Book: The Inner Shrine

B >> Basil King >> The Inner Shrine




A prettier object than Miss Dorothea Pruyn, at the head of her father's
table, it would have been difficult to find in the whole range of
"dainty rogues in porcelain." From the top of her bronze-colored hair to
the tip of her bronze-colored shoes she was as complete as taste could
make her. The flash of her eyes as she lifted them suddenly, and as
suddenly dropped them, over her task among the coffee-cups was like that
of summer waters; while the rapture of youth was in her smile, and a
becoming school-girl shyness in her fleeting blushes. In the floral
language of American society, she was "not a bud"; she was only that
small, hard, green thing out of which the bud is to unfold itself, but
which does not lack a beauty of promise specially its own. If any
criticism could be passed upon her, it was that which her father
made--that there was danger of the promise being anticipated by a rather
premature fulfilment, and the flower that needed time forced into a
hurried, hot-house bloom.

"What! And leave my friends!" she exclaimed, when Derek, with some
hesitation, had asked her how she would like the journey.

"They would keep."

"That's just what they wouldn't do. When I came back I should find them
in all sorts of new combinations, out of which I should be dropped.
You've got to be on the spot to keep in your set, otherwise you're
lost."

"Why should you be in a set? Why shouldn't you be independent?"

"That just shows how much you understand, father," she said, pityingly.
"A girl who isn't in a set is as much an outsider as a Hindoo who isn't
in a caste. I must know people; and I must know the right people; and I
must know no one but the right people. It's perfectly simple."

"Oh, perfectly. I can't help wondering, though, how you recognize the
right people when you see them."

"By instinct. You couldn't make a mistake about that, any more than one
pigeon could make a mistake about another, or take it for a crow."

"And is young Wappinger one of the right people?"

It was with an effort that Derek made up his mind to broach this
subject, but Dorothea's self-possession was not disturbed.

"Certainly," she replied, briefly, with perhaps a slight accentuation of
her maiden dignity.

"I'm rather surprised at that."

"Yes; you should be," she conceded; "but I couldn't make you understand
it, any more than you could make me understand banking."

"I'm not convinced of the impossibility of either," he objected,
knocking the top off an egg. "Suppose you were to try."

Dorothea shook her head.

"It wouldn't be of any use. The fact is, I really don't understand it
myself. What's more, I don't suppose anybody else does. Carli Wappinger
belongs to the right people because the right people say he does; and
there is no more to be said about it."

"I should think that Mrs. Wappinger might be a--drawback."

"Not if the right people don't think so; and they don't. They've taken
her up, and they ask her everywhere; but they couldn't tell you why they
do it, any more than birds could tell you why they migrate. As a matter
of fact, they don't care. They just do it, and let it be."

"That sort of election and predestination may be very convenient for
Mrs. Wappinger, but I should think you might have reasons for not caring
to indorse it."

"I haven't. Why should I, more than anybody else."

"You've so much social perspicacity that I hoped you would see without
my having to tell you. It's chiefly a question of antecedents."

Dorothea looked thoughtful, her head tipped to one side, as she buttered
a bit of toast.

"I know that's an important point," she admitted, "but it isn't
everything. You've got to look at things all round, and not mistake your
shadow for your bone."

"I'm glad you see there is a shadow."

"I see there is only a shadow."

"A shadow on--what?"

Pruyn meant this for a leading question, and as such Dorothea took it.
She gazed at him for a minute with the clear eyes and straightforward
expression that were so essential a part of her dainty, self-reliant
personality. If she was bracing herself for an effort, there was no
external sign of it.

"I may as well tell you, father," she said, "that Carli Wappinger has
asked me to marry him."

For a long minute Derek sat with body seemingly stunned, but with mind
busily searching for the wisest way in which to take this astounding bit
of information. At the end of many seconds of silence he exploded in
loud laughter, choosing this method of treating Dorothea's confidence in
order to impress her with the ludicrous aspect of the affair, as it must
appear to the grown-up mind.

"Funny, isn't it?" she remarked, dryly, when he thought it advisable to
grow calmer.

"It's not only funny; it's the drollest thing I ever heard in my life."

"I thought it might strike you that way. That's why I told you."

"And what did you tell him, if I may ask?"

"I told him it was out of the question--for the present."

"For the present! That's good. But why the reservation?"

"I couldn't tell him it would be out of the question always, because I
didn't know. As long as he didn't ask me for a definite answer, I didn't
feel obliged to give him one."

"I think you might have committed yourself as far as that."

"I prefer not to commit myself at all. I'm very young and
inexperienced--"

"I'm glad you see that."

"Though neither so inexperienced nor so young as mamma was when she
married you. And you were only twenty-one yourself, father, while Carli
is nearly twenty-three."

"I wouldn't compare the two instances if I were you."

"I don't. I merely state the facts. I want to make it plain that, though
we're both very young, we're not so young as to make the case
exceptional."

"But I understood you to say that there was no--case."

"There is to this extent: that while I'm free, Carli considers himself
bound. That's the way we've left it."

"That is to say, he's engaged, but you aren't."

"That's what Carli thinks."

"Then I refuse to consent to it."

"But, father dear," Dorothea asked, arching her pretty eyebrows, "do you
have to consent to what Carli thinks about himself? Can't he do that
just as he likes?"

"He can't become a hanger-on of my family without my permission."

"He says he's not going to hang on, but to stand off. He's going to
allow me full liberty of action and fair play."

"That's very kind of him."

"Only, when I choose to come back to him I shall find him waiting."

"I might suggest that you never go back to him at all, only that there's
a better way of meeting the situation. That is to put a stop to the
nonsense now; and I shall take steps to do it."

Dorothea preserved her self-control, but two tiny hectic spots began to
burn in her cheeks, while she kept her eyes persistently lowered, as
though to veil the spirit of determination glowing there.

"Hadn't you better leave that to me?" she asked, after a brief pause.

"I will, if you promise to put it through."

"You see," she answered, in a reasoning tone, "my whole object is not to
promise anything--yet. I should think the advantage of that would strike
you, if only from the point of view of business. It's like having the
refusal of a picture or a piece of property. You may never want them;
but it does no harm to know that nobody else can get them till you
decide."

"Neither does it do any harm to let somebody else have a chance, when
you know that you can't take them."

"Of course not; but I couldn't say that now. I quite realize that I'm
too young to know my own mind; and it's only reasonable to consider
things all round. Carli is rich and good-looking. He has a cultivated
mind and a kind heart. There are lots of men, to whom you'd have no
objection whatever, who wouldn't possess all those qualifications, or
perhaps any of them."

"Nevertheless, I should imagine that the fact that I have objections
would have its weight with you."

"Naturally; and yet you would neither force me into what I didn't like
to do, nor refuse me what I wanted."

With this definition of his parental attitude Dorothea pushed back her
chair and moved sedately from the room.

Physically, Derek was able to go on with his breakfast and finish it,
but mentally he was like a man, accustomed to action, who suddenly finds
himself paralyzed. To the best of his knowledge he had never before been
put in a position in which he had no idea whatever as to what to do. He
had been placed in some puzzling dilemmas in private life, and had
passed through some serious crises in financial affairs, but he had
always been able to take some course, even if it was a mistaken one. It
had been reserved for Dorothea to checkmate him in such a way that he
could not move at all.

* * * * *

That the feminine mind possessed resources which his own did not was a
claim Derek had made it a principle to deny. The theory on which he had
brought up Dorothea had been based on his belief in his own insight into
his daughter's character. Though he was far from abjuring that
confidence even yet, nevertheless, when the succeeding days brought no
enlightenment of counsel, and the long journey to South America became
more imminent, he was forced once more to turn his steps toward Gramercy
Park, and seek inspiration from the great, eternal mother-spirit of
mankind, as represented by his cousin.

Miss Lucilla van Tromp passed among her friends as a sort of diffident
Minerva. Though deficient in outward charms, she was considered to
possess intellectual ability; and, having once been told that her
profile resembled George Eliot's, she made the pursuit of learning,
music, and Knickerbocker genealogy her special aims. Derek had, all his
life, felt for her a special tenderness; and having neither mother,
wife, nor sister, he was in the habit of coming to her with his cares.

"You're a woman," he declared, now, in summing up his case. "You're a
woman. If you'd been married, you would probably have had children. You
ought to be able to tell me exactly what to do."

Flushes of shy rapture illumined and softened her ill-assorted features
on being cited as the type of maternity and sex, so that when she
replied it was with an air of authority.

"I can tell you what to do, Derek; but I've done it already, and you
wouldn't listen. You should send her to a good school--"

"It's too late for that. She wouldn't go."

"Then you should have some woman to live in your house who would be wise
enough to manage her."

He jerked out the monosyllable, and began, according to his custom when
puzzled or annoyed, to stride up and down the library.

"That is," Miss Lucilla went on, "you wouldn't like it. It would bore
you to see a stranger in the house."

"Naturally."

"And so you would sacrifice Dorothea to your personal convenience."

"I wouldn't, if there was a woman competent to take the place; but there
isn't."

"There is. There's Diane Eveleth."

"Who?"

The dark flush that swept into his face made it clear to Lucilla that
his question was not put for purposes of information. She had remarked
in Derek during the past few weeks a manner of fighting shy of Diane at
variance with his usual method with women. Safety in flight was the
course he commonly adopted; but since Diane appeared on the scene,
Lucilla had noticed that it was flight with a curious tendency to
looking backward.

"I said Diane Eveleth," she replied, in tactful answer to his
superfluous question; "and I assure you she's fully equal to the duties
you would require of her. I suppose you've never noticed her
especially--?"

"I used to know her a little," he said, in an offhand manner. "I've seen
her here. That's all."

"If a woman could have been made on purpose for what you want, it's
she."

"Dear me! You don't say so!"

"It's no use trying to be sarcastic about it, Derek. She's not the one
to suffer by it; it's Dorothea. Though, when it comes to suffering, she
has her share, poor thing."

"I suppose no decent woman who has just lost her husband is expected to
be absolutely hilarious over the event."

"She hasn't _just_ lost him; it's getting on toward a year. And,
besides, it isn't only that. As a matter of fact, I don't believe she
ever loved him as she could love the man to whom she gave her heart. If
grief was her only trouble, I am sure the poor thing could bear it."

"And can't she bear it as it is?"

"The fact that she does bear it shows that she can; but it must be hard
for a woman, who has lived as she has, to be brought to want."

"Want? Isn't that a strong word? One isn't in want unless one is without
food and shelter."

"She has the shelter for the time being; I'm not sure that she always
has the food."

"What? You don't know what you're saying."

"I know exactly what I'm saying; and I mean exactly what I say. There
have been days when I've suspected that she's pinching in the essentials
of meat and drink."

"But she has pupils."

"She has two; but they must pay her very little. It's dreadful for
people who have as much as we to have to look on at the tragedy of
others going hungry--"

"Good Lord! Don't pile it on."

Striding to a window, he stood with his back to her, staring out.

"I'm not piling it on, Derek. I wish I were."

"Well, can't we do something? If it's as you say, they mustn't be left
like that."

"It's a very delicate matter. The mother-in-law has money of her own;
but Diane has nothing. It's difficult to see what to do, except to find
her a situation."

"Then find her one."

"I have; but you won't take her."

"In any case," he said, in the aggressive tone of a man putting forward
a weak final argument, "you couldn't leave the mother-in-law all alone."

"I'd take her," Lucilla said, promptly. "You have no idea how much I
want her, in this big, empty house. It's getting to be more than I can
do to take care of Aunt Regina all alone."

Minutes went by in silence; but when Derek turned from the window and
spoke, Lucilla shrank with constitutional fear from the responsibility
she had assumed.

"Go and ring them up, and tell young Mrs. Eveleth I'm waiting to see her
here."

"But, Derek, are you sure--?"

"I'm quite sure. Please go and ring them up."

"But, Derek, you're so startling. Have you reflected?"

"It's quite decided. Please do as I say, and call them up."

"But if anything were to go wrong in the future you'd think it was my--"

"I shall think nothing of the kind. Don't say any more about it, but
please go and tell Diane I'm waiting."

The use of this name being more convincing to Lucilla than pledges of
assurance, she sped away to do his bidding; but it was not till after
she had gone that Derek recognized the fact that the word had passed his
lips.




VII


During the half-hour before the arrival of Mrs. Eveleth and Diane, Miss
Lucilla's tact allowed Derek to have the library to himself. He was thus
enabled to co-ordinate his thoughts, and enact the laws which must
henceforth regulate his domestic life. It was easy to silence the voice
that for an instant accused him of taking this step in order to provide
Diane Eveleth with a home; for Dorothea's need of a strong hand over her
was imperative. He had reached the point where that circumstance could
no longer be ignored. The avowal that the child had passed beyond his
control would have had more bitterness in it, were it not for the fact
that her naive self-sufficiency touched his sense of humor, while her
dainty beauty wakened his paternal pride.

Nevertheless, it was patent that Dorothea had been too much her own
mistress. Without admitting that he had been wrong in his methods
hitherto, he confessed that the time had come when the duenna system
must be introduced, as a matter not only of propriety, but of prudence.
He assured himself of his regret that no American lady who could take
the position chanced to be on the spot, but allayed his sorrow on the
ground that any fairly well-mannered, virtuous woman could fulfil the
functions of so mechanical a task, just as any decent, able-bodied man
is good enough to be a policeman.

It was somewhat annoying that the lady in question should be young and
pretty; for it was a sad proof of the crudity of human nature that the
mere residence of a free man and a free woman under the same roof could
not pass without comment among their friends. For himself it was a
matter of no importance; and as for her, a woman who has her living to
earn must often be placed in situations where she is exposed to remark.

To anticipate all possibility of mistake, it would be necessary that his
attitude toward Mrs. Eveleth should be strictly that of the employer
toward the employed. He must ignore the circumstance of their earlier
acquaintance, with its touch of something memorable which neither of
them had ever been able to explain, and confine himself as far as
possible, both in her interests and his own, to such relations as he
held with his stenographers and his clerks. What friendliness she
required she must receive from other hands; and, doubtless, she would
find sufficient.

Having intrenched himself behind his fortifications of reserve, he was
able to maintain just the right shade of dignity, when, in the
half-light of the midwinter afternoon, Diane glided into the big,
book-lined apartment, in which the comfortable air induced through long
occupancy by people of means did not banish a certain sombreness. She
entered with the subdued manner of one who has been sent for peremptorily,
but who acknowledges the right of summons. The perception of this called
an impulse to apologize to Derek's lips; but on reflection he repressed
it. It was best to assume that she would do his bidding from the first.
Standing by the fireplace, with his arm on the mantelpiece, he bowed
stiffly, without offering his hand. Diane bowed in return, keeping her
own hands securely in her small black muff.

"Won't you sit down?"

Without changing his position he indicated the large leathern chair on
the other side of the hearth. Diane sat down on the very edge--erect,
silent, submissive. If he had feared the intrusion of the personal
element into what must be strictly a business affair, it was plain that
this pale, pinched little woman had forestalled him.

Yes; she was pale and pinched. Lucilla had been right about that. There
was something in Diane's appearance that suggested privation. Derek had
seen such a thing before among the disinherited of mankind, but never in
his own rank in life. With her air of proud gentleness, of gallant
acceptance of what fate had apportioned her, she made him think of some
plucky little citadel holding out against hunger. If there was no way of
showing the pity, the mingled pity and approbation, in his breast, it
was at least some consolation to know that in his house she would be
beyond the most terrible and elemental touch of want.

"I've troubled you to come and see me," he began, with an effort to keep
the note of embarrassment out of his voice, "to ask if you would be
willing to accept a position in my family."

Diane sat still and did not raise her eyes, but it seemed to him that he
could detect, beneath her veil, a light of relief in her face, like a
sudden gleam of sunshine.

"I'm looking for a position," was all she said, "and if I could be of
service--"

"I'm very much in need of some one," he explained; "though the duties of
the place would be peculiar, and, perhaps, not particularly grateful."

"It would be for me to do them, without questioning as to whether I
liked them or not."

"I'm glad you say that, as it will make it easier for us to come to an
understanding. You've already guessed, perhaps, that I am looking for a
lady to be with my daughter."

"I thought it might be something of that kind."

The difficult part of the interview was now to begin, and Pruyn
hesitated a minute, considering how best to present his case. Reflection
decided him in favor of frankness, for it was only by frankness on his
side that Diane would be able to carry out his wishes on hers. The
responsibility imposed upon him by his wife's death, he said, was one he
had never wished to shirk by leaving his child to the care of others.
Moreover, he had had his own ideas as to the manner in which she should
be brought up, and he had put them into practice. The results had been
good in most respects, and if in others there was something still to be
desired, it was not too late to make the necessary changes, whether in
the way of supplement or correction. Indeed, in his opinion, the
psychological moment for introducing a new line of conduct had only just
arrived.

"It is often better not to force things," Diane murmured, vaguely,
"especially with the very young."

To this he agreed, though he laid down the principle that not to take
strong measures when there was need for them would be the part of
weakness. Diane having no objection to offer to this bit of wisdom, it
was possible for him to go on to explain the emergency she would be
called on to meet. Briefly, it arose from his own error in allowing
Dorothea too much liberty of judgment. While he was in favor of a
reasonable freedom for all young people, it was evident that in
this case the pendulum had been suffered to swing so far in one
directionthat it would require no small amount of effort on his part
and Diane's--chiefly on Diane's--to bring it back. In the interest of
Dorothea's happiness it was essential that the proper balance should be
established with all possible speed, even though they raised some
rebellion on her part in doing it.

He explained Dorothea's methods in creating her body-guard of young men,
as far as he understood them; he described the young people whose
society she frequented, and admitted that he was puzzled as to the
precise quality in them that shocked his views; coming to the affair
with Carli Wappinger, he spoke of it as "a bit of preposterous nonsense,
to which an immediate stop must be put." There were minor points in his
exposition; and at each one, as he made it, Diane nodded her head
gravely, to show that she followed him with understanding, and was in
sympathy with his opinion that it was "high time that some step should
be taken."

Encouraged by this intelligent comprehension, Derek went on to define
the good offices he would expect from Diane. She should come to his
house not only as Dorothea's inseparable companion, but as a sort of
warder-in-chief, armed, by his authority, with all the powers of
command. There was no use in doing things by halves; and if Dorothea
needed discipline she had better get it thoroughly, and be done with it.
It was not a thing which he, Derek, would want to see last forever; but
while it did last it ought to be effective, and he would look to Diane
to make it so. As it was not becoming that a daughter of his should need
a bodyguard of youths, Diane would undertake the task of breaking up
Dorothea's circle. Young men might still be permitted "to call," but
under Diane's supervision, while Dorothea sat in the background, as a
maiden should. Diane would make it a point to know the lads personally,
so as to discriminate between them, and exclude those who for one reason
or another might not be desirable friends. As for Mr. Carli Wappinger,
the door was to be rigorously shut against him. Here the question was
not one of gradual elimination, but of abrupt termination to the
acquaintanceship. He must request Diane to see to it that, as far as
possible, Dorothea neither met the young man, nor held communication
with him, on any pretext whatever. He laid down no rule in the case of
Mrs. Wappinger, but it would follow as a natural consequence that the
mother should be dropped with the son. These might seem drastic measures
to Dorothea, to begin with; but she was an eminently reasonable child,
and would soon come to recognize their wisdom. After all, they were only
the conditions to which, as he had been given to understand, other young
girls were subjected, so that she would have nothing to complain of in
her lot. The probability of his own departure for South America, with an
absence lasting till the spring, would make it necessary for Diane to
use to the full the powers with which he commissioned her. He trusted
that he made himself clear.

For some minutes after he ceased speaking Diane sat looking meditatively
at the fire. When she spoke her voice was low, but the ring of decision
in it was not to be mistaken.

"I'm afraid I couldn't accept the position, Mr. Pruyn."

Derek's start of astonishment was that of a man who sees intentions he
meant to be benevolent thrown back in his face.

"You couldn't--? But surely--?"

"I mean, I couldn't do that kind of work."

"But I thought you were looking for it--or something of the sort."

"Yes; something of the sort, but not precisely that."

"And it's precisely that that I wish to have done," he said, in a tone
that betrayed some irritation; "so I suppose there is no more to be
said."

"No; I suppose not. In any case," she added, rising, "I must thank you
for being so good as to think of me; and if I feel obliged to decline
your proposition, I must ask you to believe that my motives are not
petty ones. Now I will say good-afternoon."

Copyright (c) 2007. knowncrafts.net. All rights reserved.