Mrs. Parker

“ Parker to his wife as they drove to the railway-station in the moonlight.
"Very," said Mrs. Parker; "and Mr. Forrester is a nice lad. I hope he and Miss Ormiston will make it out: I did my best for them."
"They'll be quite able to do the best for themselves: it is always better to let things of that kind alone."
"I don't know that," said Mrs. Parker: "if a little shove is all that is needed, it is a pity not to give it."
"But what if your shove sends people separate? That's not what you intended, I fancy?"
"No fear: people are not so easily separated as all that." ”

“ Parker had told her that no woman ought to be afraid to speak to her husband, and, if necessary, to speak roundly on such subjects. Mrs. Parker was certainly not a highly educated lady, but she had impressed Emily with an admiration for her practical good sense and proper feeling. The lady who was a lady had begun to feel that in the troubles of her life she might find a much less satisfactory companion than the lady who was not a lady. ”

“ Contact with something human seemed to help to bring her back from the shadowy borderland where she had been wandering. Parker, astonished and confused, wanted to draw away her hand; but the small cold fingers closed over it resistlessly. Then the woman stood motionless, holding a vinaigrette in her free hand, and looking at the pale face on the pillow, at the pathetic blue eyes which sought her own from time to time as if in want of pity. Something made Parker's heart beat fast and the hot tears came into her hard, dark eyes. She had never felt any particular fondness for Miss Enid before ”

“ The favours must have cost a small fortune. Lady Beatrice, who went in with Mr. Parker, got a diamond aigrette; Blanche got two volumes of Tennyson's poems in calf; there must have been some mistake in the order, for there were not enough favours to go round, and Mr. Rumple, who sat next to Blanche, found a ten-pound note under the roll in his napkin.
As usual, Mrs. Parker wore a high-necked dress and no jewels; Miss Parker was à la Paquin and went in to dinner with the Duke of Clandevil. ”

“ Parker acted when he was shot? Could you—er—could you take his place and show us just how it happened?"
"Yes, sir," said Downey. "He was sitting here at the head of the table. Mr. Bruce, who is the 'Co.' of the firm, had been sitting here at his right; I was at the left. The inspector has a list of all the others present. That door to the right was open, and Mrs. Parker and some other ladies were in the room—"
"Mrs. Parker?" broke in Kennedy.
"Yes. Like a good many brokerage firms we have a ladies' room. Many ladies are among our clients. We make a point of catering to them. ”

“ Will your ladyship take anything?"
"No, no," said the vision hastily, "nothing, thanks. I'll wait. Good evening, Mr. Parker. Where's Peter?"
"He has been called out, Lady Mary," said Parker. "I can't think why he isn't back yet. Do sit down."
"Where did he go?"
"To Scotland Yard—but that was about six o'clock. I can't imagine—"
Lady Mary made a gesture of despair.
"I knew it. Oh, Mr. Parker, what am I to do?"
Mr. Parker was speechless.
"I must see Peter," cried Lady Mary. "It's a matter of life and death. Can't you send for him?"
"But I don't know where he is," said Parker. ”

“ Parker, and I do not believe there is a living soul besides myself that recollects your proper style and title should be Sarah Parker, spinster. Don't you see that you have everything to lose and nothing whatever to gain in marrying Sir Arthur Prynne's coachman? Why, he has I don't know how many children, and they will be the death of you, Parker; plague your life out. Now, do make up your mind to be a sensible woman and stay where you are, and I will see that you shall never come to want when your working days are over. ”

“ But if God had endowed Parker with a noble intellect and he had honestly multiplied his five talents to ten, there was yet a greater gift which he possessed in still richer measure. The strong, clear head was second to the warm, true heart. Parker loved his friends with a devotion of which men in our day so rarely give proof, that we claim it as the privilege of a woman to know its happiness, albeit such love becomes as much the manliness of a man as the womanliness of a woman. ”

“ His wife, however, who was at the time of her marriage a zealous member of the church of England, laboured hard to convert her husband, while he as strenuously endeavoured to bring her over to his own views. In the result each was convinced by the other. Parker became a high churchman and a Jacobite, while his wife turned rigid quaker. But his rival, John Partridge (1644-1715) [q. v.] , asserts that Mrs. Parker was the quaker, and that Parker merely passed for one in order to secure her fortune of 300l. ”

“ Forrester," said Mrs. Parker, "why don't you get a wife? There's no company for a young man like a good wife. Here's Miss Ormiston; I don't think you could do better."
Think of the delicate wound of these young people being thus openly probed in broad moonlight in the presence of so many people! What could Mrs. Parker be thinking of? Not of her own love-passages surely, or, if she was, they must have been of a blunter order than those of the Rose and her lover.
"Oh no," said Bessie in cool, indifferent [pg 47] tones: "Mr. Forrester knows better than that."
"There!" said Edwin, "you see, Mrs. ”

“ Ownest wife, I like my brethren in affliction very well; and couldst thou see us sitting round our table, at meal-times, before the great kitchen-fire, thou wouldst call it a cheerful sight. Mrs. 5 Parker is a most comfortable woman to behold; she looks as if her ample person were stuffed full of tenderness—indeed, as if she were all one great, kind heart. Wert thou here, I should ask for nothing more—not even for sunshine and summer weather; for thou wouldst be both, to thy husband. And how is that cough of thine, my belovedest? Hast thou thought of me, in my perils and wanderings? ”

“ Parker, girls. You just adore girls, don't you, Mr. Parker?"
Mr. Parker, who was in a measure the Beau Brummel of Richmond, assured us he did and immediately took stock of our charms, at least that was his air, as Mabel, with many flourishes, presented us. She was quite impressive in her manner of introducing Tweedles and Annie Pore, and I heard her whisper behind her hand that Annie was a "descendant of nobilities." She almost ignored me altogether, but finally brought me in as "little Miss Allison from the country," and pretended to have entirely forgotten Mary's name. ”

“ It was clearly typed on a sheet of plain white paper, and was brief and unemotional.
“Your son,” it began abruptly, “is making a fool of himself over a mill girl. It is the talk of the town. For her sake, and for his safety, you had better call him home.”
Mrs. Parker telephoned to the Carey house as soon as she reached her room, but was told that her son, together with Miss Nancy, was enjoying a house-party at Beulah-land, the plantation of Mrs. Bob Lee Tenafee, and was not expected back for several days. ”

“ Parker in excellent humor and she invited the supposed crook to breakfast with her at the Broadway Central Hotel. So far, it will be observed, Peabody had accomplished practically nothing. At breakfast the girl inquired of her companion what his particular "graft" was, to which he replied that he was an expert "second story man," and then proceeded to indulge his imagination in accounts of bold robberies in the brown stone districts and clever "tricks" in other cities, which left Mrs. Parker in no doubt but that her companion was an expert "gun" of long experience. ”

“ A keen observer would have seen in the glowing, unrestful look, in the hot cheek, in the interlacing fingers, that a contest was going on in the woman's soul, as she drove homeward with all that was her own in the world. The laughter of her husband and child grated painfully on her ears. Why should they be mirthful while her life was being swept by a storm of doubt, temptation, and dark passion? Why was it?
Yet she smiled at Jean Jacques when he lifted her down from the red wagon at the door of the Manor Cartier, even though he lifted his daughter down first. ”

“ I do with all my heart. You shall have those ha'pence, and the kisses too, if so be you will take them—or not, as you will, Rosalie."
"Monsieur," she gasped, for something caught her in the throat, and the tears started to her eyes, "ask me to forget that you have ever said those words. Oh, Monsieur, it is not possible, it never could be possible! I am only the postmaster's daughter." ”

“ I nodded.
"You speak French not like a Breton or Norman," she added. "What is your province?"
"I am an Auvergnian."
She said no more, but motioned to me, enjoining silence also by a sign, and I stood with her beside the panel. Before it was a piece of tapestry which was mere gauze in one place, and I could see through and hear perfectly. The room we were in was at least four feet higher than the other, and we looked down on its occupants.
"Presently, holy Mother," said I, "all shall be told true to you, if you wish it. It is not your will to watch and hear; it is because you love the lady. ”

“ All at once there came back to her her own marriage when the Protestant missionary, in his nasal monotone, mumbled these very words, not as if he expected that any human being would, or could, offer objection.
She almost sprang from her seat now. Her nerves all at once came to such a tension that she could have cried out. Why had there been no one there at her marriage to say: "I forbid it"? How shameful it had all been! And the first kiss her husband had given her had the flavour of brandy! If she could but turn back the hands upon the clock of Time! ”

“ She only stood and gazed at him, and her look followed him long after he passed by. He knew well that in the gaze was nothing of the interest which a woman feels in a man; it was the look of one chained to a rock, who sees a Samaritan in the cheerless distance.
In the daily round of her life she was always busy; not restlessly, but constantly, and always silently, busy. She was even more silent than her laconic half-breed hired woman, Rada. There was no talk with her gloating husband which was not monosyllabic. Her canary sang, but no music ever broke from her own lips. ”

“ My father is more to me than any woman in the world; his love of me was greater than that of any woman. I know the world—and women.”
There was a silence. He waved his hand to the Avocat to go on, and as he did so the Cure caught his arm with a quick, affectionate gesture. Then Monsieur Garon read the conditions: “That Farette the miller should have a deed of the land on which his mill was built, with the dam of the mill—provided that Armand should never so much as by a word again address Julie, the miller’s wife. ”

“ Mrs. Parker-Jennings.
I wish you were a little more like your brother, Ethel. He knows ’ow to live up to ’is position.
Vincent.
Aitches, mater, aitches.
Mrs. Parker-Jennings.
Oh, you always say I drop my aitches, Vincent. Well, if I do I can afford it.
Vincent.
You’re wrong, mater, only the aristocracy can afford to drop their aitches.
Mrs. Parker-Jennings.
Oh, well, p’raps we shall be aristocracy one of these days, eh, Robert?
Parker-Jennings.
You leave it to me, my dear. If money can do it.... I say, ’is lordship lapped up that ’ock of mine at luncheon, didn’t he?
Mrs. Parker-Jennings. ”

“ Guida, my Guida, I love you!"
She drew back, leaning against the stones, her eyes riveted upon his, and she spoke scarcely above a whisper.
"It is not true—it is not true. You've known me only for one day—only for one hour. How can you say it!" There was a tumult in her breast; her eyes shone and glistened; wonder, embarrassed yet happy wonder, looked at him from her face, which was touched with an appealing, as of the heart that dares not believe and yet must believe or suffer.
"It is madness," she added. "It is not true—how can it be true!" ”

“ He leaned against the bulwarks, and made a helpless, despairing motion with his hand. "No, no!" he said; and added with a bitter laugh: "Not to begin the world again, but to end it as profitably and silently as I can. . . . But you will listen to me, my wife? You will say at least that you forgive me the blight and ill I brought upon you?"
She had listened to him unmoved outwardly. Her reply was instant. "You are more melodramatic than I thought you capable of being—from your appearance," she said in a hard tone. "Your acting is very good, but not convincing. ”

“ Parker's room, and with pursed-up lips, and large square collar very much like the present fashion, was stitching away upon the shroud, heaving occasionally a long-drawn sigh, as she thought how lonely and desolate poor Mr. Parker must feel!
"Will you give me some work?" asked Mary, after depositing her bonnet upon the table.
"There's nothing for you," returned Mrs. Perkins. "I can do all that is necessary, and prefer working alone."
"Yes, she shall help too, if she wants to," snapped out Mrs. Grundy, with one of her old shoulder jerks. ”

“ There was the thing that clamped my heart. Never a message from her or her brother. Surely they knew, and yet never, thought I, a good word for me to the governor. They had forgotten the faith of food and blanket. And she—she must have seen that I could have worshipped her, had we been in the same way of life. Before the better days came to me I was hard against her, hard and rough at heart."
"Remember the sorrow of thine own wife." Pierre's voice was gentle.
"Truly, to think hardly of no woman should be always in a man's heart. ”

“ But Miss Parker struck Nancy with a piece of whalebone, and hurt her a good deal. It was the only way to make Nancy remember not to do such a cruel trick again.
When Prudy saw how much Nancy was hurt, it was more than her tender heart could bear. She ran up to Miss Parker, and caught hold of the skirt of her dress, hiding her head in it.
"O, Miss Parker!" said she, "I've got to cry. Nanny won't do so no more. The toad was just as alive as could be, but it never bit a bit! O, won't you please to don't!" ”