Mrs. Wells

“ Marjorie had broiled the steak to the proverbial turn, fried the onions to an odoriferous brown, and made a potful of her celebrated coffee; and now, flushed with success and Hester’s fire, she sat on the edge of the kitchen table, her iron spoon still in her hand, like a scepter.
“Whe-e-w!” said Helen, coming out. “You must be cooking comparisons out here, they’re so odorous.”
“In onion is strength,” replied Betty.
“Why don’t you take something for that punning habit, Betty? Really, it’s getting worse, I think. Oh, I wish Nan and the Matron would come! I am so starved.” ”

“ Wells also must be a very undesirable, if not hopelessly immoral lady. Anyhow, she made up her mind that she would certainly take nothing further from her. Even if Mrs. Wells should have a change of heart and see fit to call, she just wouldn't return it! So when she rolled up in the diminutive car and found Mrs. Wells' lumbering limousine blocking the doorway she was simply furious.
"Make that man move along!" she directed, and Jules honked and honked, but the limousine did not budge.
Then Mrs. Pumpelly gave way to a fit of indignation that would have done her proud even in Athens, Ohio. ”

“ Wells," he announced, "here's your new tyrant. She fancies herself on her housekeeping, so I expect there will be wigs on the green before very long. But remember, if you quarrel you part; I am not going to have any wranglings in my peaceful bachelor abode."
Mrs. Wells evidently looked upon this speech as a particularly choice specimen of humour. "Well, there now! I never!" was her good-humoured comment. "If I can't make friends with this young lady, sir, I think I shall deserve to be turned out, if I have served you for a goodish while. He thinks to tease you and me, ma'am, don't he?" ”

“ Forrest which stood on the mantel shelf.
It was a sharp, cold January evening, and Jenny Wallen's soft cheek was glowing, and her eyes sparkling, as she tripped lightly up the stone steps, let herself into the warm hall-way, and peered into the parlor. No one was there. A bright coal fire blazed in the open grate. The pretty room looked cosy and inviting. The library beyond—"Wells's particular"—was dark. Mrs. Wells, said the maid, from the head of the kitchen stairs, had been home, but was gone over to the Lambert to meet Mr. Wells. So Jenny was alone. Some women lose courage at such times. ”

“ Mrs. Trafford thought. "Sex made the world. Neither men nor women. But the world has got hold of the women tighter than it has the men. They're deeper in." She looked up into his face. "Take her with you," she said, simply.
"She won't come," said Trafford, after considering it.
Mrs. Trafford reflected. "She'll come—if you make her," she said.
"She'll want to bring two housemaids."
"I don't think you know Marjorie as well as I do."
"But she can't——"
"She can. It's you—you'll want to take two housemaids for her. Even you.... Men are not fair to women." ”

“ If she stays, I resign."
"And I answer," thundered Wells, "that that girl's as pure-hearted a woman as ever lived. She has been shut up here with me time and again, working at my letters until late at night; she has been to my rooms a dozen times to leave her finished work on her homeward way ”

“ I sat up, and the canoe rocked with my movement.
"I don't care," I said. "I want to marry you and make you my wife!"
"No," she said, "don't spoil things. That is impossible!"
"Impossible!"
"Think! I can't do my own hair! Do you mean you will get me a maid?"
"Good God!" I cried, disconcerted beyond measure, "won't you learn to do your own hair for me? Do you mean to say you can love a man——"
She flung out her hands at me. "Don't spoil it," she cried. "I have given you all I have, I have given you all I can. ”

“ He stared down at her for a moment; then he knelt down beside her and took her hand and kissed it. "My dear," she whispered softly, stroking his head, and her tears came streaming. For a time they said no more.
Presently he put coal on the fire, and then sitting on the hearthrug at her feet and looking away from her into the flames—in an attitude that took her back to his boyhood—he began to tell her brokenly and awkwardly of Marjorie.
"It's so hard, mother, to explain these things," he began. "One doesn't half understand the things that are happening to one. ”

“ He went on, regardless of her words. “What do you think you can do, Lady Harman? You’re going to all these places—how? Not in my motor-car, not with my money. You’ve not a thing that isn’t mine, that I haven’t given you. And if you’re going to have a lot of friends I haven’t got, where’re they coming to see you? Not in my house! I’ll chuck ’em out if I find ’em. I won’t have ’em. I’ll turn ’em out. See?”
“I’m not a slave.”
“You’re a wife—and a wife’s got to do what her husband wishes. You can’t have two heads on a horse. ”

“ In the pantry she found the under scullery maid screaming with an earache.
“You poor child,” she said, sympathetically, “I'll run and get my husband and he'll cure it.”
She flew back to the room where the eager group had their heads together over the blue prints and wash drawing of the new color organ. Pushing in between Iva and Lotta she seized Bill by the arm and said, “hurry up now—matter of life or death—Polly, the maid—dying—urgent case—”
By that time they were down in the servant's pantry where Polly was moaning and groaning and wailing like a banshee. ”

“ The old Eve!"
"The old Adam is with her," said Trafford. "He's wanting to give it her.... We don't cease to be human, Madge, you know, because we've got an idea now of just where we are. I wonder, which would you like? I dare say we could arrange it."
"No," said Marjorie, and thought. "It would be jolly," she said. "All the same, you know—and just to show you—I'm not going to let you buy me that fur."
"I'd like to," said Trafford.
"No," said Marjorie, with a decision that was almost fierce. "I mean it. I've got more to do than you in the way of reforming. ”

“ She felt very slender and young and rather unclothed about the arms and neck, in spite of the six hundred pound pearl necklace that had been given to her just as she stood before the mirror in her white-and-gold dinner dress ready to start. She had to look down at that dress ever and again and at her shining arms to remind herself that she wasn’t still in schoolgirl clothes, and it seemed to her there was not another woman in the room who was not fairly entitled to send her off to bed at any moment. ”

“ In a bit the room will be warmer.”
He made no answer, and had turned his face away from her again, and Mrs. Hall, feeling that her conversational advances were ill-timed, laid the rest of the table things in a quick staccato and whisked out of the room. When she returned he was still standing there, like a man of stone, his back hunched, his collar turned up, his dripping hat-brim turned down, hiding his face and ears completely. She put down the eggs and bacon with considerable emphasis, and called rather than said to him, “Your lunch is served, sir.” ”

“ Marjorie had come with her mother into the village, and while Mrs. Pope made some purchases at the general shop she walked on to speak to Mrs. Blythe the washerwoman. Trafford suddenly emerged from the Red Lion with a soda syphon under each arm. She came forward smiling.
"I say," he said forthwith, "I want to talk with you—badly."
"And I," she said unhesitatingly, "with you."
"How can we?"
"There's always people about. It's absurd." ”

“ She muttered self-reproaches while she worked like two men among the trees, panting puffs of mist that froze upon her lips and iced the knitted wool that covered her chin. Why don't they teach a girl to handle an axe?...
When at last the wolfish cold of the Labrador night had come, it found Trafford and Marjorie seated almost warmly on a bed of pine boughs between the sheltering dark rock behind and a big but well husbanded fire in front, drinking a queer-tasting but not unsavory soup of lynx-flesh, that she had fortified with the remainder of the brandy. ”

“ By this time he was evidently no longer unaware of her intelligent interest in his movements. It was clear too that he had received a false impression that she wanted to shake him off and that all the sleuth in him was aroused. He was dishevelled and breathing hard and getting a little close and coarse in his pursuit, but he was sticking to it with a puckered intensified resolution. He came up into the South Kensington air open-mouthed and sniffing curiously, but invincible.
She discovered suddenly that she did not like him at all and that she wanted to go home. ”

“ When she returned, Lady Pendered was still recounting Millicent's virtues as a lady's-maid.
"Why, really," said the English lady, "she crimped my fringe quite as well as Dawkins does at home. And my clothes were never brushed more neatly."
Millicent brushing clothes! This was almost too much for Betty; but, not daring to glance at Jessie, she went on about her work, endeavoring not to listen to any further disclosures.
"Yes, she's not bad," drawled Lady Lucy. "She darned a bit of a rent in my lace bodice, and smiled amiably when I asked her to do up my fine handkerchiefs." ”

“ Allingford over to Melton Court as soon as you can. I'll be there before you to break the news to Mabel."
"Well, you see," he said, "I've promised her ladyship."
"Never mind that; your business is to fish these young people out of their troubles. I'll drive at once to Lady Scarsdale's hotel, and tell her of your change of plans, and go down myself by the first train to-morrow morning to Salisbury."
"Then," he said, closing his valise with a snap, "I shall leave at once for Winchester."
"Good boy!" said Aunt Eliza. "It's too bad they spoiled you by making you a gentleman ”

“ Six merry laughs greeted this speech, and Nan replied: “Indeed they do, and I won’t allow more than three kinds of soup at any one meal. Now I’m off, Marjorie; I’ll meet you at the train—and oh, Duchess, I ’most forgot to ask you. Brother Jack says, can he and Ted come down and spend a day with us?”
“No, indeed!” cried Marjorie. “We are not going to allow a boy in sight all the time we are there. Tell them we’re sorry to refuse, but we’re not running a co-educational institution, and only girls need apply.” ”

“ The sun was low and the golden light was in the faces of the men. She saw they carried a piece of rich red meat thrust through by an ashen stake. Presently they stopped. "Go on!" screamed the old woman. Cat's-skin grumbled, and they came on, searching the thicket with sun-dazzled eyes. "Here!" said Siss. And they took the ashen stake with the meat upon it and thrust it into the ground. "Uya!" cried Siss, "behold thy portion. And Ugh-lomi we have slain. Of a truth we have slain Ugh-lomi. This day we slew Ugh-lomi, and to-morrow we will bring his body to you." ”

“ Her hair was dishevelled, her face dirty, tear-stained, and irregularly red. Her expression at the sight of me was pure astonishment. I thought she was about to say something, and then she darted away out of the house again.
"I say, Puss!" I said. "Puss!"
I followed her out of the door. "Puss! What's the matter? Where's Nettie?"
She vanished round the corner of the house.
I hesitated, perplexed whether I should pursue her. What did it all mean? Then I heard someone upstairs.
"Willie!" cried the voice of Mrs. Stuart. "Is that you?"
"Yes," I answered. "Where's everyone? Where's Nettie? ”

“ She knew exactly the shop in Oxford Street where the stuff for the curtains might be best obtained.
§ 17
One night Marjorie had been sitting musing before the stove for a long time, and suddenly she said: "I wonder if we shall fail. I wonder if we shall get into a mess again when we are back in London.... As big a mess and as utter a discontent as sent us here...."
Trafford was scraping out his pipe, and did not answer for some moments. Then he remarked: "What nonsense!"
"But we shall," she said. "Everybody fails. To some extent, we are bound to fail. Because indeed nothing is clear ”

“ We have now shown how all these damsels deserved to be expelled, either for their irregularities, or for their ugliness; and yet, those who replaced them found means to make them regretted, Miss Wells only excepted.
She was a tall girl, exquisitely shaped: she dressed very genteel, walked like a goddess; and yet, her face, though made like those that generally please the most, was unfortunately one of those that pleased the least: nature had spread over it a certain careless indolence that made her look sheepish. ”

“ She lay on a couch, and as the doctor bent over her she gave a convulsive shudder, but did not open her eyes.
"She'll be all right in a moment," said Doctor Masterson. "Janet is a plucky girl, and sound as a nut. I'll leave her in your care, Mrs. Mulford."
Laura was already hovering over the girl, and, with her intuitive womanliness, was doing exactly the right things.
The colored woman was crouched in a heap on the floor, and was rocking herself back and forth, with occasional wails.
"Stop that noise, Charlotte," commanded the doctor. "Don't make us any more trouble than we already have." ”

“ No one spoke, and the stern voice went on. “I remember, Miss Stuart, that you began to say something bearing on this while we were in that room, and you suddenly stopped, appearing confused. I ask you why?”
Pauline hesitated, bit her lip, looked at Gray and then at Anita, and finally said, “I may as well tell. It is nothing. When I went to my aunt’s room, and found what I did find,—I was so excited and nervous I scarce knew what I did. But I remember seeing a footprint in that powder, and in obedience to an impulsive instinct I—I obliterated it.” ”