Mrs. Dale

“ Mrs. Dale was a strikingly beautiful and intelligent widow of thirty-eight, the daughter of a well-to-do and somewhat famous New York family of Dutch extraction—the widow of an eminent banker of considerable wealth who had been killed in an automobile accident near Paris some years before. She was the mother of four children, Suzanne, eighteen; Kinroy, fifteen; Adele, twelve, and Ninette, nine, but the size of her family had in no way affected the subtlety of her social personality and the delicacy of her charm and manner. ”

“ Dale turned the key in the lock and crept back, not to the couch, but to the arm-chair.
Mabin shut her eyes and tried to disentangle the knot of strange ideas that filled her brain:
What was the nature of the secret which weighed on the conscience of Mrs. Dale? Why was she kept in luxury by the very woman who tried to make her life unbearable, to cut her off from every human friend? What was the strange tie between the hard, elderly woman and the impulsive, volatile young one? ”

“ Indeed, I may say I know everybody in Allington."
"Do you know Mrs. Dale?"
"Mrs. Dale?" said Johnny. "Yes, I know Mrs. Dale. I have known Mrs. Dale pretty nearly all my life." Who could this man be who was going down to see Mrs. Dale,—Mrs. Dale, and consequently, Lily Dale? He thought that he knew Mrs. Dale so well, that she could have no visitor of whom he would not be entitled to have some knowledge. But Major Grantly had nothing more to say at the moment about Mrs. Dale. He had never seen Mrs. Dale in his life, and was now going to her house, not to see her, but a friend of hers. ”

“ Like all persons convinced of the expediency of a thing, Mrs. Dale saw nothing wanting but opportunities to insure its success. And that these might be forthcoming, she not only renewed with greater frequency, and more urgent instance than ever, her friendly invitations to drink tea and spend the evening, but she artfully so chafed the Squire on his sore point of hospitality, that the Doctor received weekly a pressing solicitation to dine and sleep at the Hall. ”

“ But spring, coming early to Paradise Park, brought a fever to Dale's blood—a fire of unutterable longing. It was good, perhaps, that this was so, because he seemed driven to work, climb, tramp, and keep ceaselessly on the move from dawn till dark. Action strengthened his lax muscles and kept him from those motionless, senseless hours of brooding. He at least need not be ashamed of longing for that which could never be his—the sweetness of a woman—a home full of light, joy, hope, the meaning and beauty of children. ”

“ They were under the portico now, and as their footsteps sounded on the stone, they saw through the open door into the dark hall and heard Mrs. Dale’s soft voice calling to them.
“It takes ever so much longer to get a thing done than to do it one’s self!” she exclaimed brightly, with a sigh, as she came out of the room on the left, and invited them to go in. “I could have brought Miss Rose in in half the time, even if she had fought to get away. Did she fight?” went on Mrs. Dale with arch innocence. ”

“ The solemnity of that meeting in the field still hung about him, and gave to his present feelings a manliness and a truth of purpose which were too generally wanting to them. If only those feelings would last! But now he talked to Mrs. Dale about her daughter, and about their future prospects, in a tone which he could not have used had not his mind for the time been true to her. He had never spoken so freely to Lily's mother, and at no time had Mrs. Dale felt for him so much of a mother's love. ”

“ The happiest laugh of all was from Dale, himself—that low, inaudible movement of the throat wherewith he expressed his gayest moods. He had been turned out in the pasture of his heart's desire, and was gathering a harvest with feverish hands. Since the first Monday morning after his arrival, when he crept to the schoolhouse at break of day and waited in the opposite thicket with his long rifle to see if Tusk would come again, the mantle of civilization wrapped quickly about him. ”

“ Smyth?" said Mrs. Dale, promenading up and down the room; "haven't I grown stout?"
"But you are all uneven," laughed Mrs. Smyth.
"Now, that is cruel, Mrs. Smyth; 'tis 'love's labor lost,' after having utilized all the mats, towels and pillow-shams in my bedroom as stuffing, to be simply told I am uneven."
"Stuffing never goes down with me, Mrs. Dale," laughed Mrs. Smyth.
"It's a good thing for us you are not a man," said Mrs. Dale, demurely.
"Women all angles would cry 'hear, hear!'" laughed Mrs. Gower.
"But you don't ask me what brought me in this morning." ”

“ OLD HEARTS MADE YOUNG
Nature left nothing to be desired in the weather as the hour approached for the concert at the Lucinda Home. Over the closely shaven lawn and beneath the shade of the trees lay the tranquillity of a summer’s afternoon.
This was disturbed, shortly after lunch, by the roaring of the Dale car as it rushed up the curving driveway to the main building. It was driven by Ike, and Serena sat beside him in the purity of apparel, freshly laundered and starched. ”

“ Aunt's petticoats were above her hips, as she knelt. The old boy's cock stood, he advanced, knelt down, got between her legs, and fucked her as she was, begging her to continue her lascivious operations on Mrs. Dale. When he had finished, he congratulated both ladies on the intimate friendship established between them, said it was the best wish of his heart. He assured Mrs. Dale that his wife was the best woman in the world, and never grudged him a little variety. ”

“ After the boys had left, the languorous October days passed very slowly at The Dale, and Elizabeth's energies of both body and mind soon began to cry out for a wider field of activity.
She was hourly oppressed with a sense of her own uselessness, a feeling her aunt's aggrieved manner tended to foster. Her heart smote her as she saw everyone at work but herself. She tried to help her father with his township affairs, but he met all her offers of assistance with his indulgent smile, and the remark that little girls could not understand business, and she must not bother her head. ”

“ I honour the fair sex too much. There are a great many women who realize the ideal of men, to be found in—the poets!”
“There’s my dear Mrs. Dale,” resumed the parson, not heeding the sarcastic compliment to the sex, but sinking his voice into a whisper, and looking round cautiously,—“there’s my dear Mrs. Dale, the best woman in the world,—an angel I would say, if the word were not profane ”

“ But Rejoice Dale took her sister's hand in hers.
"'Though a thousand fall beside thee, and ten thousand at thy right hand, yet it shall not come nigh thee,'" she said steadfastly. "Our blind child is in her Father's hand, Sister; He leads her, and she can go nowhere without Him. Go you now, and seek for her."
"I cannot!" cried Vesta Dale, wringing her hands and weeping. "I cannot leave you, Rejoice. You know I cannot leave you." ”

“ Dale,—"I do dislike untidy gardens; flowers, and vines, and trees, all crowded together, and weeds too, if the truth's told. I never could understand how the Woodhouse girls could endure that forlorn old place of theirs. But then, a woman never does make a really good manager unless she's married."
Lois found her aunt in the long parlor, playing Patience. She was sitting in a straight-backed chair,—for Mrs. Dale scorned the weakness of a rocking-chair,—before a spindle-legged table, covered with green baize and with a cherry-wood rim inlaid with mother-of-pearl and ivory. ”

“ THOSE DALE GIRLS 1CHAPTER I
“Julie Dale, you’re the laziest thing in creation! Come down from that window-seat and help.”
“Can’t, my dear,” a gay young voice responded. “I’m as ‘comfy as comfy can be.’”
“Look at her, Peter Snooks,” said Hester to a fox-terrier at her side; “just look at her! She’s curled up in a heap, reveling in that fascinating Kipling, with her mouth all screwed up for this popcorn, which she thinks we will take in state to her ladyship. But we’ll fool her—eh, Snooks? We’ll fool her completely. We’ll just sit complacently on the floor and eat it all up ourselves.” ”

“ Dale was still a very pretty woman, as Mrs. Hazeldean was still a very fine woman. Mrs. Dale painted in water colors and sang, and made card-racks and pen-holders, and was called an "elegant, accomplished woman." Mrs. Hazeldean cast up the Squire's accounts, wrote the best part of his letters, kept a large establishment in excellent order, and was called "a clever, sensible woman." ”

“ Dale I had not seen for several years, but I knew that he was living in New York, where he had not long before married an heiress of obscure antecedents, according to rumor. That it was he I had little doubt; and though the fact of his having an office in the same street could not of course affect, either for evil or otherwise, the interests of my protégé, I had an indefinable feeling of dread at perceiving they were so near to one another. ”

“ I had no more interest in my husband, I told myself.
"You are going, Mrs. Ravener?" queried Captain Dillington in a mocking tone, his jeering exuberance once more asserting itself.
"I am going," I said.
Arthur seized his hat, and sprang towards the door. "I will go with you, Elsie," he said in a pleading tone.
"You will not," I exclaimed. "You shall not enter the house—with me, at any rate."
"He has a perfect right to do so," remarked Captain Dillington. "It is his home; you are his wife." ”

“ I bowed very low and raised my head with a cheerful and gay smile.
"Most willingly," I answered.
"And what of reservations, Mr. Dale?"
"May it please your Majesty, they do not hold across the water."
"Good. My brother is more fortunate than I. God be with you, Mr Dale."
At that I smiled again. And the King smiled. My errand was a strange one to earn a benediction.
"Be off with you," he said with an impatient laugh. "A man must pick his words in talking with you." ”

“ The King's face wore a smile and the smile broadened as he spoke to me.
"You're a wilful man, Mr Dale," said he, "but fortune is more wilful still. You would not woo her, therefore woman-like she loves you. You were stubborn, but she is resolute to overcome your stubbornness. But don't try her too far. She stands waiting for you open-armed. ”

“ Dale. He understood; she could be silent with him. So she came very often to his little basement office, and spent long mornings with him, helping him label some books, or copying notes which he had intended "getting into shape" these twenty years. She liked the stillness and dimness of the small room, with its smell of leather-covered volumes, or whiff of wood smoke from the fireplace.
Mrs. Dale rarely disturbed them. "If Helen finds any pleasure in that musty old room," she said, one cold January morning, "I'm sure I'm glad. ”

“ Mr. Dale would probably have forgotten him, and would be sure to ask what had brought him to Allington. He would go and take a walk, he said, and come again exactly at half-past three. Mrs. Dale again expressed her certainty that the young ladies would be back by that time, and Major Grantly left the house.
Mrs. Dale when she was left alone could not but compare the good fortune which was awaiting Grace, with the evil fortune which had fallen on her own child. Here was a man who was at all points a gentleman. Such, at least, was the character which Mrs. Dale at once conceded to him. ”

“ Dale’s offer, you will be sorry three years hence.”
“Then I shall accept, Edna, dear,” he said.
Three years later I took Mrs. Sidney Dale out to dinner at the house of a common friend in New York. In the course of conversation I remarked, “I believe it is you, Mrs. Dale, who is responsible for the metamorphosis in my friend, Morgan Russell.”
“Is he a friend of yours?”
“An old friend since college days. I never saw any one so spruced up, shall I call it? He has gained fifteen pounds, is growing whiskers, and is beginning to look the embodiment of worldly prosperity.” ”

“ Dale was certainly a proud woman,—not that there was anything appertaining to herself in which she took a pride. In birth she had been much lower than her husband, seeing that her grandfather had been almost nobody. Her fortune had been considerable for her rank in life, and on its proceeds she now mainly depended; but it had not been sufficient to give any of the pride of wealth. And she had been a beauty; according to my taste, was still very lovely; but certainly at this time of life, she, a widow of fifteen years' standing, with two grown-up daughters, took no pride in her beauty. ”

“ You know, Elsie, that the French in every catastrophe that happens, declare that 'cherchez la femme' will explain everything."
"I do not understand you," I said in a dazed way. " Why there is not a soul in our house but the servants and my maid, Marie."
"Perhaps not," said Mrs. Bouverie. "But there are plenty of souls out of your house, my dear, and—according to your story—that is where your husband spends the greater part of his time. His neglect of you is only too clear. He is interested in some other woman, and with her he spends his time. ”

“ Dale was so much at our house that I was not surprised when my father asked one evening the same question put to me by Aunt Helen. Our intimacy had continued without further developments, except a constantly increasing devotion on his part and a corresponding pleasure in his society on my own. I did not make my infatuation conspicuous by walking with him in the streets, but otherwise I did not attempt to disguise the partiality I felt for him. Had I mixed more with other girls before entering society I might have been less guileless. ”