Mrs. Burgoyne

“ The little girls wore exquisite hand-made garments, silken hose and white shoes. Professional entertainers, in fashionably darkened rooms, kept the little people amused, and professional caterers supplied the supper they ate, or perhaps the affair took the shape of a box-party for a matinee, and a supper at the town's one really pretty tea-room followed. These affairs were duly chronicled in the daily and weekly papers, and perhaps more than one matron would have liked the distinction of having Mrs. Burgoyne's little daughters listed among her own child's guests. ”

“ There were white horses as dazzling as soap and powder could make them; horses whose black flanks glistened as dark as coal, and there was a tandem of cream-colored horses that tossed rosettes of pink Shirley poppies in their ears. The Whites' motor-car, covered with pink carnations, and filled with good-looking lads flying the colors of the Women's Club and the nation's flag, won a special round of applause. Mrs. Burgoyne and Barry loyally clapped for the Pratt motor-car, from which Joanna Burgoyne and Lizzie Pratt's children were beaming upon the world. ”

“ Burgoyne would no doubt have made some answer in time; though the "she," the implication of Elizabeth's willingness for an indefinite amount of her lover's company, the "God bless her," gave him a sense of choking.
"But I do not blame Mrs. Le Marchant," pursues Byng, in a rapt, half-absent key. "Who would not wish to monopolize her? Who would not grudge the earth leave to kiss her sweet foot?
"'All I can is nothing
To her whose worth makes other worthies nothing.
She is alone!'"
"That at least is not your fault," replies Burgoyne dryly; "you have done your best to avert that catastrophe." ”

“ Burgoyne, like Mrs. White, was a born leader. Whether she made any particular effort to influence her neighbors or not, they could not but feel the difference in her attitude toward all the various tangible things that make a woman's life. She was essentially maternal, wanted to mother all the little living and growing things in the world, wanted to be with children, and talk of them and study them. ”

“ He had carefully put away those trinkets that Nina had returned to him; he would fain have forgotten their existence.
And then there was Miss Burgoyne. Miss Burgoyne could be very brisk and cheerful when she chose; and she now seemed bent on showing Mr. Lionel Moore the sunnier side of her character. In truth, she was most assiduously kind to the young man, even when she scolded him about the life he was leading. Her room and its mild refreshments were always at his disposal. ”

“ Burgoyne is at first too much stupefied by this appeal, and by the impossibility of answering it in a satisfactory manner, to make any response at all; but at length:
"Know all about them?" he says, in a voice whose surface impatience hides a much profounder feeling. "Who dares ever say that he knows all about any other living soul? How many times must I tell you that, until we met at Genoa, I had not set eyes on Miss Le Marchant for ten good years?" ”

“ White, who was present, said later, "made you afraid to call your soul your own."
"Do you tell me that that pretty little Thorne girl is actually meeting this young man, whoever he is, while her mother thinks she is taking a music lesson?" demanded Mrs. Burgoyne, suddenly entering into the conversation. "There's nothing against him, I suppose? She COULD see him at home."
"Oh, no, he's a nice enough little fellow," Mrs. White said, "but she's a silly little thing, and I imagine her people are very severe with her; she never goes to dances or seems to have any fun." ”

“ Burgoyne laughed too as Mrs. Brown settled back in her chair with a relieved sigh. "We women," she went on vigorously, "have mismanaged every separate work that was ever put into our hands! We ought to be ashamed to live. ”

“ For a second or so she stood tongue-tied—tongue-tied and helpless—unable to put her passionate appeal into words; then, all of a sudden, she said,
"Miss Burgoyne, you will not allow it—this folly! It is madness that they fight about—about nothing! You will not allow it!—what is it to you?—you have enough fame, enough reputation as a prima-donna, as a favorite with the public—what more? Why should you wish more—and at such a dreadful risk?—"
"Oh, I don't know what you're talking about!" said Miss Burgoyne. "What are you talking about?"
"The duel—" said Nina, breathlessly.{93}
"What duel?" ”

“ Fanny had in charge a splendid, tawny-headed little boy of three, who played happily by himself, about the kitchen door, and chased chickens and kittens with shrieks of delight. Mrs. Burgoyne spoke of him as "Fanny's little brother," and if the two had a history of any sort, it was one at which she never hinted. She met an embarrassing question with a readiness which rather amused Mrs. Brown, on a day when the two younger ladies were having tea with Mrs. Apostleman, and the conversation turned to the subject of maids. ”

“ Then Mrs. Burgoyne came into the salon, and not noticing the girl who was hidden behind a great pot of broom threw herself on the sofa with a long sigh of fatigue. Lucy could just see the pale face against the pillow and the closed eyes. Thus abandoned and at rest, there was something strangely pitiful in the whole figure, for all its grace.
A wave of feeling rose in the girl's breast. She slipped softly from her hiding-place, took a silk wrap that was lying on a chair, and approached Mrs. Burgoyne.
'Let me put this over you. Won't you sleep before dinner? And I will shut the window. ”

“ Lloyd.
"Why, it wouldn't hurt them to hear me say no," said Mrs. Burgoyne, in surprise. "I never can understand why parents, who practise every imaginable self-denial themselves, are always afraid the first renunciation will kill their child. Sooner or later they are going to learn what life is. I know a little girl whose parents are multi-millionaires, and who is going to be told some day soon that her two older sisters aren't living abroad, as she thinks, but shut up for life, within a few miles of her. What worse blow could life give to the poorest girl?" ”

“ Miss Burgoyne turns round from the mirror. "Lionel, what do you mean?"
"You know what I mean: let us be engaged lovers off the stage as well as on." She hangs down her head. He goes to her and kisses her—without any mistletoe; she murmurs some doubt and hesitation, in her maiden shyness; he laughingly reassures her; it is all over, in half a dozen seconds. And then? Why, then he has secured for himself a sufficiently good-natured life-companion; it will be convenient in many ways, especially when they are engaged at the same theatre; he will marry in his own sphere, and everybody be satisfied. ”

“ But it is nothing of the kind. We take what we want of it, and leave the rest. But you!—if you come over to us, that is another matter! You have to swallow it all. You must begin even with Adam and Eve!'
'Ah! but what I can't understand,' said Fioravanti, 'is how Mrs. Burgoyne allowed it. She ought to have given the book another direction—and she could. She is an extremely clever woman! She knows that caricature is not argument.'
'But what has happened to Mrs. Burgoyne?' said the Marchesa to Lucy, throwing up her hands, 'Such a change! ”

“ And as far as copying goes, don't we women always copy somebody, anyway? Aren't we always imitating the San Francisco women, and don't they copy New York, and doesn't New York copy London or Paris? We read what feathers are in, and how skirts are cut, and how coffee and salads are served, and we all do it, or try to. And when Mrs. Burgoyne came to the Hall, and never took one particle of interest in that sort of thing, I just thought it over and wondered why I should attempt to impress a woman who could buy this whole town and not miss the money? ”

“ And a moment later four children, tired, happy and laden with orchard spoils, came around the corner of the house. Barry presented them as the Carews—George and Jeanette, a bashful fourteen and a self-possessed twelve, and Dick, who was seven—and his own small dusty son, Billy Valentine, who put a fat confiding hand in the strange lady's as they all went down to the gate together.
"You are my Joanna's age, Jeanette," said Mrs. Burgoyne, easily. "I hope you will be friends."
"Who will I be friends with?" said little Billy, raising blue expectant eyes. "And who will George?" ”

“ Burgoyne and the little girls were always most cordial to visitors. They spent these first days deep in gardening, great heaps of fragrant dying weeds about them, and raw vistas through the pruned trees already beginning to show the gracious slopes of the land, and the sleepy Lobos down beneath the willows. The Carew children and the little Browns were often there, fascinated by the outdoor work, as children always are, and little Billy Valentine squirmed daily through his own particular gap in the hedge, and took his share of the fun with a deep and silent happiness. ”

“ And yet he feels a sort of remorse at having said nothing, as the door closes upon her depressed back. Backs can look quite as depressed as faces. The lateness of their start home has thrown their return late. Burgoyne reflects that he may as well dine at once, and then trudge through his solitary evening as best he may. Heaven knows at what hour Byng may return. ”

“ Perhaps when Elizabeth can see only the back of his head she may resume her jokes. But all the same he knows that, for her, there will be no more mirth to-day.
"That is what they always do!" cries a voice on Burgoyne's left hand—the voice of his other neighbour, who begins to think that his attention has been usurped quite long enough by her plump rival. "That is what they always do—come long after dinner has begun, and go out long before it has ended. Such swagger!"
There is a tinge of exasperation in both words and voice, nor is the cause far to seek. ”

“ Apostleman invited several of her friends to a formal dinner given especially for Mrs. Burgoyne everyone realized that the newcomer was accepted, and the event was one of several in which the women of Santa Paloma tried with more than ordinary eagerness to outshine each other. Mrs. Apostleman herself never entered into competition with the younger matrons, nor did they expect it of her. She gave heavy, rich, old-fashioned dinners in her own way, in which her servants were perfectly trained. It was a standing joke among her friends that they always ate too much at Mrs. ”

“ The thought of old Rogers' face when he opens his paper every morning does me good, I'm writing this appeal for the new reservoir now, and I've got to play up the Flower Festival."
"I'm not interested in the Flower Festival," said Mrs. Burgoyne good-naturedly, "and the minute it's over I'm going to start a crusade for a girls' clubhouse in Old Paloma. Conditions over there for the girls are something hideous. ”

“ Brown, "but go on! What have we all done? We manage our houses, and dress our children, and feed our husbands, it seems to me."
"Well, there's the big business of motherhood," began Mrs. Burgoyne, "the holiest and highest thing God ever let a mortal do. We evade it and ignore it to such an extent that the nation—and other nations—grows actually alarmed, and men begin to frame laws to coax us back to the bearing of children. Then, if we have them, we turn the entire responsibility over to other people. ”

“ The beauty of the world has always been very much to Burgoyne, though hitherto it has been chiefly in the austerity of her high and desert places that he has bowed the knee before the Universal Mother. This little gold evening city, sunset clad in the colours of the New Jerusalem, lifting her heavenly campanile to as heavenly a sky, is to him a new and wonderful thing. Her loveliness sinks into his soul, and with it a companion sadness as deep. From henceforth the sight of earth's fair shows will be, for the most part, forbidden him. He has always loved to look and adore in silence and alone ”

“ Wayne said she did."
Mrs. Adams turned pink herself; the others laughed suddenly.
"Oh, you naughty girl!" Mrs. White said. "Did you tell Wayne you got that frock in Santa Paloma?"
"What Wayne doesn't know won't hurt him," said his wife. "Sh! Here they come!" And the conversation terminated abruptly, with much laughter.
Mrs. Burgoyne's dinner-party dispersed shortly after ten o'clock, so much earlier than was the custom in Santa Paloma that none of the ordered motor-cars were in waiting. The guests walked home together, absorbed in an animated conversation ”

“ Burgoyne looks at him in silence, again with a sort of admiration mixed with wrath. How has this commonplace, pink-and-white boy managed to scale such an altitude, while he himself, in all his life, though with a better intelligence, and, as he had thought, with a deeper heart, had but prowled around the foot? Why should he try to drag him down? On the peak of that great Jungfrau of rapture no human foot can long stand.
"As I told you, Mrs. Le Marchant turned me away from their door," pursues Byng. ”

“ Brown said thoughtfully, one day, as they watched her with the other children; "we can't ever hope to feel that any of our children are as safe as she is."
Mrs. Burgoyne's method of entertaining the children was simple. She always made them work as hard as possible. One day they begged her to let them build a "truly dam" that would really stop the Lobos in its placid course. She consulted gravely with George Carew: should they attempt it? George, after serious consideration, thought they should. ”