Mrs. Spencer

“ Mrs. Spencer ruffled her fingers through the pages. "Alethea went on Thursday," she said. "I'll be glad to move in here. It's rather queer, staying alone."
"I am glad you want to come." Catherine was grateful. "It relieves me of any anxiety. Things should run smoothly."
"Spencer was quite pitiful." Mrs. Spencer looked like an inquisitive little bird. "He's rather hard to manage. Notional. Marian seems more normal."
"She is more phlegmatic than Spencer." Catherine refused to take up that word, "pitiful," and its implications.
"They're both sweet children. They act well-bred in public. ”

“ Spencer bearing a lighted lamp; and Herrick went forward to relieve her of her burden.
"Enter the Lady with the Lamp!" quoth he, smiling. "Well, Mrs. Spencer, the rain's over and gone, and it's time we went too, eh, Mrs. Rose?"
"I suppose so." She took up the coat she had thrown aside. "Has the chauffeur had some tea, Mrs. Spencer?"
"Lor yes, ma'am, and enjoyed it too," responded the landlady, beaming. "A rare good trencherman he be an' all! I'd sooner meat him for a week nor a fortnight, as they say in our parts." ”

“ I said. "She is determined to be a burden to no one. That is very proper."
Miss Spencer looked down on the ground again. "I must go and get the coffee," she said.
"Has the lady many pupils?" I asked.
"She has only Mr. Mixter. She gives all her time to him."
At this I could not laugh, though I smelt provocation; Miss Spencer was too grave. "He pays very well," she presently added, with simplicity. "He is very rich. He is very kind. He takes the Countess to drive." And she was turning away.
"You are going for the Countess's coffee?" ”

“ Caroline Spencer stood there with her eyes fixed upon the ground.
“Who is that?” I asked.
“The Countess, my cousin.”
“And who is the young man?”
“Her pupil, Mr. Mixter.”
This description of the relation between the two persons who had just left the room made me break into a little laugh. Miss Spencer looked at me gravely.
“She gives French lessons; she has lost her fortune.” ”

“ Mr. Spencer thought he would stop over in the town a few days and look over the situation. No, the clerk need n’t call the boy. He would carry up his suit-case, himself; it was rather heavy.
Mr. Ralph Spencer, the phœnix that arose from Jimmy Valentine’s ashes—ashes left by the flame of a sudden and alterative attack of love—remained in Elmore, and prospered. He opened a shoe-store and secured a good run of trade.
Socially he was also a success, and made many friends. And he accomplished the wish of his heart. He met Miss Annabel Adams, and became more and more captivated by her charms. ”

“ Spencer’s ‘ways’ as a wife bears with her husband. Mrs. Spencer had all the worry and trouble, such as it was. Plenty of money is a great sweetener of such cares; but still, to be sure, it was easy for Lady Isabella to sit and laugh and adjure everybody not to make a fuss, when she herself had no trouble about anything, never had even to scold a servant, or turn an unsatisfactory retainer away. ”

“ Spencer's grandmother, had said when young Mrs. Spencer confided to her her anxieties early in her son Dick's career.
"Lizzie," Grandma said, "do you recollect our old Topsy, that was always a-layin' in that stuffed cheer when you and Richard used to drop in so unconscious-like of a Saturday evening, and be all struck of a heap to see each other? Betsy, she'd never believe you was a-courtin'. Old maids are most gen'rally kind o' hard to convince. But my spectacles are pretty sharp ones." ”

“ Spencer—her mother was fond of Charles. But he needn't have made a jest of Saturday morning, and his refusal to give up his job to stay home with Letty. "That's what poor men are coming to, I'm afraid," her mother had told him. Henrietta had jibed openly at him, so openly that only Mrs. Spencer's gentle and fantastic mockery had smoothed his feathers. And Bill had said nothing. Catherine drew her collar closely about her throat. ”

“ Spencer was so distressed, he didn't make himself conspicuous. And when I promised him you'd really be here, he settled down again."
Catherine again rejected the distress. She wouldn't argue with her mother about going away. Too late, now.
"Miss Kelly is very good with them, I think," she said. "She gives them better training than I ever did. I suppose she sees them more impersonally. Even Letty——"
"I don't think anyone trains children better than their mother." Mrs. Spencer was indignant. "You always did very well. Miss Kelly does seem competent, of course." ”

“ Spencer flings a guinea where any other gentleman would give a shilling. But 'tis the mad-cap evenings—when the ladies and gentlemen take to romping over their supper, or when there are swords drawn at cards, and the furniture damaged—that bring grist to the mill."
"And so there was not much diversion at Mr. Spencer's party—'twas a grave and sedate assembly," said Topsparkle, with a trivial gossiping air, as of one who talked from sheer idleness; "but those quiet evenings are more dangerous than your romping revelries. ”

“ There was much sage wagging of heads among the Boston kin when Cornelius Spencer came forward as the potential guardian of the orphan immured in the convent. But though they conjectured again, Mrs. Spencer kept her own counsel as her husband had kept his years before. Of course, said the kinship, it was a bitter pill to her. Charlotte K—— had always outshone her in brains, in wit, in beauty. She had been proud to marry the man whom Charlotte had refused ”

“ These were the friends—few but faithful—amid all the hundreds, who alone had a word of cheer for Lord Spencer in a long and trying speech he had to address to his irreconcilable foes. But if there was any tremor in him as he stood up in surroundings so trying, I was unable to detect it. Indeed, at the moment he rose, there was something very fine and very impressive in his figure. He is, as most people know, a man of unusual height; hard exercise and the ride across country have kept him from having any of that tendency to embonpoint which destroys in middle age so many a fine figure. ”

“ Marian, her eyes round and black, watched him sharpen his knife, while Spencer lingered near the door. Spencer didn't, as he said, like dead things. Neither did Catherine, shivering as the butcher shoved aside the quivering lump of purplish-black liver. Queer, the forms that the demands of ordinary living took; forms you never dreamed of, when you entered living. ”

“ Before the close of his mayoralty Spencer received the honour of knighthood.
By his wife, Alice Bromfield, Spencer had an only child, Elizabeth, who in 1598 was sought in marriage by William, second lord Compton (afterwards first Earl of Northampton) . Spencer strongly disapproved of the match, but Compton's influence at court enabled him to procure Spencer's imprisonment in the Fleet in March 1599 for ill-treating his daughter (State Papers, Dom. 1598–1601, p. 169) . The young lady was ultimately carried off by her lover from Canonbury House in a baker's basket. ”

“ I resented extremely this scornful treatment of poor Caroline Spencer’s humble hospitality; but I said nothing, in order to say nothing uncivil. I only looked on Mr. Mixter, who had clasped his arms round his knees and was watching my companion’s demonstrative graces in solemn fascination. She presently saw that I was observing him; she glanced at me with a little bold explanatory smile. “You know, he adores me,” she murmured, putting her nose into her tapestry again. I expressed the promptest credence, and she went on. “He dreams of becoming my lover! Yes, it’s his dream. ”

“ When she talks to you seriously and lets you know what she really thinks and feels, by gad, Spencer, it makes a battered old worldling like myself feel unworthy to be in her presence. For she has a beautiful soul and mind as well as a beautiful body. ”

“ Spencer listened immovably to the music for a time. Then he turned to his companion with a palpable effort to be civilly sociable.
"How do you like the west, Miss Thayer?" he said.
Violet smiled—the smile most men found dangerous.
"Very much, so far as I have seen it. There is a flavour about the life here that I like, but I dare say it would soon pall. It must be horribly lonesome here most of the time, especially in winter."
"The M.P.s are always growling that it is," returned Spencer with a slight smile. ”

“ How limp and small his hand felt!
"Hello, Moth-er!" He sighed, and his eyelids shut down again.
VI
The next two weeks life was a shadow show outside that room where Spencer lay. "He must be kept flat and motionless," the surgeon said, with Dr. Henrietta nodding [Pg 294] assent. "Even as he feels stronger." Catherine was concentrated entirely upon that. Everything reduced itself to terms of Spencer. Books that she might read to him, games she might devise, stories she could tell—anything to keep him content until it was safe for him to lift that bandaged, wounded head. ”

“ Lady Spencer's ball is in full blast, and as Sir Harry Clive predicted, it is a "crush." But after all everyone seems to be enjoying it, even Mrs. Noble, who, in a conspicuous position, and surrounded by a small circle of diamond-admirers, deems herself an acknowledged belle, and gives herself pleasant and coquettish little airs, accordingly.
"I have seen no one any prettier than I am," she confides to her mother, in a delighted whisper. "If that Lady Fairvale is here she cannot be a very great beauty. ”

“ A wealthy nobleman of manly character, commanding presence, and engaging manners, Spencer was soon a prominent and popular figure in society. At Spencer House in London and at Althorp Park, his Northamptonshire seat, he soon exercised magnificent hospitality. Devoted to sport, he was an admirable horseman. Through life he rode about London on business or social errands, and he was thrice master of the Pytchley hounds. In shooting, too, he always took a lively interest, largely with an eye to national needs. ”

“ She had sent them all to college, however she had managed even before the cost of living gained its ominous present-day sound. Only for the last few years, since Margaret, the last of them, had grown into a youthfully serious welfare worker, had Mrs. Spencer's income been adequate to the uses for it. And yet—Astonishing adjustment, thought Catherine. As if she had found what she most wanted in life. As if things outside herself couldn't scratch her skin.
There was a scramble of children to the door at the ring of the bell, and Catherine rose, her work sliding to the floor. ”

“ The workingmen of Spencer fall on happy times. Here are books easy to come at as the water you drink and the air you breathe and stores of them which can never be exhausted. If it had come to pass thirty years ago that some man delving in your wild hills had struck gold, and all the eager manhood of New England had gone crazy to delve for gold where Spencer stands, and had found it in mighty stores, I wonder whether that would have been such a boon to Spencer and the world as this you have done—establishing great industries and wholesome and good ”

“ But most men can get a wife if they really want one. Spencer’s lack of a wife was probably a greater handicap than the absence of brothers and sisters. For whatever arguments there may be in favour of a celibate priesthood, the celibate social philosopher most obviously suffers from a grave disadvantage; [115] he lacks both the knowledge and the discipline that prevent men of thought becoming mere pedants and theorists. No doubt a wife would not have helped Spencer to write more profoundly about the limits of the unknowable. ”

“ The features, strong yet gentle, though far from regular, have considerable distinction, and the flowing red beard makes the face stand out in any assembly. Carefully but plainly dressed, erect, perfectly composed, and courteous in every word and look and gesture, Lord Spencer made his plea for justice to the nation where once his name was the symbol for hatred and wrong. ”

“ Spencer is the oldest, and has one privilege over the others—he gets his mush in a separate kid, a habit he formed when he was alone with me. You must remember to give him his share before you serve the others. The last mate forgot it. ”

“ Naturally, Jane isn't exactly the same girl she was twenty years ago, when we were married. She's put on some weight and she's got wrinkles and she's not exactly a sweater girl—"
"I see. Any children?"
"No, we were never blessed—"
"Blessed, is it? Well, that's good. No children. I think you'll do, Mr. Horner."
"Do? Do for what?"
"Congratulations, sir," the rub-down man said, smacking some oil on Horner's abdomen and squashing the flesh around to show Horner how soft he'd become.
Horner said, "Say, what happened to George, anyway." George was Horner's usual attendant at the Gotham Baths. ”

“ Spencer’s strong personality, his complete devotion to a self-imposed and life-long task, together with rare gleams of tenderness visible amidst a wilderness of abstract thought, have left a unique impression on my mind that years fail to weaken. ”

“ Spencer's works are no less wonderful than his treatment of words. The mind is swept along by an indiscernable but mighty flow, and sometimes after mysterious disappearances of consecutiveness between volumes or chapters, we find ourselves landed in a satisfied but bewildered manner at a conclusion about which we cannot but wonder however we arrived there. ”