ever run across. ”

“ Her bearing was eager and almost tremulous, for, with this crowd round her and in the flush of this gaiety and excitement, there was something of that exhilarating air that greets the singer upon the stage. Her eyes were shining with a look, half-sorrowful, half-triumphant. Within the past half-hour she had overcome herself; she had fought down the blind, wild rebellion that, for one moment as it were, had surged up in her heart. She was proud and glad, and piteous and triumphant and deeply womanly all at once.
Going to the piano she had looked round for Louis, but he was not visible. ”

“ Parker, with a foolish chuckle, “I shouldn’t have expected you of all people, Miss Verinder, to say that.”
“No,” said Mrs. Parker. “Surely you’re not modern? You don’t believe in letting girls leave home, and make careers for themselves, and all that?”
“No, no, Miss Verinder is not serious,” said Mr. Parker, smiling and nodding his head. “In spite of all the talk nowadays, the best career for young ladies is just what it always was—marriage! ”

“ She only stood and gazed at him, and her look followed him long after he passed by. He knew well that in the gaze was nothing of the interest which a woman feels in a man; it was the look of one chained to a rock, who sees a Samaritan in the cheerless distance.
In the daily round of her life she was always busy; not restlessly, but constantly, and always silently, busy. She was even more silent than her laconic half-breed hired woman, Rada. There was no talk with her gloating husband which was not monosyllabic. Her canary sang, but no music ever broke from her own lips. ”

“ Presently the Curé asked, as if from a great distance, so meditative was his voice: "Who will be the woman, Medallion?"
"I’ve got one in my eye—the very right one for our Avocat; not here, not out of Pontiac, but from St. Jean in the hills—fulfilling your verses, gentle apothecary. She must bring what is fresh—he must feel that the hills have come to him, she that the valley is hers for the first time. A new world for them both. Ha!"
"Regardez ça! you are a great man," said the Little Chemist.
There was a strange, inscrutable look in the kind priest’s eyes. ”

“ I do with all my heart. You shall have those ha'pence, and the kisses too, if so be you will take them—or not, as you will, Rosalie."
"Monsieur," she gasped, for something caught her in the throat, and the tears started to her eyes, "ask me to forget that you have ever said those words. Oh, Monsieur, it is not possible, it never could be possible! I am only the postmaster's daughter." ”

“ The Queen smiled as she had not smiled since she entered the presence-chamber. "God preserve us," she said, "that I should not have recognized you! It is, of course, our faithful Lemprière of Rozel!"
The blood came back to the Seigneur's heart, but he did not dare look up yet, and he did not see that Elizabeth was in rare mirth at his words; and though she had no memory of him, she read his nature and was mindful to humor him. She turned, and beckoning Essex to her side, said a few words in an undertone, to which he replied with a smile more sour than sweet. ”

“ I nodded.
"You speak French not like a Breton or Norman," she added. "What is your province?"
"I am an Auvergnian."
She said no more, but motioned to me, enjoining silence also by a sign, and I stood with her beside the panel. Before it was a piece of tapestry which was mere gauze in one place, and I could see through and hear perfectly. The room we were in was at least four feet higher than the other, and we looked down on its occupants.
"Presently, holy Mother," said I, "all shall be told true to you, if you wish it. It is not your will to watch and hear; it is because you love the lady. ”

“ Parpon saw her, frowned, and waved her back; but she came on. At the chancel steps she raised her veil, and a murmur of recognition and wonder ran through the church. Pomfrette’s face was pitiful to see—drawn, staring.
"Junie!" he said hoarsely.
Her eyes were red with weeping, her face was very pale.
"M’sieu’ le Curé" she said, "you must listen to me"—the Curé’s face had become forbidding—"sinner though I am. You want to be just, don’t you? Ah, listen! I was to be married to Luc Pomfrette, but I did not love him—then. ”

“ Medallion soothingly.
"Oh, my grand Seigneur!" said Parpon, throwing up his hands. "Once he said to me, 'Come, my brown diver, and live with me.' But I said, 'No, I am not fit. I will never go to you at the House with the Tall Porch.' And I made him promise that he would never tell of it. And so I have lived sometimes with old Farette." Then he laughed strangely again, and sent a furtive look at Armand.
"Parpon," said Armand gently, "our grand Seigneur has left you the Bois Noir for your own. So the hills and the Rock of Red Pigeons are for you —and the little good people, if you like." ”

“ Holy Mother! it is not good to have one thing in the head all the time! What do you think? So much all at once! And then—”
“Hush, Pierre! There she is!” said Lawless, pointing to a ledge of rock not far away.
The girl stood looking out across the valley, a weird, rapt look in her face, her hair falling loose, a staff like a shepherd’s crook in one hand, the other hand over her eyes as she slowly looked from point to point of the horizon. ”

“ Children are heartless satirists, and the follies of poor little Mr. Parker filled us with wicked glee.
I see him still, unconscious tiny clown, gathering up in a delicate grasp the tails of his black coat to show us how a lady curtseyed in the remote days of Queen Anne. And mincing across the polished floor, he would say, as he daintily picked his steps: "The lady enters the ball-room on the tip of her toes—so!" Picture, I pray you, the comic appearance of any woman who dared to enter a ball-room as Mr. Parker walked across [Pg 162] our dancing-hall! Society would stand still to gape. ”

“ For instance, Miss Enid was found by the General crying in the conservatory this morning. I want to know why she cried."
The maid—whose name was Parker—sniffed significantly as she replied—
"It's not easy to tell why young ladies cry, ma'am. The wind's in the east—perhaps that has something to do with it."
"Oh, very well!" said Mrs. Vane coldly. "If the wind is in the east, and that is all, Parker, you had better find some position in the world in which your talents will be of more use to you than they are to me. ”

“ There was the thing that clamped my heart. Never a message from her or her brother. Surely they knew, and yet never, thought I, a good word for me to the governor. They had forgotten the faith of food and blanket. And she—she must have seen that I could have worshipped her, had we been in the same way of life. Before the better days came to me I was hard against her, hard and rough at heart."
"Remember the sorrow of thine own wife." Pierre's voice was gentle.
"Truly, to think hardly of no woman should be always in a man's heart. ”

“ And the hill-dwarf laughs in the young wife’s ear,
When the devil comes back to town—
C’est la!"
It was crooned quietly, but it was distinct and melodious, and the cat purred an accompaniment, its head thrust into his thick black hair. From where Parpon sat he could see the House with the Tall Porch, and, as he sang, his eyes ran from the miller’s doorway to it.
Off in the grounds of the dead Seigneur’s manor he could see a man push the pebbles with his foot, or twist the branch of a shrub thoughtfully as he walked. At last another man entered the garden. ”

“ At an age when a man should be settling down, you are gallivanting with the wife of a philosopher.”
“Monsieur—monsieur le juge!” protested M. Fille with slowly heightening colour. “I am innocent, yes, altogether. There is nothing, believe me. It is the child, the little Zoe—but a maid of charm and kindness. She brings me cakes and the toffy made by her own hands; and if I go to the Manor Cartier, as I often do, it is to be polite and neighbourly. If Madame says things to me, and if I see what I see, and hear what I hear, it is no crime ”

“ Usually he was laden with bundles—provisions, shoes from the cobbler, a tennis-racket restrung, and an armful of books. After greetings, always the question, "How's my June-Bug?" and a family procession upstairs to peer over a crib at a fat gurgler. And "Mother, there never really was such a baby, was there?" No, nor such a father.
It was that first summer back in Berkeley, the year before the June-Bug was born, when Carl was teaching in Summer School, that we had our definite enthusiasm over labor-psychology aroused. ”

“ My father is more to me than any woman in the world; his love of me was greater than that of any woman. I know the world—and women."
There was a silence. He waved his hand to the Avocat to go on, and as he did so the Curé caught his arm with a quick, affectionate gesture. Then Monsieur Garon read the conditions: "That Farette the miller should have a deed of the land on which his mill was built, with the dam of the mill—provided that Armand should never so much as by a word again address Julie, the miller’s wife. ”

“ Parker to his wife as they drove to the railway-station in the moonlight.
"Very," said Mrs. Parker; "and Mr. Forrester is a nice lad. I hope he and Miss Ormiston will make it out: I did my best for them."
"They'll be quite able to do the best for themselves: it is always better to let things of that kind alone."
"I don't know that," said Mrs. Parker: "if a little shove is all that is needed, it is a pity not to give it."
"But what if your shove sends people separate? That's not what you intended, I fancy?"
"No fear: people are not so easily separated as all that." ”