A Little Country Girl (Coolidge)/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI.
A TALK ABOUT SHYNESS.
ANNIE," said Mrs. Gray, a few days after the sailing - party, " would you like to study French this summer, with Marian for company? "
"Y-es," replied Cannie; but she said it more because she saw that a yes was expected of her, than because of any real pleasure at the idea. Like most girls who have had scanty or poor teaching, she liked to read a great deal better than she liked to study.
"Do you know any French at all?" continued her cousin.
"No, not any. There wasn't anybody at home who taught it; and if there had been, I don't believe Aunt Myra would have let me learn. She thinks English is a good enough language for anybody. I did study Latin a little while, though. Aunt Myra consented to that, because we had papa's Latin books in the house, and she said they might as well be useful."
"Well, your Latin won't come amiss to your French," said Mrs. Gray, laughing to herself over this thrifty reason for learning a language. "Marian is, of course, far ahead of you in speaking, for she learned it by ear, as they say of music, during the year we spent in France on our way home; but she knows but little of the rules and grammar. I think you will do very well together; for her fluency will tempt you on to talk, and your perseverance will keep her up to the exercises and conjugations, which are sad drudgery, but very needful if you are ever really to know anything of the language. You are persevering, are you not, Cannie?"
"I don't know whether I am or not," replied Candace, inly resolving to justify Cousin Kate's good opinion.
"I have confidence in you," said Mrs. Gray, smiling kindly at her. "And another thing I wanted to say is, that I think both you and Marian will enjoy the summer a great deal better for having one regular study to prepare for. It gives a sort of backbone to your lives, don't you see? Clear fun is like clear honey,—it cloys and loses its charm; but when it is mixed with occupation it keeps its flavor, and you don't get tired of it."
"I can understand that," said Candace, thoughtfully. "I recollect how nice Saturday afternoons used to seem when Aunt Myra had kept me busy darning stockings all the morning. I think I would like the French lessons, Cousin Kate; only I am afraid the teacher will think me very stupid."
Candace's fears were not realized. As a beginner, her first steps were necessarily slow; but she took pains, and had no bad habits or evil accents to unlearn, and after a while she "got hold" of the language and went on more rapidly. Marian's fluent chatter stimulated her to try to talk as fast also, though Mademoiselle Bougereau, their teacher, found a great deal of fault with Marian, and said that many of the phrases which came so glibly out of her mouth partook of the nature of slang, and were not finished or elegant French. Still, with all drawbacks, the little class of two made fair progress; and Candace realized that what Mrs. Gray had said was true, and that all the bits of amusement and pleasure which came in her way were doubly enjoyed by reason of the little "backbone" of real work thus put into her days.
Another pleasure which she and Marian shared in common was a surf-bath before breakfast. Berry Joy had got up an omnibus party of girls, which she called "The Early Dip Club," in which all four of Mrs. Gray's young people were included. Punctually at a quarter before seven on every fair morning the omnibus rattled up the Avenue; and the "Club" set out, under the care of an old experienced maid of Mrs. Joy's, who had nursed Berry, and could be trusted to see that none of the young ladies did anything very imprudent,—such as staying too long in the water or standing about in their wet bathing-dresses. At that early hour there were no loungers to stare at the party. The beach, cleanly swept by the tide of the night before, had scarcely a footprint to mar its smooth, firm sands. There was something delightful in the perfect freshness of the hour and place. Some of the girls had taken lessons in the "School of Natation" in the lower bay, and could swim very well. Candace could not swim, and made no attempt to learn; but she soon acquired the art of floating, under the tuition of Alice Frewen, who, next to Marian and herself, was the youngest of the party, and to whom she had taken a great fancy. The three "children," as Berenice Joy called them, made common cause, and generally kept together, a little apart from the others, holding each other's hands and splashing up and down in the rollers with great enjoyment.
Bathing over, the "Early Dippers" returned home in their omnibus about the time that other people were waking up, bringing with them such cheeks and such appetites as were a satisfaction to their families, and did great credit to the powers of the Newport surf.
So the days sped on. It was full summer-tide now; yet the weather never seemed hot, except perhaps for an hour or two at a time. Morning after morning the sun would rise in a blaze of yellow, which anywhere else would have betokened a scorching day; and just as people had begun to say, "What a sultry morning!" lo, in one moment the wind would set in from the sea, strong, salty, fresh, invigorating; and, behold, it was cool! Or if the afternoon seemed for a little while oppressive in the streets of the old town, it was only necessary to go down to the end of the Avenue to find a temperature cool enough to be called chilly. Nobody ever thought of driving without a shawl, and the shawl was almost always needed. Mrs. Gray was wont to say that Newport had three different climates,—a warm one and a cold one and an in-between one,—and it had them all three every day, and people could take their choice, which was much more convenient than having only one.
The large places on the Cliffs were all open and occupied now. The flower-beds, newly planted when Candace came, made wonderful spaces of color everywhere in the emerald turf. Geraniums seemed as universal as grass, and their splendid reds and pinks were such as are seldom seen anywhere except in Newport. Foliage plants grew into enormous crimson or golden mats, which showed not one break in their luxuriant fulness. In the more ornate places were beds planted to look like Turkish carpets or Indian shawls, the pattern reproduced by hundreds of small plants of carefully adjusted hues, kept closely shaven so as to lie as flat as the objects they simulated. Roses were everywhere; and the soft drifting mists which now and again blew in from the sea, and the constant underlying moisture of the climate kept everything in a state of perfect freshness.
The Casino balls and lawn-tennis matches had begun. Visitors were pouring into the Ocean House; and every day increased the number of carriages, drags, dog-carts, pony phaetons, and village carts, which on all bright afternoons thronged the Avenue from end to end. Dinners and lawn-parties were of frequent occurrence, and during calling-hours the bell seemed always in vibration at the Gray cottage.—"Cottage" I call it; for in Newport everything that is not a "villa" is styled a "cottage," no matter how big or square or uncompromising its appearance may be.
Candace was rather too young to be taken into general society, and she saw much less of these entertainments than Georgie; less even than Gertrude, who, by reason of her intimacy with Georgie's set, was often included in their parties, though not yet formally "out." Mrs. Gray, however, thought it good for Candace to share a little of what was going on; and she took pains to have her invited now and then with the others to lawn-parties, excursions, or afternoon teas. If Mrs. Gray herself was present on these occasions, Cannie did pretty well; for she invariably got behind her cousin or beside her, made no attempt to talk, and just amused herself by watching what went on. But when Mrs. Gray did not go, and she was left to the tender mercies of Georgie and Gertrude, she was apt to feel lonely and unfriended; for with all the better resolutions of these pleasure-loving young people, they still found it "easy to forget Cannie."
"What are you going to do this morning, children?" asked Mrs. Gray, one day at breakfast. "Is the great tennis-match that we have heard so much about to come off, or have I forgotten the date?"
"No, this is the eventful day," replied Gertrude; "and I am so nervous about it that I don't feel as if I could play at all."
"Nonsense! you played beautifully yesterday," said Georgie.
"There wasn't anything depending on me yesterday. It is queer how people never do their best when it is important that they should. I feel as if I were going to be all thumbs this morning."
"Oh, you won't. You'll get excited and forget about the thumbs," remarked Georgie, consolingly. "Mamma, aren't you coming to see us?"
"Yes, I think I shall; and I will bring Cannie with me. She hasn't seen the Casino yet."
Candace had become familiar with the street side of the pretty Casino building, and admired greatly its long façade, with the quaintly shingled curves and balconies, and the low gables, ornamented with disks and half suns in dull gilding,—all looking, Mrs. Gray said, as old as if it had stood there for a couple of centuries, instead of for three or four years only. But the street side, picturesque as it is, had by no means prepared her for what she saw as she followed her cousin through the entrance hall and into the quadrangle beyond.
What did she see? An open space of greenest turf, broken only by two long curving beds of foliage plants and a stone basin from which a fountain threw up a cool jet to refresh the air. On either hand, and on the side from which they had entered, was a line of low buildings, with balconies and grilles of quaintly designed wood-work, windows filled with oddly tinted glass, and at one point a clock tower of rough masonry, over which vines were clustering. Connecting the buildings to right and left, was a raised covered gallery, semi-circular in shape, with a second gallery overhead; and on these ladies in fresh morning toilettes were sitting, some with pieces of embroidery in their hands, others collected in knots for conversation or to listen to the music of the band.
Beyond this gallery lay another and much larger quadrangle, with lines of trees and shrubs to veil its boundaries, on which lawn-tennis was being played in five or six courts at once. At the back of this quadrangle was another long low building, in the same picturesque style as the rest, which, Mrs. Gray explained, contained on one side a charming little theatre which could also be used as a ball-room, and on the other an admirable bowling-alley and racket-court for the use of the members. The band was playing gay music; a hum of conversation filled the air; pretty girls in white or blue or rose color were moving about; the wind drew with delicious coolness through the galleries; altogether it would have been hard to find on a summer morning a prettier place or a livelier scene.
Mrs. Gray was too much of a favorite not to be at once sought out. She was soon the centre of a little group of friends; and Candace sat beside her, silent as usual, but gazing with enchanted eyes at the animated figures on the tennis ground, at the gables and loggias of the restaurant building, at the curious clock-tower, with the heavy iron rings depending above the base, and its top like a bellflower. It was all like a fairy tale to her. Her imagination was actively at work, but no one would have guessed it from her quiet little face; and when Mrs. Gray introduced her to one person and another, she shrank into herself, and after her shy little bow and "How do you do?" relapsed again into stillness, and made no attempt to keep up a conversation. People were kind; but it is always easy to secure solitude in a crowd, and Cannie soon found herself let alone to her heart's content.
Gertrude was playing her best. Her nervousness had disappeared in the excitement of the game, as Georgie had predicted that it would, and some of her strokes were so clever as to win a little volley of applause from the by-standers. Candace did not know the game well enough to appreciate fine points of play, but she could perfectly appreciate the fun of winning; and when Gertrude, flushed and radiant, came to show her mother the prize she had won, a lace pin of gold filigree in the form of a racket, Cannie's face lighted up with a bright sympathy which was pleasant to see. A lady who had been watching her whispered to Mrs. Gray, "What a sweet face that little niece of yours has!"
"So she has," replied Mrs. Gray; "only she is so very timid. She never does herself justice."
"Is it timidity? I had a fancy that she had an unhappy temper, or was troubled about something. Her face has always seemed so sad and overcast till just now, when it lit up at Gertrude's good fortune, and then I caught the true expression."
Mrs. Gray recollected this remark as she drove home with Candace, who, perfectly at ease now that she was alone with her cousin Kate, chattered and laughed like any other girl, and showed herself the happy young thing that she was. At home, even when with Georgie and Gertrude, she was no longer shy; but the moment a stranger came in, all was changed. It was like an evil spell cast by some enchanter. The pleasant smile and simple childish manner vanished, and Cannie became stiff, cold, awkward even; for her discomfort made her feel constrained in every limb and muscle. Her manner grew frigid, because she was frightened and wanted to hide it. If she had to shake hands, she did it without smiling and with downcast eyes; she was too ill at ease to be cordial. People thought that she was out of humor or troubled about something, and set her down as dull and unattractive; and with a natural reaction, Cannie felt that they did not like her, and that made her more uncomfortable than ever.
Mrs. Gray pitied Cannie very much, and had tried various methods to shake her out of her shyness and teach her confidence in herself. None of them so far had done any good. She now began to wonder if her analysis of the case was not wrong; if shyness was not a fault rather than a misfortune, and needed to be disciplined accordingly. She watched Candace for a day or two, and then she made up her mind. "It will be kill or cure," she thought, as she ordered the coupé and proposed to Cannie to take the ocean drive. Marian wanted to go too, and protested that there was plenty of room on the little let-down seat, and that she wouldn't crowd them a bit; but her mother was quite firm, and despatched her on an errand in the other direction without any compunctions.
"I must have Cannie all to myself," she thought.
It was not till they were out of the Avenue and rolling along the smooth road beyond Bailey's Beach, with the fresh-water ponds on one hand and on the other the points and indentations of the coast, that Mrs. Gray led to the subject which was on her mind. The sea was intensely blue that afternoon, with shoots of creamy foam over every rock and ledge, and for a while they talked of nothing but the beauty of the day and the view. Finally Mrs. Gray began,—
"How did you like Mrs. Endicott?"
Mrs. Endicott was one of various visitors who had called that morning. Candace had been sent for, and had been more than usually awkward and unresponsive.
"I liked her pretty well," said Candace. "She didn't talk to me but a little while."
"I know she didn't. It was on her account specially that I sent for you to come down," continued Mrs. Gray. "Did she tell you that she was at school with your mother when they were quite little girls?"
"No!" said Candace, surprised.
"Yes; they were great friends, and she wrote to me before she came up that she was looking forward to seeing you. Shall I tell you why she so soon stopped talking to you? She told me afterward. She said: 'I wanted to talk to your niece about her mother, and to ask her to come to me for a visit; but she looked so frightened and seemed so stiff and shy and hard to get at, that I thought the kindest thing I could do would be to let her alone for the moment, till she was a little more used to me, and to talk to some one else. Next time I come, we shall get on better, I hope.'"
Candace looked much mortified.
"Was I stiff?" she asked. "I didn't know it. I didn't mean to be."
"You are almost always stiff with strangers," said her cousin. "I know you do not mean it, and you are not conscious of the effect of your own manner; but all the same it is stiff. Now, Cannie, will you promise me not to be hurt at what I am going to say?"
"Why, of course I won't," said Cannie, looking at her with trustful eyes.
"Well then, listen! If I didn't know you,—if you were not my own dear little Cannie, whose warm heart I am sure of, and whose good intentions I know all about,—if I met you for the first time and judged of you merely from your manner, as all strangers must judge,—do you know what I should think?"
"What?"
"I should think you rather a cold-hearted girl, who didn't like people and didn't mind letting them know it."
"Oh, Cousin Kate!"
"Or else, if I were more charitably inclined, I should think you a dull girl who did not take much interest in what went on about her."
"Oh, Cousin Kate!"
"Or," continued her cousin, relentlessly, "if I were a real angel, and disposed to make the very best of everybody, I should say to myself, 'The poor thing is so shy that she can't show what she really is.' Unluckily, there are few perfect angels in this world, and a great many of the other sort. And even as a perfect angel, my dear Cannie, I don't think I should consider you exactly agreeable."
"But what can I do?" demanded Candace, looking very unhappy. "I can't make myself not shy."
"No; but you can mend matters by forcing yourself to hide your shyness. I have been meditating on the subject, Cannie, and I have made up my mind that shyness is one form of selfishness."
"Cousin Kate, how can you say that? I thought selfishness was doing what you liked and what is pleasant. I'm sure I don't like to be shy."
"Oh, it's not that kind of selfishness," said Mrs. Gray, smiling. "There is nothing pleasant about shyness; that I am quite ready to admit. But can't you see that it is self-occupation, the being absorbed with your own sensations and feelings, and with trying to imagine what people are thinking about you, that makes you so miserable? If you could forget and occupy yourself with others, this shyness would go. Now, this morning, had you been full of Mrs. Endicott, and what she was like, and what she wanted to talk about, instead of little Candace Arden, and what Mrs. Endicott considered her like, it would all have been different, and much pleasanter for both of you."
"Oh, if I only could," said Candace, with a catch in her voice, "I would give anything I have in the world! I hate to seem so awkward and dull. But you've no idea how uncomfortable I feel, Cousin Kate. The moment I come downstairs and see that roomful of company, my face twitches and my cheeks burn, and I can't think of anything to say, and I keep wishing I could run upstairs again and hide somewhere."
"Yes, because, as I said, your mind is full of yourself. If instead of coming in with this miserable self-consciousness full upon you, you could look upon the roomful as just so many people to whom you owe the little duties of politeness and cordiality, for whom you have the chance to do something kind or pleasant, you would forget your face and your cheeks and the desire to run away. You would be thinking of them, and in thinking of them you would forget to be shy."
Candace did not reply.
"You are a conscientious child," her cousin went on. "I think that you sincerely wish to do what is right, and to make God's rule the rule of your life. And, Candace, in my opinion you should consider it a part of religious duty to try to get rid of this false shame, this bondage to the idea of self, and to learn to live for others instead."
Candace looked up, with the dawn of a new idea in her face.
"How do you mean?" she asked.
"You cannot always run away," continued her cousin. "Big as it is, the world is not big enough to furnish hiding-places for all the people who are afraid to face their fellow-men. And since you cannot run away, your plain duty is to be brave and make the best of it. Now, Cannie, there are two things which may help you to do this, two thoughts which you can keep in mind; and I wish you would try to remember them when you feel a fit of fright or of stiffness coming on."
"What are they?"
"One is, that you are but one little insignificant atom among thousands. People are not thinking about you or noticing you very particularly. You are not of much consequence except to yourself and the few friends who love you. This would be a mortifying fact, if vanity were your trouble; but as it is not, it is a comfortable one. And just as nobody notices you specially, so all the world is not engaged afterward in recollecting all your little mistakes and the stupid things you have said. Unless you have done something very queer, they forget about you as soon as they lose sight of you. I know what miseries sensitive girls undergo in thinking over their foolish speeches and actions, and imagining that every one remembers them as distinctly as they themselves do."
Cannie couldn't help smiling. "Cousin Kate, how can you know about all those things?" she asked.
"Because I was a girl myself once, and as foolish as any of the rest of you; and I have not forgotten how it feels to be a girl," said her cousin, gayly. "That is the use of growing old, Cannie. You can show the way to younger people, and make the road you have walked over a little easier for them.—But to go back to what we were talking about, our own insignificance is one helpful thought, as I said; the other is, that kindliness is one of the Christian virtues, and it is just as much a duty to practise it as it is to be honest and temperate."
Candace drew a long breath.
"It would be perfectly delightful to keep thinking like that always," she said; "the only thing is that I am afraid I should forget when the time came. I wish you could give me an exact rule, Cousin Kate, just what to say and how to act. I would try ever so hard to follow it."
"I know you would," said Mrs. Gray; "but there is no exact rule that I can give, except the Golden one, to do to others just as you would like them to do to you. If you feel stiff, be sure to look cordial. Smile, and shake hands as if you meant it. Try to look interested in what people are saying to you. A good listener helps on conversation as well as a good talker. If you are friendly and warm in your manner, other people will warm to you instinctively. Try it, Cannie, and see if I am not right. And now we will not talk any more about ourselves or our shyness, but drive into the Fort and listen to the music. I caught a strain from the Band just then, and I recollect that this is a 'Fort Day.'"
So in they drove, clattered between walls and embankments, and over a steep paved incline beneath a great arch, and found themselves in an open square, with buildings of solid masonry on all sides, in the midst of which the band was stationed. Other carriages were drawn up to listen to the music, and officers in uniform were coming and going, and talking to the ladies in the carriages. One of these officers, a nice old Major, with a bald spot under his gold-banded cap, knew Mrs. Gray, and came to welcome her. His "girls" were gone over to Newport to a lawn-party, he said; but he insisted on taking Mrs. Gray and Cannie in to see their quarters, which were in a casemate, in close neighborhood to one of the great guns. Here he brewed them a delicious cup of tea; and afterward, at Mrs. Gray's request, he took Candace to see the magazines, and some of the curious underground passages which connect one side of the Fort with the other. Cannie thought these extremely interesting, and like all the caves on desert islands which she had ever read about; for they were narrow, dark, and mysterious, they smelt very close, and all sorts of odd funguses and formations were growing on the roofs overhead.
These adventures chased the worry from her mind and the anxious puckers from her forehead; and she went home quite happily, without recurring again to the subject of their late conversation. But she did not forget it, and it bore fruit. Mrs. Gray noted, without seeming to be on the watch, the efforts which Candace thenceforward made to overcome her shyness. She saw her force herself to come forward, force herself to smile, to speak, when all the time she was quaking inwardly; and she felt that there was real power of character required for such an effort. Quiet Candace would always be; modest and retiring it was her nature to be: but gradually she learned not to seem cold and stiff; and when her cousin saw her, as she sometimes did, forgetting herself in talking to some one, and lighting up into her easy, natural, bright manner, she felt that the rather hard lesson administered that afternoon on the ocean drive had not been in vain. Rome was not built in a day, and ease of manner is not acquired in a moment; but Candace had at last got hold of a right idea, and there was hope that with time people less charitable even than "perfect angels" might pronounce her "agreeable."