Mrs. Gower

“ Suddenly Venus stood by me, and I fell upon my knee and prayed her to do me grace. ‘What is thy name?’ she said, as if in game. ‘John Gower,’ I replied. ‘I have read thy bill,’ she said, ‘in which thou hast complained to Nature and to me. Nature is mistress where she will, and I excuse thee for following her law: but as for what thou sayest, that I am bound to relieve thee, because thou hast served in my Court, I will give thee medicine that will heal thy heart, but perchance it will not be such as thou desirest.’ (2301-2376.) ”

“ Blair would be harder still; so, nerving herself for the parting, she determines on making her preparations at once.
No one meeting the friends, as they walk into town, would imagine that the dusky shadow of sorrow sits in each heart; the pretty little face of Mrs. Dale being set off by a bonnet, with pink feathers, her seal coat and muff making her warm and comfortable. Mrs. Gower, in a heavy dark blue gown, short dolman boa and muff of the bear; a pretty little bonnet blending with her gown, the glow of heat from exercise lending color to her cheeks. ”

“ Gower, quietly.
"And why the deuce don't you go and do it, then—eh?"
"Because, Squire Erliston, I am resolved to keep the child," said Mrs. Gower, firmly.
"What! what! WHAT!" exclaimed the squire, speechless with mingled rage and astonishment at the audacious reply.
"Yes, sir," reiterated Mrs. Gower, resolutely. "I consider that child sent to me by Heaven, and I cannot part with it."
"Fudge! stuff! fiddlesticks! ”

“ Gower enters the room.
"Ah! how d'ye do!" says Dulce, nestling up to him, her soft skirts making a gentle frou-frou as she moves; "so glad you have come. You are late, are you not?" She gives him her hand, and smiles up into his eyes. To all the others her excessive cordiality means only a desire to chagrin Dare, to Stephen Gower it means—well, perhaps, at this point of their acquaintance he hardly knows what it means—but it certainly heightens her charms in his sight. ”

“ Gower with a slight smile. “I think I may say, with Porthos, that my mountains are very fine—‘mon air est très-beau,’ you know.”
[175] “Tell me, Mrs. Gower,” said Arthur, “who is the lady talking with the man I do not know; the dark man, with broad shoulders?”
“Don’t you know him? That is Lionel Derwent, the great English traveller—writer—soldier—socialist—what shall I say? And she is Mrs. Wilton Hay. You must indeed know her, for you are to take her in to dinner. Shall I introduce you?” ”

“ Gower, regarding her with gentle sorrow.
"Oh, don't be stupid!" says Margaret. "Tell me what I want to know; about Marian. I am sorry if there really has occurred a breach between her and my aunt."
"There is little doubt about that! What a born orator is a woman!" says Mr. Gower, with deep enthusiasm. "Not one woman, mind you, but every woman. What command of language is theirs! I assure you if Mr. Goldstone had heard Mrs. Bethune on the subject of the Dowager Lady Rylton to-day, he would have given her a place in the Cabinet upon the spot. ”

“ As the soft laughter fell on the air, the stranger looked towards them, and looked so intently, that involuntarily his hand is raised to his head and his hat lifted.
"You say you have not met him, Mrs. Gower; you are a very prudent woman, I must say, coming out here in your white gown, with ribbons the color of a peach, creating a sensation; you had better wed an affinity since you won't have me, and get a protector at once."
"That is the man I dreamed of whom the æronauts dubbed my affinity; it's too bad we are not acquainted, instead of only getting instantaneous photographs of each other." ”

“ Lord Feltre stood in the framing of it—a welcome sight. The ‘monastic man of fashion,’ of Gower’s phrase for him, entered, crooning condolences, with a stretched waxen hand for his friend, a partial nod for Nature’s worshipper—inefficient at any serious issue of our human affairs, as the earl would now discover.
Gower left the two young noblemen to their greetings. Happily for him, philosophy, in the present instance, after a round of profundities, turned her lantern upon the comic aspect of his errand. ”

“ CHAPTER XXVI. ELECTRIC TIPS AMONG THE ROSES.
During luncheon, Mrs. Gower, seeing that her companions seem too full of busy thought to be talkative, exerts herself keeping up a constant flow of little nothings, requiring no replies; her spirits became less depressed by the effort to keep sorrow at bay, her pleasant walk to town has really been a tonic to her. And now the knowledge that the Coles may come in at any moment; that a handsome face, so full of power and sympathy with herself, will be here also; with the meeting by the Smyths and herself of the wife of their old friend Charlie Cole ”

“ On reaching Holmnest they find Mr. Dale, who has returned from the North-West, and Miss Crew, in the library.
Mrs. Gower, not pretending to notice that the latter has been in tears, and to give her an excuse to make her exit, asks her to carry her wraps upstairs for her; and then to go and give them some music during the few minutes before luncheon.
"Mrs. Gower is taking better care of you, little wife, than you are of her, now that the roses from the frosty air are fading. I notice she is paler and thinner."
"Don't blame me, Henry," she answered, stroking his whiskers; "blame Mr. Cobbe. ”

“ Miss Blount, with her fingers interlaced, is watching him furtively, a little petulant expression in her eyes.
"It seems to me you think more of your absent cousin than of—of anyone in the world," says Gower, sullenly. Fear of what her answer may be has induced him to leave his own name out of the question altogether.
"As I told you before, one always thinks most of what is unpleasing to one."
"Oh, I daresay!" says Mr. Gower.
"I don't think I quite understand you. What do you mean by that?" asks she, with suspicious sweetness.
"Dulce," says Stephen, miserably, "say you hate Roger." ”

“ Gower, and I mean to show them what a New York boy can do."
"That's right; defy circumstance and fate, and mount."
"Good night, and good-bye, dear Mrs. Gower, for I leave, as you are aware, for a run north-east, to look at some mines with our friend Buckingham."
"Yes, so I hear; what birds of passage you men are; but you don't leave until Monday, when your good little wife and Miss Crew come to me during your absence."
"I really don't know what Ella would do without Holmnest and—you."
"Take care of yourself, Elaine," said Mrs. Dale, with a meaning pressure of the hand. ”

“ Up the carriage-road, in front, the sleigh containing our travelers drove. Good Mrs. Gower—who for many years had been Squire Erliston's housekeeper—alighted, and, passing through the long hall, entered a cheerful-looking apartment known as the "housekeeper's room."
Seating herself in an elbow-chair to recover her breath, Mrs. Gower laid the baby in her bed, and rang [Pg 44] the bell. The summons was answered by a tidy little darkey, who rushed in all of a flutter.
"Laws! Missus Scour, I's 'stonished, I is! Whar's de young 'un! Jupe say you fotch one from the city." ”

“ Miss Gower uprears herself.
"Be careful, woman! be careful!" says she gloomily. "There is a warmer climate in store for some of us than has been ever known on earth!"
She turns aside abruptly, and strides from the room.
Randal Gower gives way to mirth, and so do most of the others. Mrs. Chichester, it is true, laughs a little, but Tita can see that the laughter is somewhat forced.
She goes quickly up to her and slips her hand into hers.
"Don't mind her," says she. "As if a little word here and there would count, when one has a good heart, and I know you have one. ”

“ Cobbe; "I'll back up some of our own women against them for monopoly of that sort."
"I am at one with you, Mr. Dale," said Mrs. Gower, "for this reason: from the time an American woman can lisp, she is taught the cardinal ideas of the country, viz., liberty and equality."
"From your standpoint, Mrs. Gower, your sex should be all Republicans," said Mr. Dale. "What countryman are you, Mr. Blair?"
"A pure and unadulterated Scotchman; and I hope you like the land o' bagpipes, heather and oatcakes sufficiently as to like me none the less." ”

“ Gower, looking in vain for the English newspaper, seated herself comfortably to read the report of the Board of Trade dinner to the Honorable Joseph Chamberlain.
Miss Crew entered, robed for the winter streets. "Good-bye, Mrs. Gower; I shall not be late."
"Au revoir; give Mrs. Tremaine my love; and say, as the Dales may return from New York this evening, I found it impossible to leave; and be sure and wear your over-shoes: our streets are in their usual winter break-neck condition. I do hope the new Council will enforce the by-law." ”

“ He casts a lingering glance round, but providentially Miss Gower has disappeared.
"But toothbrushes! Show me that paper."
"Do you, then, disbelieve in my word?"
"Nobody could want a toothbrush."
"Some people want them awfully," says Mr. Gower. "Haven't you noticed?"
But here Sir Maurice sees it his duty to interfere.
"Miss Bolton, will you play this next set with me?" says he, coming up to Tita.
"Oh, I should love it!" cries she. "You are so good a player. Do get us some decent people to play against, though; I hate a weak game." ”

“ The courtesy of his manner is such a contrast to Roger's ill-temper, that the latter loses the last grain of self-control he possesses. There is, too, a little smile of conscious malice upon Gower's lips that grows even stronger as his eyes rest upon the darkened countenance of his whilom friend. His whilom friend, seeing it, lets wrath burn even fiercer within his breast.
"You are not engaged to any one else?" says Dulce, sweetly, forgetting how a moment since she had told Roger she had half promised Gower the dance in question. ”

“ Should I warn Lady Ellinor? But of what? The character of the servant, or the designs of the fictitious Gower? Against the first I could say, if nothing very positive, still enough to make it prudent to dismiss him. But of Gower or Vivian, what could I say without—not indeed betraying his confidence, for that he had never given me—but without belying the professions of friendship that I myself had lavishly made to him? Perhaps, after all, he might have disclosed whatever were his real secrets to Trevanion ”

“ Gower, in a depressing tone, putting in the plug.
When they reach it, he gives his arm to his aunt, and, in the tenderest fashion, helps her along the short pathway that leads to the house.
In the hall quite a large number of people are assembled, and everyone runs toward them.
"Why, we thought you were lost," says Mrs. Chichester.
"Yes, so we were very nearly," says Mr. Gower, shaking his head and advancing into the hall with the languid airs of one who has just undergone a strange experience. ”

“ This was Lady Gower, the only person to whom Helen had spoken of Carroll and of his great feeling for her. Lady Gower, immediately after her marriage, had been a conspicuous and brilliant figure in that set in London which works eighteen hours a day to keep itself amused, but after the death of her husband she had disappeared into the country as completely as though she had entered a convent, and after several years had then re-entered the world as a professional philanthropist. ”

“ When this sort of thing has gone on for five minutes, Gower, feeling he can stand it no longer, draws his breath quickly, and going over to the small ottoman seats himself upon a low chair, quite close to his betrothed; this effort he makes to assert his position, with all the air of a man who is determined to do or die. Her fan is lying on her knee. Taking it up, with a defiant glance at Roger, he opens it, and trifles with it idly, in a sort of proprietary fashion. ”

“ All he knew was that his father would have nothing to do with Gower, never mentioned the name voluntarily, let his catch of salmon rot on the beach before he would sell to a Gower cannery boat,—and had enjoined upon his son the same aloofness from all things Gower. Once, in answer to young Jack's curious question, his natural "why," Donald MacRae had said:
"I knew the man long before you were born, Johnny. I don't like him. I despise him. Neither I nor any of mine shall ever truck and traffic with him and his. When you are a man and can understand, I shall tell you more of this." ”

“ I do not even know if she be contented; but she certainly has more than her deserts. Perhaps she still hears, with half a sigh, of Kitty Farnum’s—the Countess of Birmingham’s—success in England; and casts a glance of envy at that [465] lady’s varied photographs in the shop-windows, if she ever walks down Broadway. But then her whilom protégée had married a peer of the realm; and I am sure that she is glad she has not married Caryl Wemyss.
But Mrs. Gower leads no longer. She even has little influence for ill; or if she has, she does not choose to exert it. She is a model no longer ”

“ Chichester, turning her thin shoulders, that always have some queer sort of fascination in them, on Gower. She gives him a glance out of her blue-green eyes. She is enjoying herself immensely, in spite of the day, being quite alive to the fact that Captain Marryatt is growing desperate, and that old Miss Gower, whom Tita has insisted on asking to her house party, is thinking dark things of her from the ottoman over there.
"What's it good for, any way?"
"For the ducks," says Mr. Gower, who is always there. An answer to any question under the sun comes as naturally to him as sighing to the sad. ”