Mrs. Bates

“ Bates was quite direct and unadorned; and, though Rosy's future was the only common ground upon which the two women could meet, yet she handled this material with such a sympathetic persistence that Eliza Marshall was fain to believe that she and her caller had been knit in a close community of interests from time immemorial.
Mrs. Bates divined readily enough that nothing would be more galling to Eliza Marshall than a betrayal of her own social ignorance. "How glad we ought to be," she said, in an innocent, left-handed fashion, "that girls are no longer brought out at a crush. ”

“ Rangely!" she cried. "How did you get into the room without my knowing? How horrid of you to surprise me like that!"
"But think how charming it is for me," he responded with an elaborate air of gallantry. "It is so delightful to see you on a pedestal."
"Meaning that I am no better than a graven image?" she demanded with a smile. "If that is the best you can do, I may as well come down."
She held out her hand for his, and then sat down, displaying one of the fascinating slippers, and the openwork instep of her silk stocking, through the meshes of which the pearly skin gleamed evasively. ”

“ Then the hands of a man clutched the farther edge of the table, and slowly and evidently with infinite difficulty a figure rose and the dark face of Bates, with eyes blurred and staring strangely, confronted me.
He drew his body to its height, and leaned heavily upon the table. I snatched a candle and bent toward him to make sure my eyes were not tricking me.
“Mr. Glenarm! Mr. Glenarm!” he exclaimed in broken whispers. “It is Bates, sir.”
“What have you done; what has happened?” I demanded.
He put his hand to his head uncertainly and gaped as though trying to gather his wits. ”

“ Bates, dropping a stitch in her zeal to explain matters; "you see the cheaper they get the school-ma'am boarded, the further the money goes, and the longer school they have. Don't you understand it?"
Mrs. Knight, fancying that affairs were assuming altogether too formidable an aspect, adroitly turned the conversation upon the heroine of our story, saying how glad she was that Mary had at last found so good a home.
"So am I," said Mrs. Bates; "for we all know that Mrs. Mason will take just as good care of her, as though she were her own ”

“ Mr. Bates himself spent very little time in his wife's box. He lounged on one of the springy sofas in the narrow lobby behind, or leaned over the burnished barriers of other boxes to talk murmurously with other magnates about the Stock Exchange or the volume of traffic. He was a grave and somewhat inexpressive person, with reticent eyes and snow-white bunches of side-whiskers, and a rather cold and impassive manner. His wife followed his peregrinations with an indulgent eye.
"Poor Granger," she said to Jane; "this thing tires him more and more every year. So I give him plenty of leeway. ”

“ No; I'm speaking for all of us. Besides, here's Rosy, just coming up, and—"
"Thank you, Jane," remarked Rosamund, with some acerbity. "You needn't mind me. I can look after myself."
"—and it seems to me," went on Jane, ardently, "that people who have succeeded might just as well give some outer token of it. I declare, when I called on Mrs. Bates and went over the place and compared their house and their way of living with ours—"
Her aunt looked up suddenly. "Mrs. Bates? What Mrs. Bates? Mrs. Granger
Bates?" ”

“ She’s younger, you know; or at least she can’t seem to let go of her youth as Aunt Priscilla does. But that doesn’t matter; my aunt, Miss Flint, is head of the house, and she says the dog must go, so go it’s going to! Now the thing is, will you take him, Mr. Bates? I’m sure Mrs. Bates would like him—he’s a dear dog.”
[125]
At this Ladybird’s head went down on Cloppy’s back again, and Mr. Bates feared another deluge; but suddenly the child looked up with a bright smile. “I could come to see him sometimes, couldn’t I, Mr. Bates?”
“I haven’t said I’d take him yet. I’m a business man, you know. ”

“ The style was quite attractive, though neither unbecoming nor showy. Mrs. Bates had her own share of vanity, and wished to appear at a large party soon to take place, in this head-dress, where she knew it must attract attention. Although a little vain, a fault that we can easily excuse in a handsome woman, Mrs. Bates had a high sense of justice and right, and possessed all a lady's true delicacy of feeling.
The head-dress, after being admired, was laid aside for the occasion referred to. A few days afterwards, Mrs. Tarleton, an acquaintance, dropped in. ”

“ The under-laundress dried her eyes on one corner of her apron.
"I dunno about Felice," she said uncertainly. "Mebbe Mr. Bates—oh, here comes Mr. Bates now."
Round, red, highly perturbed, the Dalton butler bustled into the laundry and looked Wilkins up and down.
"Trunk for the master?" he asked crisply.
"For Felice, the young lady's maid, as I understand," Wilkins said quietly. "Where shall I find her? It's for herself."
His calm and superior smile warned Bates not to question an affair that could not possibly concern him—yet the warning missed Bates somehow. ”

“ Bates looked round with wondering contempt on the miserable hovel, as she deemed it, which her young mistress had chosen in preference to the luxurious apartments of Dashleigh Hall. The lady’s maid had serious doubts as to whether she could so compromise her own dignity as to remain in a house where no “footman was kept.” To share a pigeon-hole seven feet square with a deaf and stupid maid-of-all-work, who could not even listen to her gossip,—did ever devoted lady’s maid submit to such hardship before! ”

“ And if you don't happen to feel first-rate, I don't know where you can be better taken care of than right at home."
"You might go to Geneva—both of you," replied Jane; "I wish you would, if only on my account. Mrs. Bates is just about getting tired of asking you, and I'm 'most worn out with making up excuses for your not going." Jane had been giving an occasional attendance on Susan Bates's dormitory and children. Mrs. Bates herself had bowed to Rosy's preference with a resigned reasonableness, and had abated not one jot in her friendliness towards Rosy's family. ”

“ She secretly resolved to meet the lawyer with an indifference to which his should be as nothing; to be colder than ice, as unconcerned as a statue, and as firm as the Pyramids. Raising her eyes at this point of her revery, she saw her lover coming towards her down the village street. She felt a glow of pleasure in spite of herself. With a girl like Patty, no method of wooing could have been more effectual than that which circumstances had forced upon the lawyer, although he had felt keenly the loss of her society. ”

“ Bates marked how her voice broke, He took a step after her, as she went to the settle.
“Dear madam, you deserve to be the happiest rather than the most wretched of your sex,” he said—his voice was also very soft and low.
Kitty turned to him, crying quickly: “And I should be so if—” here she sighed—it seemed to Mr. Bates quite involuntarily. “Pardon me: I—I—that is—sometimes the heart forces the lips to speak when they should remain silent. A woman is a simple creature, sir.”
“A woman is a very fascinating creature, I vow,” cried Mr. Bates, and he felt that he was speaking the truth. ”

“ Rhodes had leaned completely out of her box, and had then looked both right and left to observe whether her neighbors had done full justice to the episode. "Oh, she's a good little woman who is—climbing.
"The fact is," Mrs. Bates proceeded, "that there are not a dozen real grown-up butterflies in town. We're coming to one now." They were skirting one range of the lower boxes. "It's Mrs. Ingles; you must meet her."
"Some other time, please," implored Brower, as Mrs. Bates nodded to a sumptuous young creature not ten feet away. ”

“ The good lady’s husband, though known as “Old Salt,” was by no means a seafaring man, nor had he ever been. Instead, he was a leaf on a branch of the Saltonstall family tree, and the irreverent abbreviation had been given him long ago, and had stuck.
[13]
“Yes, indeed,” Mrs. Adams asserted, “we’ve never had a bachelor president of Corinth and I hope we never will. Mrs. Bates is a nice sweet-spoken lady, a widow of four years standing, and I do say she’s just the one for Doctor Waring’s wife. She has dignity, and yet she’s mighty human.”
Emily Bates was human. ”

“ Susan Bates answered him pantingly, all a-tremble with nervous excitement. "Mr. Bates is a just man, and not an ungenerous man, but—but"—She clasped her hands and leaned forward anxiously. "Mr. Bates and I have always stepped along together. He has always done whatever I have asked him to do. He has never disappointed me. But—oh, Roger, he never knew your father in those early days; if he had, could he stand by and see him on the edge of ruin without making some effort to save him?" She waved her hand over the disorder of Roger's desk. ”

“ But old Blue-beard himself who hadn’t been away a week!
He kissed his wife, and, after a brief pause, said, smiling blandly:
“I’d like my keys, my dear.” He saw a tear upon her cheek,
And guessed the truth. She gave him all but one. He scowled and grumbled:
“I want the key to the small room!” Poor thing, she could not speak!
He saw at once the stain it bore while she turned pale and paler,
“You’ve been where I forbade you! Now you shall go there to stay!
Prepare yourself to die at once!” he cried. ”

“ May started up, her eyes dilating.
"Oh, how did you know?" she demanded.
"The Count thinks the most horrible things," the widow went on mercilessly. "You know what foreigners are. It wouldn't have been so bad if it were an American."
Poor May put her hands together with a woeful gesture as if she were imploring mercy.
"Oh, is it the Count really?" she cried. "I saw that he had a red carnation in his buttonhole yesterday, but I hoped that it was an accident."
"A red carnation?" repeated Mrs. Neligage.
"Yes; that was the sign by which I was to know him. I said so in that letter." ”

“ Listening, Bates burst into a roar of astonished enthusiasm. “What a dog it is!” he cried. “John Rex, John Rex, you were never made to be a convict, man!”
Rex smiled. “Good-bye, Mr. Bates, and God preserve you!”
“Good-bye,” says Bates, rubbing his hat off his face, “and I—I—damme, I hope you'll get safe off—there! for liberty's sweet to every man.”
“Good-bye, prisoners!” says Sylvia, waving her handkerchief; “and I hope they won't catch you, too.”
So, with cheers and waving of handkerchiefs, the boat departed. ”

“ Tarleton, removing the cap from her own head and placing it upon that of her friend. "Beautiful! How well it becomes you! you must let me have the pattern. We can wear them together at the party. Two will attract more attention than one."
"I am sorry to deny you," replied Mrs. Bates, "but I think I shall have to be alone in my glory this time."
"Indeed, you must let me have the pattern, Mrs. Bates. I never saw anything in my life that pleased me so much, nor anything in which I looked so well. I have been all over town for a head-dress without finding anything I would wear. ”

“ Bates, the widow of a former vicar of Highbury, was a very old lady, almost past every thing but tea and quadrille. She lived with her single daughter in a very small way, and was considered with all the regard and respect which a harmless old lady, under such untoward circumstances, can excite. Her daughter enjoyed a most uncommon degree of popularity for a woman neither young, handsome, rich, nor married. Miss Bates stood in the very worst predicament in the world for having much of the public favour ”

“ A carpenter of the name of Bates was called in, so distant a relative of Mrs Bowater's apparently that she never by nod, word, or look acknowledged the bond. Mr Bates held my landlady in almost speechless respect. "A woman in a thousand," he repeatedly assured me, when we were grown a little accustomed to one another; "a woman in ten thousand. And if things hadn't been what they was, you may understand, they might have turned out different. Ah, miss, there's one looking down on us could tell a tale." ”

“ The loves of elderly folk always present to the eyes of the younger generation an aspect somewhat ludicrous, and the buds giggled at the idea of nuptials which to their infantine minds seemed so venerable. The women pitied Bradish, who had been captured by the wiles of the widow, and the men thought it a pity that so gifted and dashing a woman as Mrs. Neligage should be united to a man so dull as her prospective husband. The widow did not wear her heart on her sleeve, so that daws who wished to peck at it found it well concealed behind an armor of raillery, cleverness, and adroitness. ”

“ Miss Bates was assigned to it.
"She had come from California, and was unknown here. She proved to be handsome, fiery, forceful, and very talented. She was a revelation to the first audience, and it was disposed to go wild over her.
"Maybe it would have been better for Miss Rehan if the part had been given to her. Perhaps she had disliked to enact a wicked woman. Anyway, she had chosen instead to appear as a vain, frivolous, but clean and cheerful, wife of a London tradesman. ”

“ Spokesly felt like a little social diversion.
"Busy?" he enquired, thrusting his curiously ill-balanced features into the port and smiling. Mr. Bates's smile was unfortunate. Without being in any way insincere, it gave one the illusion that it was fitted on over his real face. A long, sharp nose projecting straight out from a receding brow nestled in a pomatumed and waxed moustache, and his eyes, of an opaque hazel, became the glinting centres of scores of tiny radiating lines. ”