Mrs. Cliff

“ But Sarah Cliff isn't the kind of woman to keep things for herself when they're wanted by others, and when she had given everything that she had to those poor creatures at the hospitals, she took my things without as much as takin' the trouble to ask me, for in times like that she isn't the woman to hesitate when she thinks she's doin' what ought to be done, and at one time, in that hospital, there was eleven corpses in my night-gowns! ”

“ A few days of that sort of bounce and Maculay would have it. The door closed exuberantly and Cliff was on his way to a one-year binge.
He paused once outside of the doctor's office. Ava Longacre was bent over some notes, and Cliff viewed her contemplatively. She stood up and smiled at him. It was a sort of professional smile, the kind she gave all of the doctor's visitors; it made no difference to Ava whether the visitor were seventy or seventeen. She gave each of them the same dry smile. ”

“ Clifford’s Story
“What did he say?” demanded both Jane and Freckles the moment David McCall was out of hearing distance.
Mary Louise leaned forward and lowered her voice.
“He said Cliff Hunter set the place on fire himself—to get the insurance. Now that his father is dead, the bungalow belongs to him.”
“How awful!” exclaimed Jane. “Do you believe that, Mary Lou?”
“No, I don’t—knowing Cliff as I do. Do you, Mother?”
“Certainly not,” replied Mrs. Gay emphatically. “It’s just David’s jealousy. He’s poor himself, and he has a sort of grudge against all rich people.” ”

“ Mrs. Clifford still hesitated a little, but in the meantime some by-play had been going on which decided the question. The butler had called a footman, the footman had taken a portmanteau and some smaller packages from the boot of the carriage. The name of Mrs. Clifford had been mentioned once or twice, a lady's-maid crossing the hall had seen the two ladies' faces by the light of a great lamp, and in a moment after, from a door on the opposite side of the vestibule, came forth a fair and graceful figure, looking like Hebe dressed for dinner. ”

“ Enter Sir Clement.
Sir C. Well, Clifford, what do you think of her?
Cliff. Make yourself perfectly easy, sir: This girl, when known, can make no impression on Lord Gayville's mind; and I doubt not but a silk-gown and a lottery-ticket, had they been offered as an ultimatum, would have purchased her person.
Sir C. [With a dry sneer.] Don't you sometimes Clifford, form erroneous opinions of people's pretensions? Interest and foolish passion inspire strange notions—as one or the other prevails, we are brought to look so low, or so high—
Cliff. [With emotion.] ”

“ Cliff entered the parlor of Miss Cushing, five women each gave a sudden start. The dressmaker [Pg 94] was so thrown off her balance that she dropped her sewing on the floor, and rising, went forward to shake her visitor by the hand, a thing she was not in the habit of doing to anybody, because, as is well known to all the world, a person who is sewing for a livelihood cannot get up to shake hands with the friends and acquaintances who may happen in upon her. ”

“ W. K. Clifford was often at Addison Mansions. She is a very old friend of mine, and a great personality. Mrs. Clifford is an admirable example of the modern woman, breezy, wholesome, warm-hearted, clear-visioned, lucid in expression, interested in all questions of the day, and withal one of our best novelists. Early in life she suffered a loss which would have overwhelmed most women, for she lost her husband, Prof. ”

“ But the alternative she refused, steadfastly, to permit herself to believe, even yet.
"But why be upset?" Cliff asked innocently when, at last, Julia brought herself to speak to him about Gin's lying. "Kid's are always making up things—it's only harmless imagination working overtime." ”

“ Clifford only got fifteen pounds royalties off the whole dozen editions.
The first batch of love-letters in this volume appeared 128anonymously in the Fortnightly, and were generally attributed to Oscar Wilde. As a piece of poetical justice when Housman’s An English-woman’s Love-letters were published seven years later, they were attributed to Mrs. Clifford. The Love-letters of a Worldly Woman was a remarkable book, and fully deserved its American popularity.
Mrs. Clifford is, above all things, an idealist and a lover of good work. ”

“ The White Pine is a tree that harmonizes with all situations, rude and cultivated, level and abrupt. On the side of the mountain it adds grandeur to the declivity, and gives a look of sweeter tranquillity to the green pastoral meadow. It yields a darker frown to the projecting cliff, and a more awful uncertainty to the mountain-pass or the hollow ravine. Amid desolate scenery it spreads a cheerfulness that detracts nothing from its power over the imagination, while it relieves it of its terrors by presenting a green bulwark to defend us from the elements. ”

“ How odd it seemed to think that she, a stranger, should know more about Lady Clifford than her own family! Or perhaps it wasn't so strange after all. One's family was often the last to know things, its ignorance was proverbial. She felt a sudden wave of pity for the old man, lying ill and unsuspecting.
When she slipped back into Sir Charles's room, she found Miss Clifford in a chair by the window, knitting. ”

“ Cliffe talks nonsense about our love of clothes—and of being admired. As if that were vanity! Of course it's only our sense of duty."
"Duty?" cried Cliffe, twisting his mustache. "To whom?"
"To the men, of course! If we didn't like clothes, if we didn't like being admired—where would you be?"
"Personally, I could get on," said Cliffe. "You expect us to be too much on our knees."
"As if we should ever get you there if it didn't amuse you!" said Kitty. "Hypocrites! ”

“ So that before they knew they were in the midst of the most burning subjects of human discussion—at first in a manner comparatively veiled and general, then with the sharpest personal reference to Cliffe's own story, as the intimacy between them grew. Jealousy, suffering, the "hard cases" of passion—why men are selfish and exacting, why women mislead and torment—the ugly waste and crudity of death—it was among these great themes they found themselves. Death above all—it was to a thought of death that Cliffe's harsh face owed its chief spell perhaps in Kitty's eyes. ”

“ Each word came out winged and charged with a strange intensity of passion.
"Do I?" said Cliffe, raising his eyebrows—"do I want to know?"
Her look held him.
"My husband, William Ashe!"
And she fell back, flushed and breathless, like one who throws out a rebel and challenging flag.
Cliffe was silent a moment, observing her.
"Strange!" he said, at last. "It is only when you are miserable you are kind. I could wish you miserable again, chérie."
Tone and look broke into a sombre wildness before which she shrank. Her own violence passed away. ”

“ It was here that Christine's piano stood, and as Miss Barbara always sought the more gayly-furnished parlor as soon as her music-lesson was ended, so Clara learned to despise that apartment, and spend much of her time in this room.
Toward sunset, when shadows grew heavier, and the evening breeze shook the foliage, the broken mound with its single tree had always a dreary look about it, and even Clara was moved into saying, "If Mr. Muldweber should die, I would not dare come to this tree in the evening sun—it would be haunted, I know. ”

“ Leaning on the balustrade, all faces turned one way, they fringed the promenade, leaving the broad, paved spaces empty.
For this reason Chip's eye caught the more quickly at the other end of the terrace the figures of a man and a woman who stood back from the line of gazers. They were almost in profile toward himself, the man's erect, stately form allowing the fact that a woman was clinging to his arm to be just perceptible. It required no such movement as that of a few minutes later—a movement by which the woman came more fully into view—for Chip to recognize Edith. ”

“ Julia. There Clifford speaks again! Not Clifford’s heart
Could more make Clifford’s voice! Not Clifford’s tongue
And lips more frame it into Clifford’s speech!
A question, and ’tis over! Know I you?
Clif. Reverse of fortune, lady, changes friends;
It turns them into strangers. What I am
I have not always been!
Julia. Could I not name you?
Clif. If your disdain for one, perhaps too bold
When hollow fortune called him favourite,—
Now by her fickleness perforce reduced
To take an humble tone, would suffer you—
Julia. I might?
Clif. You might!
Julia. Oh, Clifford! is it you? ”

“ Clifford's gravely telling him that he believed there were no women on the island, he was thrown off his guard, and answered hastily, that he had both a wife and daughter, but instantly checking himself, turned the conversation another way. On the picture of an English lady being shewn to him, he commended it highly, saying, at the same time, "Doochoo innágo whoóco oorung" (Loo-choo women are not handsome.) This old gentleman is a better teacher than scholar ”

“ On the chaise-longue in the circle of light from a rose-shaded lamp, Lady Clifford smoked tranquilly, her silver-shod feet in front of her, a fashion magazine spread on her lap. She seemed at peace with the world.
"What a relief, Thérèse, to think Charles is going on so well," the old lady remarked at the finish of a hand. "In a day or so he will have passed the crisis. I feel so much easier in my mind."
"Ah, yes," Lady Clifford replied, looking up. "From now on I should think we have nothing to fear."
Just then the doctor entered from the hall, setting his empty coffee cup on a table. ”

“ Far from yielding at once to the apparently inevitable conclusion, Clifford fought against it with all his might. Quickly as his passion for the girl had sprung up, it was strong enough to make him ready to accept any hypothesis, however improbable, rather than accept the evidence of his own senses when that evidence was against her. He was ready to believe that there was in the house another woman with a hand as small, as soft, as smooth-skinned as the one he had held in his hand when [35] he bade Nell good-night. ”

“ They left Madame Claire’s together at six, and Chip, happily reckless as well as recklessly happy, walked with Judy all the way to Eaton Square. It was settled that he was to dine there and begin his rejuvenation the following Wednesday night. For Judy told herself that she couldn’t keep Chip a secret from the family forever, and they might as well meet him and get done with it.
“I hope you won’t be frightened of mother,” she said. “I don’t know why it is, but she does frighten people. I don’t think she wants to, really. ”

“ But as he sprang toward her, she sprang back and made a rush for the door of the cottage. Clifford, however, was too quick for her, and placing himself between the girl and the refuge she wished to [66] reach, he spoke to her in imploring, passionate tones:
“One moment. You must listen to me. All the world will be against you, you say? Not all, Nell, not all. I will take your part. I will show them what to believe. Take me for your husband, Nell, and then who can dare to think of you except as I think? Who can dare to say a word when you are my wife?” ”

“ Cliffe. I can't wait for Lord Hubert any more, I'm so hungry!"
"Enchanted!" said Cliffe, the color leaping into his tanned face as he looked down upon the goddess. "But I came to find—"
"Miss Lyster? Oh, she is gone in with Mr. Darrell. Come with me. I have a ticket for the reserved tent. We shall have a delicious corner to ourselves."
And she took from her glove the little coveted paste-board, which—handed about in secret to a few intimates of the house—gave access to the sanctum sanctorum of the evening. ”

“ He had been walking on with Clifford in the direction of the Blue Lion.
“I have it!” he exclaimed with conviction. “It’s on account of Nell Claris, her little protégée. My daughter is very indignant about the way in which the girl has been persecuted lately, and I suppose she thinks that you have had something to do with it.”
“Then indeed she is wrong!” cried Clifford, hotly. “Nobody is more angry than I am about it. And you will believe me when I tell you that I have come down to-day on purpose to ask Nell, and for the second time, to be my wife.” ”

“ Clifford said, "only I didn't know. You see, if we had not been brought up together, if we had met casually, as people who get to love one another do——"
He broke off abruptly, and Sylvia laughed. Then she stooped and lifted Clifford in her arms as if he had been a child and placed him tenderly in the sledge. There was not another word spoken as they made their way back again, with the grey wolves of the gale howling for their lost prey—indeed, there was nothing more to say. They were back again presently, back in the warm shelter of the hut, safe and sound and happy. ”

“ She believes that he is becoming absorbed in politics—much more ambitious than she ever thought he would be."
"That's the way of mothers," said Cliffe, with a sarcastic lip. "They have got to make the best of their sons. Tell me what you are going to do this summer."
He had thrown one arm round the back of a chair, and sat looking down upon her, his colorless fair hair falling thick upon his brow, and giving by contrast a strange inhuman force to the dark and singular eyes beneath. ”

“ He felt that he was no match for the Little Doctor, and for the first time in his life he deeply regretted his ignorance of woman nature.
When the dishes were done, the Countess put her resentment behind her and went in to sit with Chip, with the best of intentions. The most disagreeable trait of some disagreeable people is that their intentions are invariably good. She had her “crochy work,” and Chip groaned inwardly when he saw her settle herself comfortably in a rocking-chair and unwind her thread. The Countess had worked hard all her life, and her hands were red and big-jointed. ”