Mrs. Moore

“ Disagreeable as I find it to air my sentiments in this public manner, yet since you provoke me to it, I will say once and for all, that I am deeply in love with Miss Moore, and that it is for this reason only I am going to marry her. Were she the penniless girl her sister is, and Miss Tuttle the proud possessor of the wealth which, in your eyes, confers such distinction upon Miss Moore, you would still see me at the latter’s feet, and at hers only. Miss Tuttle’s charms are not potent enough to hold the heart which has once been fixed by her sister’s smile. ”

“ Saw you in Moore's arms! Saw him hug you--kiss you!... Then--I saw--you put up your arms--round his neck--kiss him--kiss him--kiss him!... I saw all that--didn't I?"
"You must have, since you say so," she returned, with perfect composure.
"But did you?" he almost shrieked, the blood cording and bulging red, as if about to burst the veins of temples and neck.
"Yes, I did," she flashed. There was primitive woman uppermost in her now, and a spirit no man might provoke with impunity.
"You love him?" he asked, very low, incredulously, with almost insane eagerness for denial in his query. ”

“ Moore, Peter?" had introduced them. "You have boys, too, haven't you?"
"I have three," said Mrs. Moore, in the rational, unhurried tone that only very clever people use to children. "Billy is nine, George seven, Jack is three; and then there's a girl—my Mary." ”

“ Moore."
"The applause at Drury Lane has changed you, Bessie. You are like all the others; one glimpse of the footlights and the rest of the world may go hang."
"Nonsense!" said the girl. "I don't care a snap of my fingers for the theatre. I was never intended to be an actress."
"I know," assented the poet, "you were meant to be Mrs. Moore, darling."
"I think you are quite mistaken, sir."
"How cold you are to me," cried Moore in despair. "Is it because--? No, I can't believe that. Bessie, you don't care for Sir Percival?" ”

“ WHERE MISS MOORE WAS GOING It was a relief to cease breathing the atmosphere of an apartment which was contaminated by the presence of Mr. Tom Moore. At leasts that was what I felt when I was being driven with Miss Adair towards Imperial Mansions. Apparently that was her own feeling.
"Nice sort of brother that. He's a man."
"But what a sister! She's a woman."
She seemed to suspect me of a satirical intention.
"I don't fancy, Mr. Ferguson, that all women are built exactly on Bessie's lines."
"Would that they were. Miss Moore is of the stuff of which our mothers should be made." ”

“ Moore looked at Bessie, smiling at this characteristic manifestation of femininity.
"The size of her!" he said. "With a woman's vanity already."
Then, turning to the child again, he continued:
"Well, we poor people must stick together. I 'll call on your aunt to-morrow."
"Will you?" cried the girl in delight. "And you 'll sing to us?"
"That I will," said Moore, heartily. "Now run along like a good girl, and mind me, dear, never be ashamed of your honest poverty. Remember that the best man of us all slept in a manger."
"Yes, sir," responded the child, happily, "I 'll not forget." ”

“ Moore squeezed my arm in token of affection. He was like a girl in many of his ways as well as in his looks—demonstrative and caressing, yet brave as a lion and essentially manly.
“You’ll have me for ages yet,” he said consolingly, “at least for holidays; and perhaps the dreadful things won’t all be on the side of us boys. You’ll be going and getting married, Reggie, once you’re grown-up. Oh, how I shall hate your husband!”
I could not help laughing at his vehemence.
“Wait till he exists to be hated,” I said. “You really needn’t trouble about him. Perhaps there will never be such a person. ”

“ There already is somebody who does that. Can’t you hear her? That’s her laughing.”
“Come,” I said. “Let’s get into a cab.”
“Thank you, I prefer walking. Nothing like exercise when you are liverish. Are you alone?”
Miss Moore came through the crowd.
“No; I am with him.”
He stared at her as if in doubt; then with sudden recognition—
“Ah! It is the sister of the brother—the affectionate relative of our dear Tom—the beautiful Miss Moore! It is like a scene out of one of the plays in which you are the bright, particular star. The ghosts are gathering round. You were there; you saw her?” ”

“ Moore how much she had enjoyed the carnival, how she had admired the fairy queen, and how she longed for a real live fairy. She had looked for them often in the morning-glories and the lily-bells. If she could find one maybe it would tell her where to look for Dot.
Presently they turned into a side street among [186] unfamiliar tenement-houses, and paused at an alley entrance.
"I am going to the top of the stairs with the children," said Mrs. Moore, preparing to step out of the carriage. "I want to inquire about the baby, who is sick. I'll be back in a moment, Elise." ”

“ Bessie bit her lip in anger.
"It is not customary for a gentleman to sit while a lady remains standing."
"Nor is it usual," answered Moore, "for a lady to climb up on a desk."
"Nor is it usual for a lady to climb up on a desk," said Moore. "You think you know a lot about women, don't you?"
"I am always willing to learn more," responded the victorious poet, blithely.
"Oh, dear," sighed the girl, "I don't dare jump with these high-heeled slippers on."
"I observe that your tastes are elevated, even in shoes. Give me the ruffle and I 'll help you down."
"No, sir, you shall not have it." ”

“ Not very favorably impressed by this display of open if not insulting indifference on the part of the sole remaining Moore,—an indifference which did not appear quite natural even in a man of his morbid eccentricity,—I resolved to know more of this old man and, above all, to make myself fully acquainted with the exact relations which had existed between him and his unhappy niece.
Meanwhile Miss Tuttle had stepped within the circle of light cast by our lanterns.
I have never seen a finer woman, nor one whose features displayed a more heart-rending emotion. ”

“ Go to the summer-house and worry the devil away with your holy pictures. I've no time for you, dear," she said to the jackdaw, who had alighted on her shoulder; "and I have been looking for you everywhere," she said, turning from her bird to Evelyn. "You promised me—But I suppose digging tired you?"
"No, it was not that, Sister, only the sun came out and the warmth was so delicious; I am afraid I am easily beguiled."
"We are all easily beguiled," Sister Mary John answered somewhat sharply. "Now we must try to get on with our digging. ”

“ With a light bound he leaped into the carriage. As he took his seat he politely remarked:
“I should be glad to, since, though not a Moore, she is near enough the family to affect its honor. But not having even seen her enter the house I can not testify in any way in regard to her. Home, Cæsar, and drive quickly. I do not thrive under these evening damps.”
And leaning back, with an inexpressible air of contentment with himself, his equipage and the prospect of an indefinite enjoyment of the same, the last representative of the great Moore family was quietly driven away. ”

“ What did matter was the thought that was always at the back of his mind, that she was alone in that Islington lodging-house craving for drink, striving to resist it, falling back into drink and might be coming down raving to the theatre to insult him before the company. Insult him before the company! That had been done, she had done her worst, and he was indifferent whether she came again, only she must not meet Mrs. Forest. On the whole he felt that his sorrow was with Kate herself rather than himself or with Mrs. Forest. ”

“ She lay back, pointing one finger at the face on the vase and laughing that satyr-laugh.
“We know—we know—we know!” she cried, and her voice was like that of a drunken woman. “We know all—you and I—we know the hypocrisy—the pretense of religion—of honor—duty—a husband! Ah, a husband! that is the funniest of all—that husband! We know how little we care for them all.”
She continued laughing until her cushion slipped from under her head. She half rose to straighten it, and at that instant she caught a glimpse of her face in the center silvered panel of the Venetian mirror. ”

“ The idea of so complete a separation from his home [Pg 28] distressed him, and he tried to keep the facts from his mother as long as possible—discussing the project only by letters to his father and uncle. But on August 16th, John Moore—wrote to his son an admirable epistle (the only one from his pen that is preserved) ,—which deprecated the attempt to keep Mrs. Moore in the dark:—
"There could be no such deception carried on with her where you, or indeed any one of her family, were concerned, for she seems to know everything respecting them by instinct. ”

“ I married your assistant, Hender.'
'What, Hender your wife?' said Kate, with an intonation of voice that was full of pain. A dagger thrust suddenly through her side as she went up the staircase could not have wounded her more cruelly than the news that the woman who had been her assistant now owned the house that once was hers. The story of the dog in the manger is as old as the world. ”

“ The house was outside the fort, and had been purchased from a citizen who lived there, totally apart from his race; Mrs. Moore had the comfort of hearing, on taking possession, that all sorts of ghosts were at home there; but she was a cheerful kind of woman, and did not believe in them any more than she did in clairvoyance, so she set to work with a brave heart, and every thing yielded to her sway, excepting the aforesaid rats and mice.
Her parlor was the very realization of home comfort. ”

“ Moore, the basket-maker, live here?" he asked, pausing for a moment to inquire of a woman who sat on the doorstep with a little child in her arms.
"Yes," she answered, in a surly voice; "and more's the pity for the rest of us tenants, for he is a regular fiend incarnate, sir, and has a fit of the delirium tremens as regularly as the month comes round. He's got 'em now. A fine dance he leads that poor daughter of his. Any other girl would get out and leave him. Are you the doctor Miss Bernardine was expecting? If so, walk right up. She is waiting for you." ”

“ Moore arrived, brimful of delight, and very much inclined to think the epidemic at school an unlimited subject of congratulation. He was looking very well, I was pleased to see—altogether in a mood for viewing everything with rose-coloured spectacles.
“This is a jolly place, Regina,” he confided to me when we were strolling about the first morning after his arrival, I acting “cicerone,” as Isabel was engaged in her housekeeping cares. “Now I hope you’ll give me some credit for knowing what I’m about when I make friends with people! ”

“ Moore’s side of the street, I encountered him as I had expected to do, at his own gateway.
“Well, what now?” he inquired, with the same exaggerated courtesy I had noticed in him on a previous occasion. “You have the air of a man bringing news. Has anything fresh happened in the old house?”
I assumed a frankness which seemed to impose on him.
“Do you know,” I sententiously informed him, “I have a wonderful interest in that old hearthstone ”

“ He placed her on the table and sat on the couch admiring her. The diminutive face was haughty and sullen but in no way distressed. Her dark hair was piled on top of her head, falling with seeming artlessness to her shoulders, her breasts were high and taut—round, defiant shields—her thighs long and sleek. Even allowing for the difficulty of discerning blemish in so small a being, the glowing color, pale yet warm, the smooth hands and feet, the clustered body hair, all spoke of such flawlessness that he had to control his fingers lest they close in upon her to squeeze out the essence of beauty. ”

“ Barnes will have to wait; you can't kill yourself. It's a great shame of
Ralph to have you sitting up when I could look after him just as well, and
all because of the mummer.'
'Oh, don't, mother,' said Kate, who knew that Mrs. Ede could rate play-actors for a good half-hour without feeling the time passing, and taking her mother-in-law's hands in hers, she looked earnestly in her face, saying:
'You know, mother, I have a hard time of it, and I try to bear up as well as I can. You're the only one I've to help me; don't turn against me. ”

“ O'Mara's chatter, for he disliked the woman—her chatter amused him only as the chatter of a bird might; but when he heard that his sister was trying to get his schoolmistress away from him he had flared up. 'Oh, but I don't think that your schoolmistress would suit a convent school. I shouldn't like my daughter—' 'What do you mean?' Her face changed expression, and in her nasty mincing manner she began to throw out hints that Nora Glynn would not suit the nuns. He could see that she was concealing something—there was something at the back of her mind. Women of her sort want to be persuaded ”

“ Moore might acquaint her, (I durst not myself,) that I was her lodger and boarder, as, whisperingly, I desired that she would; and meeting Miss Rawlins in the passage, Dearest Miss Rawlins, said I, stand my friend; join with Mrs. Moore to pacify my spouse, if she has any new flights upon my having taken lodgings, and intending to board here. I hope she will have more generosity than to think of hindering a gentlewoman from letting her lodgings. ”