Miss Warren

“ Miss Warren, nathless, has her misgivings anent her old mamma, and would like to know what that old lady is doing at the present time, and whether she is past reform. Miss Warren even has her moments of doubt as to the flawless perfection of her own life: whether the path of duty in 1897 did not rather lie in the direction of a serious attempt to be a daughter to her wayward mother and reclaim her then, instead of going off at a tangent as the mannish type of New Woman, to whom applicable Mathematics are everything and human affections very little. ”

“ PRAED. How do you do, Miss Warren? [She presses his hand cordially, though a certain sentimentality in his high spirits jars upon her] . I start in an hour from Holborn Viaduct. I wish I could persuade you to try Italy.
VIVIE. What for?
PRAED. Why, to saturate yourself with beauty and romance, of course.
[Vivie, with a shudder, turns her chair to the table, as if the work waiting for her there were a support to her. Praed sits opposite to her. Frank places a chair near Vivie, and drops lazily and carelessly into it, talking at her over his shoulder.]
FRANK. No use, Praddy. ”

“ I never have a good time with Adah."
"There, mother, let her have her own way," said Adah, pettishly. "Emily Warren, thee shouldn't pet her so if thee doesn't want to be bothered by her."
"She does not bother me at all," said Miss Warren quietly. "I like her."
The little girl that had been ready to cry turned to her friend a radiant face that was eloquent with the undisguised affection of childhood.
"Zillah evidently likes you, Miss Warren," I said, "and you have given the reason. You like her."
"Not always a sufficient reason for liking another," she answered. ”

“ Warren it was going for her to be the last hour of fully conscious life—fully conscious and yet a curious mingling in it of the past and present. She had sat here in the middle of the 'seventies with Vivie's father, the young Irish seminarist, her lover for six months. He had a vague interest in botany, and during his convalescence after his typhoid fever, when she was still his nurse, not yet his mistress, she used to bring him here to rest and to enjoy the aspect of these ferns and palms. What a strange variety of men she had known. ”

“ VIVIE. Mr Praed: once for all, there is no beauty and no romance in life for me. Life is what it is; and I am prepared to take it as it is.
PRAED [enthusiastically] You will not say that if you come with me to Verona and on to Venice. You will cry with delight at living in such a beautiful world.
FRANK. This is most eloquent, Praddy. Keep it up.
PRAED. Oh, I assure you I have cried—I shall cry again, I hope—at fifty! At your age, Miss Warren, you would not need to go so far as Verona. Your spirits would absolutely fly up at the mere sight of Ostend. ”

“ More than all, I dreaded meeting Miss Warren again, feeling that we both would be under a wretched constraint. My evil mood undoubtedly had physical causes, for my mouth was parched, my head throbbed and ached, and I felt so ill in body and mind, so morbid and depressed, that I was ready to escape to New York without seeing a soul, were the thing possible. ”

“ She is an attractive specimen of the sensible, able, highly-educated young middle-class Englishwoman. Age 22. Prompt, strong, confident, self-possessed. Plain business-like dress, but not dowdy. She wears a chatelaine at her belt, with a fountain pen and a paper knife among its pendants] .
PRAED. Very kind of you indeed, Miss Warren. [She shuts the gate with a vigorous slam. He passes in to the middle of the garden, exercising his fingers, which are slightly numbed by her greeting] . Has your mother arrived?
VIVIE [quickly, evidently scenting aggression] Is she coming? ”

“ VIVIE [to Praed, with deep reproach] Can you find no better example of your beauty and romance than Brussels to talk to me about?
PRAED [puzzled] Of course it's very different from Verona. I don't suggest for a moment that—
VIVIE [bitterly] Probably the beauty and romance come to much the same in both places.
PRAED [completely sobered and much concerned] My dear Miss Warren: I— [looking enquiringly at Frank] Is anything the matter?
FRANK. She thinks your enthusiasm frivolous, Praddy. She's had ever such a serious call.
VIVIE [sharply] Hold your tongue, Frank. Don't be silly. ”

“ How much more money are you going to give him?
REV. S. Not another penny. He has had his patrimony; and he spent the last of it in July. [Mrs Warren's face falls] .
CROFTS [watching her] There! I told you. [He resumes his place on the settle and puts his legs on the seat again, as if the matter were finally disposed of] .
FRANK [plaintively] This is ever so mercenary. Do you suppose Miss Warren's going to marry for money? If we love one another—
MRS WARREN. Thank you. Your love's a pretty cheap commodity, my lad. If you have no means of keeping a wife, that settles it; you can't have Vivie. ”

“ I was worsted in this encounter, and I saw the old gleam of mirthfulness in Miss Warren's eyes. How well I remembered when I first saw that evanescent illumination—the quick flash of a bright, genial spirit. "She delights in her lover's keen thrusts," was now my thought, "and is pleased to think I'm no match for him. She should remember that it's a poor time for a man to tilt when he can scarcely sit erect." But Adah's pleasure was unalloyed. ”

“ PRAED [diffidently] I'm afraid theres nothing else in the world that I can talk about. The Gospel of Art is the only one I can preach. I know Miss Warren is a great devotee of the Gospel of Getting On; but we can't discuss that without hurting your feelings, Frank, since you are determined not to get on.
FRANK. Oh, don't mind my feelings. Give me some improving advice by all means: it does me ever so much good. Have another try to make a successful man of me, Viv. Come: lets have it all: energy, thrift, foresight, self-respect, character. Don't you hate people who have no character, Viv? ”

“ After one of these unsuccessful attempts I detected a slight, peculiar smile on Miss Warren's face. It was a mischievous light in her dark eyes more than anything else. As she met my puzzled look it vanished instantly, and she turned away. Everything in my training and calling stimulated alertness, and I knew that smile was at my expense. Why was she laughing at me? Had she, by an intuition, divined my attitude of mind? A plague on woman's intuitions! What man is safe a moment? ”

“ Her sons passed through life, all honored and loved, and more than one of them distinguished. Her nature seems to have had more of amiable softness than Mrs. Washington's; who, it must be confessed, blended something of the sternness with the purity and nobleness of a Spartan matron. Mrs. Warren's door was always open for deeds of hospitality and neighborly kindness. It is not easy to imagine a lovelier scene than one paragraph presents, of the evening of a well spent life, still warmed and brightened by the benign spirit, which had been the sun of that life's long day. ”

“ Dunn. “The young people shall go, and the others remain at home. Malcolm shall take you for a spin, Caroline, and Captain Warren and I will stay here and wait until you return. We’ll have a family chat, Captain, won’t we? Because,” with a gay laugh, “in a way we are like one family, you see.”
And, somewhat to Miss Warren’s surprise, her uncle [Pg 161] agreed to this proposition. He did not answer immediately, but, when he did, it was with heartiness.
“Why, yes,” he said, “that’s a good idea. That’s fust-rate. You young folks go, and Mrs. Dunn and I’ll wait here till you come back. ”

“ Dunn, we will go into the drawing-room.”
She led the way toward the apartment. Captain Elisha was about to speak. Pearson, however, explained for him.
“Miss Warren,” he said, “if by a business call you mean one in the interest of the Planet, I assure you that you are mistaken. I am no longer connected with any paper. I met Captain Warren, under rather unusual circumstances. We discovered that we had mutual friends and mutual interests. He asked me to call on him, and I did so. I did not know, until five minutes ago, that he was your uncle or that you and your brother lived here. ”

“ I took off my hat, as I replied, with a smile, "A garden, Miss Warren, was the first sacred place of the world, and never were sincerer words spoken in that primal garden."
She looked at me a moment wistfully, and even tearfully. "I wish you were right," she said, slowly shaking her head; "your strange mood has infected me, I think; and I will admit that to be true is the struggle of my life, but the effort to be true is often hard, bitterly hard, in New York. I admit that for years truthfulness has been the goal of my ambition. ”

“ I shall go back the wiser and stronger for this day's folly, and infinitely better for its rest, and I marched down the moody stairway, feeling that I was not yet a crushed and broken man, and cherishing also a secret complacency that I had at last outgrown my leanings toward sentimentality.
As I approached the door of the wide, low-browed parlor, I saw Miss Warren reading a paper; a second later and my heart gave a bound: it was the journal of which I was the night editor, and I greeted its familiar aspect as the face of an old friend in a foreign land. ”

“ I know Miss Warren is a great devotee of the Gospel of Getting On; ”

“ VIVIE. Wait a moment: I’ve not done. Tell me why you continue your business now that you are independent of it. Your sister, you told me, has left all that behind her. Why don’t you do the same?
MRS WARREN. Oh, it’s all very easy for Liz: she likes good society, and has the air of being a lady. Imagine me in a cathedral town! Why, the very rooks in the trees would find me out even if I could stand the dulness of it. I must have work and excitement, or I should go melancholy mad. And what else is there for me to do? The life suits me: I’m fit for it and not for anything else. ”

“ Just you and I together in the settin’ room; hey?”
Pearson did not seem so enthusiastic over this programme, although he admitted that it sounded tip-top.
“How is Miss Warren?” he asked, mentioning the name with a nonchalance remarkable, considering that he had not done so before for weeks. “She is well, I hope?”
“Yes, she’s fust-rate, thank you. Very well, everything considered. She keeps to herself a good deal. Don’t care to meet many folks, and you can’t hardly blame her.” ”

“ You know, my dear Praddy, my mother wouldn’t stand Mrs Warren for a moment. Vivie mustn’t come here until she’s gone back to town.
PRAED. But your mother doesn’t know anything about Mrs Warren, does she? [He picks up the paper and sits down to read it] .
FRANK. I don’t know. Her journey to town looks as if she did. Not that my mother would mind in the ordinary way: she has stuck like a brick to lots of women who had got into trouble. But they were all nice women. Thats what makes the real difference. Mrs Warren, no doubt, has her merits; but she’s ever so rowdy ”

“ Oh!" and she trembled violently as a heavier peal than we had yet heard filled the wide valley with awful echoes.
"Not even a sparrow shall fall to the ground without your Father. We are safe, my child. God will shield thee more lovingly than I;" and he drew her closer to him.
"I know what you say is true, and yet I cannot control this mortal fear and weakness."
"No, Miss Warren, you cannot," I said; "therefore do not blame yourself. You tremble as these trees and shrubs will be agitated in a few moments, because you cannot help it." ”

“ Warren—or Madame Varennes—whimpers a little, but soon cheers up, rings the bell for her maid preparatory to dressing and being the business woman over her preparations for departure. She notes the address of Vivie's hotel and promises to call for her there in the auto at three o'clock. Vivie leaves her, descends the richly carpeted stairs—the lift is worked by an odiously pretty, little, plump soubrette dressed as a page boy—and goes out into the street. Several lounging men stare hard at her, but decide she is too English, too plainly dressed, and a little too old to neddle with. ”

“ Miss Warren relates also how she would not unfrequently say: ‘So-and-so is one of those people who think me a great deal better than I am.’ Her conversation was still very bright and full of interest; the active mind had by no means parted with its vigour. Sometimes she would talk eagerly about old days, and tell stories of the Duke of Wellington, a subject which always aroused her. Or again she would plunge into the topic of Shakespeare’s Plays. ”

“ Her great spiritual eyes make me more conscious of the woman-angel within her than of a flesh-and-blood girl. Human she is indeed, but never of the earth, earthy. Even when I take her hand, now again so plump and pretty, I feel the exquisite thrill of her life within. It's like touching a spirit, were such a thing possible. I crushed her hand this morning, brute that I was! It's been red all day. Well, Heaven speed me now!"
"What! talking to yourself again, Mr. Morton?" asked Miss Warren, suddenly appearing, and looking anything but spirit-like, with her rich color and substantial wraps. ”

“ Vivie: "I don't care if I am, poor outlaw that I am! Every avenue to an honest and ambitious career seems closed to me, either because I am a woman or—in women's careers—the few that there are—because I am Kate Warren's daughter. I am not to blame for my mother's misdeeds, yet I am being punished for them. That beast of a friend of yours—that filthy swine, George Crofts—set it about after I refused to marry him that I was 'Mrs. Warren's Daughter,' and the few nice people I knew from Cambridge days dropped me, all except Honoria and her mother." ”