Waterville

“ Even Waterville felt a touch of the unexpected, though not indeed an excess of it, to belong to his conception of the woman who should have an ideal repose. Of course there were two kinds of surprises, and only one of them thoroughly pleasant, though Mrs. Headway dealt impartially in both. She had the sudden delights, the odd exclamations, the queer curiosities of a person who has grown up in a country where everything is new and many things ugly, and who, with a natural turn for the arts and amenities of life, makes a tardy acquaintance with some of the finer usages, the higher pleasures. ”

“ Waterville said to himself. "I don't believe she would do it if she knew how it sounds." And he made the further reflection that when one arrived from San Diego there was no end to the things one had to learn: it took so many things to make a well-bred woman. Clever as she was, Mrs. Headway was right in saying that she couldn't afford to wait. She must learn quickly. She wrote to Waterville one day to propose that they should go to the Museum on the morrow; Sir Arthur's mother was in Paris, on her way to Cannes, where she was to spend the winter. ”

“ B. Webster Legal, addressing the chairman, said: “I am proud again to meet my distinguished associates as a deliberative body. For the benefit of our beloved citizens of Waterville, who are crowding into this room of deliberation, and standing in front of the windows eagerly listening to the important proceedings of this meeting, I will say that only men in the broadest term—men with an abundance of gray matter clinging to their brains—could possibly have accomplished the feats which have characterized the acts of the Waterville Town Company from its organization up to the present time. ”

“ He saw her a second time, and she still said nothing about Sir Arthur. Waterville, who always had a theory, said to himself that she was waiting, that the baronet had not turned up. She was also getting into a house; the courier had found her in Chesterfield Street, Mayfair, a little gem, which was to cost her what jewels cost. After all this, Waterville was greatly surprised at Lady Demesne's note, and he went down to Longlands with much the same impatience with which, in Paris, he would have gone, if he had been able, to the first night of a new comedy. ”

“ She answered the unspoken question, putting out her hand, as she had done to Littlemore, "Happy to make your acquaintance, Mr. Waterville. I'm Mrs. Headway—perhaps you 've heard of me. If you've ever been in America, you must have heard of me. Not so much in New York, but in the Western cities. You are an American? Well, then, we are all compatriots—except Sir Arthur Demesne. Let me introduce you to Sir Arthur. Sir Arthur Demesne, Mr. Waterville—Mr. Waterville, Sir Arthur Demesne. Sir Arthur Demesne is a member of Parliament; don't he look young?" ”

“ If one had to have an affection for every woman one used to sit up 'evenings' with—!" And Littlemore paused, not defining the result of such an obligation. Waterville tried to imagine what it would be; while his friend embarked for New York, without telling him how, after all, he had resisted Mrs. Headway's attack.
At Christmas, Waterville knew of Sir Arthur's return to England, and believed that he also knew that the baronet had not gone down to Rome. ”

“ Rupert Waterville, in the midst of intercourse in which every one perhaps had a good many mental reservations, never forgot that he was in a representative position, that he was responsible, official; and he asked himself more than once how far it was permitted to him to countenance Mrs. Headway's pretensions to being an American lady typical even of the newer phases. In his own way he was as puzzled as poor Sir Arthur, and indeed he flattered himself that he was as particular as any Englishman could be. ”

“ Waterville was almost breathless with the attention he had given this extraordinary burst of confidence, and now he really felt faint. He stopped short; Mrs. Headway went on a few steps, and then, stopping too, turned and looked at him. "You 're the most unspeakable woman!" ”

“ Where is our sash, blind and door factory? Where is our foundry? Where is our woolen mill? Where are our canning factories? Where is our great smelting plant, and other manufacturing enterprises which have been promised us by the Waterville Town Company? When we see anything in a newspaper we have a right to believe what it says. Outside of Waterville, the newspapers claim the members of the Waterville Town Company to be a lot of restless town site boomers. I believe what I see in the papers. The dog-fennel is already growing in our streets—our town is dead ”

“ Littlemore added in a moment. Before he left London he mentioned to Waterville that Mrs. Headway, on his going to take leave of her in Paris, had made another, and a rather unexpected, attack. "About the society business—she said I must really do something—she could n't go on in that way. And she appealed to me in the name—I don't think I quite know how to say it."
"I should be very glad if you would try," said Waterville, who was constantly reminding himself that Americans in Europe were, after all, in a manner, to a man in his position, as the sheep to the shepherd. ”

“ Waterville hesitated again. "It 's too great a responsibility to answer you." He felt that he was very disobliging; he knew exactly what Lady Demesne wished him to say. He was unprepared to blight the reputation of Mrs. Headway to accommodate Lady Demesne; and yet, with his active little imagination, he could enter perfectly into the feelings of this tender, formal, serious woman, who it was easy to see had looked for her own happiness in the cultivation of duty and in extreme constancy to two or three objects of devotion chosen once for all. ”

“ Waterville rejoined, inattentive to his friend's epigram.
Littlemore gave a groan, without turning his head. "You are always wanting to know if they are respectable. What on earth can it matter?"
"I have made such mistakes—I have lost all confidence," said poor Waterville, to whom European civilization had not ceased to be a novelty, and who during the last six months had found himself confronted with problems long unsuspected. Whenever he encountered a very nice-looking woman, he was sure to discover that she belonged to the class represented by the heroine of M. Augier's drama ”

“ The coach road from Waterville, following the outskirts of Ballinskelligs Bay, insinuates itself up a dizzy height. Looking backwards, Waterville, "standing with reluctant feet" between the sea and the lake, seems to wonder which is more bewitching. Forging ahead through the mountain gaps, we pass under Coomakiska, 1,500 feet, and Beenarourke, 1,000 feet above the sea level. Clearing the gates of the mountains, [Pg 206] [Pg 205] we come into the open highlands above Derrynane, watching out from its post over the sea. ”

“ Headway's social failure preceded that event. In the midst of these reflections he had an inspiration. He attempted neither to explain, to minimize, nor to apologize; he ventured simply to lay his hand for an instant on her own and to exclaim, as tenderly as possible, "I wish I had known you were there!"
"I had plenty of men—but men don't count. If they are not a positive help, they're a hinderance, and the more you have, the worse it looks. The women simply turned their backs."
"They were afraid of you—they were jealous," Waterville said. ”

“ Headway preferred to see herself in an element of ingenious machination, where everything that happened referred to her and was aimed at her. Waterville had been asked then because he represented, however modestly, the American Legation, and their host had a friendly desire to make it appear that his pretty American visitor, of whom no one knew anything, was under the protection of that establishment. “It would start me better,” the lady in question complacently set forth. “You can’t help yourself—you’ve helped to start me. ”

“ Waterville could always imagine alternatives.
“The more she meant by it the less she ought to say it!” Littlemore declared.
But he returned to the Hôtel Meurice and on the next occasion took this companion with him. The secretary of legation, who had not often been in close quarters with pretty women whose respectability, or whose lack of it, was so frankly discussable, was prepared to find the well-known Texan belle a portentous type. He was afraid there might be danger in her, but on the whole he felt armed. ”

“ Chairman,” said he, “it seems to me we’re drifting.” He looked wise and waited a moment for his remark to take effect. “Drifting,” he continued, “is weakness. If we drift, we scatter; if we scatter, we fall. Now, gentlemen,” he continued, “we must not drift. There are important business matters awaiting our attention. I hold in my hand a letter from a party who wants to know if Waterville would not be a good place to start a foundry. Now, gentlemen, do we want a foundry at Waterville, or do we not? ”

“ Waterville remembered Littlemore's assertion that there were cases in which a man was bound in honor to tell an untruth, and he wondered whether this were such a case. Lady Demesne imposed herself, she made him believe in the reality of her grievance, and he saw the gulf that divided her from a pushing little woman who had lived with Western editors. She was right to wish not to be connected with Mrs. Headway. ”

“ I want to get into European society, but I want to get in in my own way. I don't want to run after people; I want them to run after me. I guess they will, some day!" Waterville listened to this with his eyes on the ground; he felt himself blushing a little. There was something in Mrs. Headway that shocked and mortified him, and Littlemore had been right in saying that she had a deficiency of shading. ”

“ Waterville has a Carnegie library and is the seat of Colby College (Baptist) , which was incorporated as the Maine Literary and Theological Institution in 1813, was renamed Waterville College in 1821, was named Colby University in 1867, in honour of Gardner Colby (1810–1879) , a liberal benefactor, and received its present name in 1899. Since 1871 women have been admitted on the same terms as men. In 1910 the college library contained 51,000 volumes. Waterville was settled about the middle of the 18th century. ”

“ Waterville, a town of Kennebec county, Maine, on the west side of the river Kennebec, eighteen miles north by east of Augusta. The principal village stands at the head of boat navigation, and its trade is flourishing. The Wesleyan seminary is established here; in this institution, the students contribute to their support by manual labor. Population, two thousand nine hundred and thirty-nine. ”

“ He often wondered what the Baronet thought; he had devoted first and last a good deal of attention to the psychology of the English “great land-owning” consciousness. Littlemore, alone, at this moment, was characteristically detached; he never appeared to watch Mrs. Headway, though she so often watched him. Waterville asked himself among other things why Sir Arthur hadn’t brought his own friends to see her, for Paris during the several weeks that now elapsed abounded in English visitors. ”

“ It might have seemed, after this, that nothing would have remained but for Waterville to launch himself in a panegyric of his mysterious countrywoman; but he was no more to be tempted into that danger than into another. "I can only say I like her," he repeated. "She has been very kind to me."
"Every one seems to like her," said Lady Demesne, with an unstudied effect of pathos. "She is certainly very amusing."
"She is very good-natured; she has lots of good intentions."
"What do you call good intentions?" asked Lady Demesne, very sweetly. ”

“ After his little interview with the elder Lady Demesne he didn’t feel at liberty to call again on the younger; and he never learned—he never even wished to know—whether in the pride of her success she forgave him.
Waterville—it was very strange—was positively scandalised at this success. He held that Mrs. Headway ought never to have been allowed to marry a confiding gentleman, and he used in speaking to Littlemore the same words as Mrs. Dolphin. He thought Littlemore might have done differently. But he spoke with such vehemence that Littlemore looked at him hard—hard enough to make him blush. ”

“ Five years more went by before the work of instruction actually commenced at Waterville. They were not years of inactivity, but were spent in securing from the State the township of land donated by the act of incorporation, in deciding upon a suitable location, and in endeavors to obtain further state aid. We cannot follow in detail all the steps taken, but must confine our attention solely to the documents which have a direct bearing on the character of the institution which the founders had in mind to set up. ”

“ Sir Arthur perceived Mrs. Headway, and instantly gave his hand to a lady seated in the coupé. This lady emerged with a certain slow iinpressiveness, and as she stood before the door of the hotel—a woman still young and fair, with a good deal of height, gentle, tranquil, plainly dressed, yet distinctly imposing—Waterville saw that the baronet had brought his mother to call upon Nancy Beck. Mrs. Headway's triumph had begun; the Dowager Lady Demesne had taken the first step. Waterville wondered whether the ladies in New York, notified by some magnetic wave, were distorting their features. Mrs. ”

“ Littlemore suddenly ceased to be bored; but a variety of feelings had taken the place of a single one. It was impossible not to be touched; she really meant what she said. People don't change their nature; but they change their desires, their ideal, their effort. This incoherent and passionate protestation was an assurance that she was literally panting to be respectable. But the poor woman, whatever she did, was condemned, as Littlemore had said of old, in Paris, to Waterville, to be only half-right. ”