Dora Deane; Or, The East India Uncle. Mary Jane Holmes
that, she made her only daughter learn how to do all kinds of work. It would make her a better wife, she said, and so, because Ella had rather lie on the sofa and read a nice novel than to be pokin' round in the kitchen and tending to things, as he calls it, Mr. Hastings looks blue and talks about woman's duties, and all that nonsense. Recently he has taken it into his head that late hours are killing her—that it isn't healthy for her to go every night to parties, concerts, operas, and the like o' that, so he's going to bury her in the stupid country, where she'll be moped to death, for of course there's nobody here that she'll associate with."
"The wretch!" exclaimed Eugenia, who formed one of the group of listeners to this precious bit of gossip; but whether she intended this cognomen for the cruel husband, or Mrs. Leah, we do not know, as she continued to question the old lady of Mrs. Hastings herself, asking if her health were delicate and if she were pretty.
"Delicate! I guess she is," returned Mrs. Leah. "If she hasn't got the consumption now, she will have it. Why, her face is as white as some of them lilies that used to grow on the ponds in old Connecticut; and then to think her husband won't let her take all the comfort she can, the little time she has to live! It's too bad," and the corner of Dame Leah's silk apron went up to her eyes, as she thought how her lady was aggrieved. Soon recovering her composure, she reverted to Eugenia's last question, and hastened to reply, "pretty, don't begin to express it. Just imagine the least little bit of a thing, with the whitest face, the bluest eyes and the yellowest curls, dressed in a light blue silk wrapper, all lined with white satin, and tied with a tassel as big as my fist; wouldn't such a creature look well in the kitchen, telling Hannah it was time to get dinner, and seeing if Tom was cleaning the vegetables!"
And Mrs. Leah's nose went up at the very idea of a blue silk wrapper being found outside of the parlor, even if the husband of said wrapper did have to wait daily at least two hours for his badly cooked dinner!
"Oh, but you ought to see her dressed for a party," continued Mrs. Leah, "she looks like a queen, all sparkling with diamonds and pearls; but she'll never go to many more, poor critter!"
And as the good lady's services were just then needed in another part of the building, she bade good morning to her audience, who commented upon what they had heard, each according to their own ideas—some warmly commending Mr. Hastings for removing his delicate young wife from the unwholesome atmosphere of the city, while others, and among them Eugenia, thought he ought to let her remain in New York, if she chose. Still, while commiserating Mrs. Hastings for being obliged to live in "that stupid village," Eugenia expressed her pleasure that she was coming, and on her way home imparted to Alice her intention of being quite intimate with the New York lady, notwithstanding what "the spiteful old Mrs. Leah" had said about there being no one in Dunwood fit for her to associate with. In almost perfect ecstacy Dora listened to her cousin's animated description of Rose Hill, its handsome rooms and elegant furniture, and while her cheeks glowed with excitement, she exclaimed, "Oh, how I wish I could really live in such a house!"
"And I shouldn't wonder if you did. Your present prospects look very much like it," was Eugenia's scornful reply, which Dora scarcely heard, for her thoughts were busy elsewhere.
She had an eye for the beautiful, and, strange to say, would at any time have preferred remaining in her aunt's pleasant parlor, to washing dishes from off the long kitchen table; but as this last seemed to be her destiny, she submitted without a murmur, contenting herself the while by building castles, just as many a child has done before her and will do again. Some how, too, Dora's castles, particularly the one of which she was mistress, were always large and beautiful, just like Eugenia's description of Rose Hill, to which she had listened with wonder, it seemed so natural, so familiar, so like the realization of what she had many a time dreamed, while her hands were busy with the dish towel or the broom.
Dora was a strange child—so her mother and her aunt Sarah both had told her—so her teachers thought, and so her companions said, when she stole away by herself to think, preferring her own thoughts to the pastime of her schoolmates. This thinking was almost the only recreation which Dora had, and as it seldom interfered with the practical duties of her life, no one was harmed if she did sometimes imagine the most improbable things; and if for a few days succeeding her cousin's visit to Rose Hill, she did seem a little inattentive, and somewhat abstracted, it was merely because she had for a time changed places with the fashionable Mrs. Hastings, whose blue silk morning-gown, while discussed in the parlor, was worn in fancy in the kitchen.
Dream on Dora Deane, dream on—but guard this, your last imagining, most carefully from the proud Eugenia, who would scarce deem you worthy to take upon your lips the name of Mrs. Hastings, much less to be even in fancy the mistress of Rose Hill.
CHAPTER VI.
MR. AND MRS. HASTINGS.
In blissful ignorance of the gossip which his movements were exciting in Dunwood, Mr. Hastings in the city went quietly on with the preparations for his removal, purchasing and storing away in divers baskets, boxes and bags, many luxuries which he knew he could not readily procure in the country, and which would be sadly missed by his young girl-wife, who sat all day in her mother's parlor, bemoaning her fate in being thus doomed to a life in the "horribly vulgar country." She had forgotten that "she could live anywhere with him," for the Ella Hastings of to-day is the Ella Gray of little more than a year ago, the same who had listened to the sad story of Dora Deane, without ever thinking that some day in the future she should meet the little girl who made such an impression upon her husband.
Howard Hastings was not the only man who, with a grand theory as to what a wife ought to be, had married from pure fancy; finding too late that she whom he took for a companion was a mere plaything—a doll to be dressed up and sent out into the fashionable world, where alone her happiness could be found. Still the disappointment to such is not the less bitter, because others, too, are suffering from the effect of a like hallucination, and Howard Hastings felt it most keenly. He loved, or fancied he loved, Ella Grey devotedly, and when in her soft flowing robes of richly embroidered lace, with the orange blossoms resting upon her golden curls, and her long eyelashes veiling her eyes of blue, she had stood at the altar as his bride there was not in all New York a prouder or a happier man. Alas, that in the intimate relations of married life, there should never be brought to light faults whose existence was never suspected! Yet so it is, and the honeymoon had scarcely waned ere Mr. Hastings began to feel a very little disappointed, as, one after another, the peculiarities of his wife were unfolded to his view.
In all his pictures of domestic bliss, there had ever been a home of his own, a cheerful fireside, to which he could repair, when the day's toil was done, but Ella would not hear of housekeeping. To be sure, it would be very pleasant to keep up a grand establishment and give splendid dinner-parties, but she knew that Howard, with his peculiar notions, would expect her to do just as his "dear, fussy old mother did," and that, she wouldn't for a moment think of, for she really "did not know the names of one-half the queer-looking things in the kitchen."
"She will improve as she grows older—she is very young yet, but little more than eighteen," thought Mr. Hastings; and his heart softened towards her, as he remembered the kind of training she had received from her mother, who was a pure slave of fashion, and would have deemed her daughters degraded had they possessed any knowledge of work.
And still, when the aristocratic Howard Hastings had sued for Ella's hand, she felt honored, notwithstanding that both his mother and sister were known to be well skilled in everything pertaining to what she called "drudgery." To remove his wife from her mother's influence, and at the same time prolong her life, for she was really very delicate, was Mr. Hasting's aim; and as he had always fancied a home in the country, he at last purchased Rose Hill farm in spite of Ella's tears, and the frowns of her mother, who declared it impossible for her daughter to live without society, and pronounced all country people "rough, ignorant and vulgar."
All