A Little Country Girl (Coolidge)/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV.
THE MANUAL OF PERFECT GENTILITY.
RS. GRAY'S storm had indeed come. All the next day it rained, and the day after it rained harder, and on the third day came a thick fog; so it was not till the very end of the week that Newport lay again in clear sunshine.
The first of the wet days Cannie spent happily in the society of Miss Evangeline and Mr. Hiawatha, two new acquaintances of whom she felt that she could scarcely see enough. Marian found her sitting absorbed on the staircase bench, and after peeping over her shoulder at the pictures for a while, begged her to read aloud. It was the first little bit of familiar acquaintance which any of the younger members of the Gray family had volunteered, and Candace was much pleased.
Marian was not yet quite fourteen, and was still very much of a child at heart and in her ways. Her "capable" little face did not belie her character. She was a born housekeeper, always tidying up and putting away after other people. Everything she attempted she did exactly and well. She was never so happy as when she was allowed to go into the kitchen to make molasses candy or try her hand at cake; and her cake was almost always good, and her candy "pulled" to admiration. She was an affectionate child, with a quick sense of fun, and a droll little coaxing manner, which usually won for her her own way, especially from her father, who delighted in her and never could resist Marian's saucy, caressing appeals. It required all Mrs. Gray's firm, judicious discipline to keep her from being spoiled.
Georgie, who was nearly nineteen, seemed younger in some respects than Gertrude, who was but three months older than Candace. Georgie, too, had a good deal of the housekeeper's instinct, but she was rather dreamy and puzzle-headed, and with the best intentions in the world was often led into scrapes and difficulties from her lack of self-reliance, and the easy temper which enabled any one who was much with her to gain an influence over her mind.
Gertrude—but it is less easy to tell what Gertrude was. In fact, it was less important just then to find out what she was than what she was likely to be. Gertrude reminded one of an unripe fruit. The capacities for sweetness and delightfulness were there within her, but all in a crude, undeveloped state. No one could predict as yet whether she would ripen and become mellow and pleasant with time, or remain always half-hard and half-sour, as some fruits do. Meanwhile she was the prettiest though not the most popular of the Gray sisters, and she ruled over Georgie's opinions and ideas with the power which a stronger and more selfish character always has over a weaker and more pliable one.
Marian was less easily influenced. She and Gertrude often came into collision; and it was in part the habit of disputing Gertrude's mandates which led her to seek out Candace on that rainy afternoon. In the privacy of her own room that morning, Gertrude had made some very unflattering remarks about their newly arrived relative.
"It's really quite dreadful to have a girl like that come to spend the whole summer with one," she said to Georgie. "She hasn't a bit of style, and her clothes are so queer and old-timey; and she's always lived up on that horrid farm, and hasn't an idea beyond it. Everything surprises her so, and she makes such a fuss over it. You should have heard her yesterday when we were out walking; she said the Cliffs had been there always, and some of the fashionable people had only just come."
"What did she mean?"
"I'm sure I don't know. She says the queerest things. And she looks so funny and so different from the other girls; and of course everybody will know that she is our cousin."
"Mamma has ordered her some dresses from Hollander's," observed Georgie; "and that was a real pretty hat that came home last night."
"I don't care. They won't look like anything when she puts them on."
"Gertrude Gray, I think it's real mean to talk so about your own cousin," cried Marian, who, with the instinct of a true "little pitcher," had heard every word. "It isn't Cannie's fault that she has always lived on a farm. She didn't have anywhere else to live. Very likely she would have preferred Paris," with fine scorn, "or to go to boarding-school in Dresden, as you and Georgie did, if anybody had given her the choice. She's real nice, I think, and now that her hair is put up, she's pretty too,—a great deal prettier than some of the girls you like. I'm going down now to sit with her. You and Georgie don't treat her kindly a bit. You leave her all alone, and very likely she's homesick at this moment; but I shall be nice to her, whatever you do."
Whereupon Miss Marian marched out of the room with her nose in the air, and devoted herself to Candace for the rest of that day, much to the lonely little visitor's contentment.
They grew quite at home with each other over "Evangeline." Birthday books had just come into fashion. Somebody had given Marian one; and she now brought it and asked Candace to write in it.
"June 17," she said, as Cannie sought out the right page; "why, that is next Saturday."
"So it is, though I shouldn't have remembered it if it hadn't been for your book."
"Why, how funny!" cried Marian, opening her eyes wide. "Don't you keep your birthdays?"
"Keep them?" repeated Candace, in a tone of perplexity.
"Yes; keep—celebrate them? Don't people ever give you presents? Didn't you ever have a cake?"—her voice increasing in dismay, as Candace in answer to each question shook her head.
"Cake—on my birthday, you mean? No, I don't think I ever did. Aunt Myra doesn't believe in cake. She says she liked it when she was young; but since she was converted to cracked wheat and oatmeal at the age of thirty-three, she has hardly ever touched it. We never had any at North Tolland, except gingerbread sometimes."
"What a dreadful kind of aunt for a girl to have!" remarked Marian, meditatively. She sat for some time longer on the floor, with her head on Candace's knee; but she seemed to be thinking deeply about something, and said she didn't feel like being read to any longer. At last she went away "to speak to mamma," she said.
Candace had forgotten all about this birthday discussion before Saturday morning dawned dimly out of the still persistent fog. All the time she was dressing, her eyes were on "The Golden Legend" which lay open on the bureau beside her; and her thoughts were so much occupied with Prince Henry and poor pretty Elsie, for whom she felt so very sorry, that she had none to spare for the comparatively unimportant fact that she, little Candace Arden, had that day turned the corner of her seventeenth year.
It was all the more a delightful surprise, therefore, when she went down to breakfast and found a pile of dainty, white, ribbon-tied parcels on her plate, a glass of beautiful roses beside it, and was met with a special kiss from Cousin Kate, and a chorus of "Many happy returns" from the rest of the family.
The little softnesses and prettinesses of life, the gifts and surprises, the sweet words, the being made much of on special occasions, were quite unknown to the old farm-house in North Tolland. Aunt Myra was a stanch Presbyterian. She disapproved on principle of Christmas day, as belonging to popery and old superstition. She didn't see that one day was any better than any other day. It was just an accident on what day of the year you were born, and it was no use to make a fuss about it, she said. There were plenty of people in the world before you came, and there would have been plenty if you had never come at all. Such was Aunt Myra's dictum.
With these views, it may be supposed that Candace's idea of an anniversary was not a very lively one. For a moment she scarcely took in the meaning of what she saw, but stood regarding the plate-ful of parcels with a bewildered look on her face.
"It's your birthday, you know," exclaimed little Marian. "Many happy returns! Don't you recollect that it's your birthday? We shouldn't have found it out, though, if it hadn't been for my book."
"I'm not so sure about that," said Mrs. Gray, smiling at her. "I had the date of Cannie's birthday put down securely somewhere, and I've been keeping a special gift for it. It's something that I brought you from Geneva, Cannie; but as it had waited so long before getting to you, I thought it might as well wait a little longer and come on your anniversary."
"Oh, thank you," said Candace, glancing shyly at the parcels.
"Please do begin to open them!" urged Marian. "It is such fun to see people open presents. That's mamma's; open it first."
It was a flat squarish bundle, tied with a rose-colored ribbon. Cannie's fingers shook with excitement as she undid the knot. Breakfast meantime was at a stand-still. The girls were peeping over her shoulders, Mr. Gray watching from behind his newspaper; even Frederic, with a plate of hot toast in his hand, had paused, and out of one discreet eye was observing her movements.
Inside was a flat case of gray polished wood, with a little silver ornament in the middle. It opened with a snap. Cannie pressed the spring, the lid flew up, and there, on a cushion of blue velvet, lay the prettiest little Swiss watch imaginable, with C. V. A. enamelled on its lid. There was a slender gold chain attached, a little enamelled key,—nothing could be more complete.
"A watch! for me! to be my own!" cried Candace, hardly able to believe her eyes. "I never thought I should have a watch, and such a darling beauty as this. Oh, Cousin Kate!"
"I am glad it pleases you," said her cousin, with another kiss. "You should have had it two years ago; but I thought you rather young to be trusted with a watch then, so I kept it till we should meet."
"Oh, do make haste and open another! It's such fun to see you," pleaded Marian.
One by one, the other parcels were unfastened. There was a little ring of twisted gold from Georgie, a sachet of braided ribbons, dark and light blue, from Gertrude, a slender silver bangle from Marian, and from Mr. Gray a long roll of tissue paper in which lay six pairs of undressed kid gloves in pretty shades of tan color and pale yellow. There was besides a big box of candy. This, Mr. Gray declared, was his real present. Cousin Kate was responsible for the gloves, but he knew very well that there never yet was a girl of seventeen who did not have a sweet tooth ready for a sugar-plum.
One bundle remained. It was tied with pink packthread instead of ribbon. Cannie undid the string. It was a book, not new, bound in faded brown; and the title printed on the back was "The Ladies' Manual of Perfect Gentility."
"Who on earth gave you that?" demanded Marian.
Mrs. Gray looked surprised and not very well pleased.
"It is a joke, I suppose," she said. "Georgie, Gertrude,—which of you has been amusing yourself in this odd way?"
"Not I, mamma," said Georgie. Gertrude felt the reproof in her mother's manner, but she tried to laugh the matter off.
"Oh, I put it there just for fun," she said. "I thought the more parcels the better, and I happened to see that queer old thing, and thought it would make Cannie laugh."
This explanation was not quite sincere. Gertrude had put the book on the table, hoping to tease Cannie. She had overheard something which her mother was telling Candace the day before,—an explanation about some little point of manners,—and it had suggested the idea of the old volume. Her shaft had missed its mark somehow, or, like the boomerangs used by the Australian blacks, had returned again to the hand that aimed it; for Cannie did not seem to mind at all, and Mrs. Gray, though she said no more at the moment, was evidently meditating a lecture. It came after breakfast, and was unexpectedly severe, hurting Gertrude a great deal more than her maliciously intended gift had hurt Candace.
"You are inclined to despise your cousin as countrified and unused to society," said Mrs. Gray. "I grant that she is not up in all the little social rules; but let me tell you, Gertrude, that Cannie has the true instinct of ladyhood in her, and after the occurrence of this morning I am beginning to fear that you have not. Good manners are based on good feeling. Cannie may be shy and awkward; she may not know how to face a room full of strangers gracefully,—such things are not hard to learn, and she will learn them in time; but of one thing I am very sure, and that is, that if you were her guest at North Tolland instead of her being yours at Newport, she would be quite incapable of any rudeness however slight, or of trying to make you uncomfortable in any way. I wish I could say the same of you, Gertrude. I am disappointed in you, my child."
"Oh, mamma, don't speak so!" cried Gertrude, almost ready to cry; for she admired her mother as well as loved her, and was cravingly desirous to win her good opinion. "Please don't think I meant to be rude. It really and truly was a joke."
"My dear, you meant a little more by it than that," replied Mrs. Gray, fixing her soft, penetrating look on Gertrude's face. "You haven't begun quite rightly with Candace. I have noticed it, and have been sorry,—sorry for you even more than for her. She is an affectionate, true-hearted girl. You can make a good friend of her if you will; and you can be of use to her and she to you."
"Now, what did mamma mean by that?" thought Gertrude, after she had gone upstairs. "I can't, for the life of me, see what use Cannie could be to me. I might to her, perhaps, if I wanted to."
The "Manual of Perfect Gentility" was destined to excite more attention than its donor had intended, in more ways than one. Candace and Marian fell to reading it, and found its contents so amusing that they carried it to the morning-room, where Georgie was taking a lesson in china-painting from her mother, who was very clever at all the minor art accomplishments. Gertrude came in at the same time, in search of some crewels to match an embroidery pattern; so they were all together.
"Mamma, mamma, please listen to this!" cried Marian, and she read:—
"'Directions for entering the room at an evening party.—Fix your eye on the lady of the house on entering, and advance toward her with outstretched hand, looking neither to the right nor to the left, until you have interchanged the ordinary salutations of the occasion. When this is done, turn aside and mingle with the other guests.'
Now, mamma, just imagine it,—marching in with your hand out and your eye fixed!" And Marian, relinquishing the Manual to Cannie, flew to the door, and entered in the manner prescribed, with her eyes set in a stony glare on her mother's face, and her hand held before her as stiffly as if it had been a shingle. No one could help laughing.
"I don't think the hand and the glare are necessary," said Mrs. Gray; "but it is certainly quite proper to speak to the lady of the house, when you come in, before you begin to talk to other people."
"Here's another," cried Marian, hardly waiting till her mother had done speaking. "Just listen to these—
"'Directions for a horseback ride. Mounting.—The lady should stand on the left side of the horse, with her right hand on the pommel of her saddle, and rest her left foot lightly on the shoulder of her gentleman attendant, who bends before her. When this is done, the gentleman will slowly raise himself to the perpendicular position, and in doing so lift the lady without difficulty to the level of her seat.'"
"My gracious! suppose he didn't," remarked Georgie, looking up from her painting. "There she would be, standing on his shoulder, on one foot! Imagine it, on the Avenue!" And the four girls united in a peal of laughter.
"But there is something here that I really want to know about," said Candace. "May I read it to you, Cousin Kate? It's in a chapter called 'Correspondence.'"
"Oh, my!" cried Marian, who still held fast to one side of the Manual. "It tells how to refuse gentlemen when they offer themselves to you. Here it all is. You must say,—
"'Sir,—I regret extremely if anything in my manner has led to a misapprehension of my true feelings. I do not experience for you the affection which alone can make the marriage relation a happy one; so I—'"
"No, no," interrupted Candace, blushing very pink, and pulling the book away from Marian; "that isn't at all what I wanted to ask you about, Cousin Kate. It was—"
"Oh, then perhaps you meant to accept him," went on the incorrigible Marian, again getting possession of one side of the "Manual of Gentility." "Here you are:—
"'Dear Friend,—Your letter has made me truly happy, breathing, as it does, expressions of deep and heartfelt affection, of which I have long felt the corresponding sentiments. I shall be happy to receive you in my home as an accepted suitor, and I—'"
"Cousin Kate, make her stop—isn't she too bad?" said Cannie, vainly struggling for the possession of the book.
"'And I'—let me see, where was I when you interrupted?" went on Marian. "Oh, yes, here—
"'And I am sure that my parents will give their hearty consent to our union. Receive my thanks for your assurances, and believe—'"
But Candace had again got hold of the volume, and no one ever learned the end of the letter, or what the lover of this obliging lady was to "believe."
"This is what I wanted to ask you about, Cousin Kate," said Candace, when quiet was restored. "The book says:—
"'The signature of a letter should depend upon the degree of familiarity existing between the writer and the person addressed. For instance, in writing to a perfect stranger a lady would naturally use the form,—
Yours truly,
Mrs. A. M. Cotterell.'"
"Oh! oh!" interrupted Georgie. "Fancy any one signing herself 'Yours truly, Mrs. A. M. Cotterell.' It's awfully vulgar, isn't it mamma?"
"That is a very old-fashioned book," observed Mrs. Gray; "still I don't think, even at the time when it was published, that well-bred people used a signature like that. It may not be 'awfully vulgar,' but it certainly is not correct; nothing but the Christian name should ever be used as a signature."
"But suppose the person you were writing to did not know whether you were married or not," said Candace.
"Then you can add your address below, like this;" and she wrote on the edge of her drawing-paper,—
"Yours truly,
"Mrs. Courtenay Gray,
"Newport, R. I.
That is what I should do if I were writing to a stranger."
"Then there is this about the addresses of letters," went on Candace:—
"'In addressing a married lady, use her maiden as well as her married name; for example, in writing to Miss Sarah J. Beebe, who is married to George Gordon, the proper direction would be
Mrs. Sarah B. Gordon,
Care of George Gordon,
Oshkosh,
Michigan.'
Is that right, Cousin Kate?"
"No; that is decidedly wrong. When Miss Beebe married, she became not only Mrs. Gordon, but Mrs. George Gordon, to distinguish her from any other Mrs. Gordons who might happen to exist. She should sign herself 'Sarah B. Gordon,' but her letters and cards should bear her married name, 'Mrs. George Gordon.'"
"But people do write to widows in that way, don't they?" asked Gertrude. "I recollect, when I went to the post-office with Berry Joy one day, there was a letter for her mother, directed to Mrs. Louisa Bailey Joy."
"Yes; people do, but not the people who know the right way," her mother replied dryly. "A man's Christian name doesn't die with him any more than his surname. I often see letters addressed to Mrs. Jane this and Mrs. Maria that, but it never seems to me either correct or elegant. It is a purely American custom. English people have never adopted it, and it seems very odd to them."
"Well, about cards," continued Marian, who was turning over the leaves of the "Manual of Gentility." "See what a funny little card this is; and the writer of the book says it is the kind we ought to have." She pointed to a page on which appeared a little oblong enclosure bearing the name
Fannie C. Jones.
"That isn't nice a bit, is it, mamma?"
"No, I confess that it does not look to me at all right. Girls old enough to need cards are old enough to have 'handles to their names.' If I were that young woman I should spell 'Fanny' without the ie, and call myself 'Miss Frances C. Jones' on my card, and keep my pet name for the use of my friends, and not print it."
"I think I've learned a good deal to-day," said Candace. "The funny old book isn't right in what it says, but Cousin Kate knows; so it comes to the same thing in the end. I'm glad you gave it to me, Gertrude."
Gertrude had the grace to feel ashamed, as she saw Candace's perfect freedom from shame.
"Oh, dear! how much there is to learn!" continued Candace, with a sigh. She was still deep in the "Ladies' Manual of Perfect Gentility."
"Put away that book, Cannie," said her cousin; "or give it to me, and I will hide it where Gertrude shall not find it again. Good breeding can be learned without printed rules."
"Can it, mamma?"
"Yes; for, as I was saying this morning to Gertrude, good manners are the result of good feeling. If we really care about other people, and want to make them happy, and think of them and not of ourselves, we shall instinctively do what will seem pleasant to them, and avoid doing what is disagreeable. We shall refrain from interrupting them when they are speaking. We shall not half listen to what they say, while our eyes are roving about the room, and our attention wandering to other things. We shall be quick to notice if they want anything that we can get for them. We shall not answer at random, or giggle, or say the wrong thing. We shall not loll back in our chairs, as Georgie is doing at this moment, with one foot cocked over the other knee, and a paint-brush in our mouths."
"Mamma!" And Georgie hastily recovered the upright position, and took her paint-brush from between her lips.
"We shall not drum idly on window-panes, as Gertrude was doing just now, for fear that the little noise will be disagreeable to our neighbors."
"Now, mamma!"
"We shall not walk carelessly between any one and the fire, because we shall be afraid of making them cold; nor shall we upset a work-basket while doing so, as Marian upset mine just now."
"Mamma, I do believe you are giving us all a scolding; I shall just stop you." And Marian flung her arms round her mother's neck, and gave her half a dozen enormous kisses.
"We shall consider a kiss as a favor," went on Mrs. Gray, inexorably, holding Marian off at arm's length, "not a punishment to be inflicted whenever we happen to feel like it. We shall never trot one foot when we are nervous, and shake the table."
"Cannie, that's you. I thought it would be your turn soon," said Marian.
"Oh! did I trot?" said Cannie. "Please excuse me, Cousin Kate. I have such a bad habit of doing that. Aunt Myra says it's my safety-valve."
"If it's a safety-valve, it's all very well," replied her cousin. "I didn't know. In short, my dears, as the poet says,—
The instinct of self-control, of gentleness, of consideration and forethought and quick sympathy, which go to make up what we call good breeding; the absence of noise and hurry, the thousand and one little ways by which we can please people, or avoid displeasing them,—are all taught us by our own hearts. Good manners are the fine flower of civilization. And everybody can have them. I always say that one of the best-bred men of my acquaintance is Mr. Jarvis, the mason. I have known him come up out of a cistern to speak to me, dressed in overalls and a flannel shirt; and his bow and his manner and the politeness of his address would have done credit to any gentleman in the world."
"Mamma, how funny you are," said Georgie, wonderingly; but Gertrude caught her mother's meaning more clearly.
"I rather like it," she said slowly. "It sounds like something in a poem or a storybook, and it would be nice if everybody felt like that, but people don't. I've heard Mrs. Joy speak quite rudely to Mr. Jarvis, mamma."
"Very likely. I never have considered Mrs. Joy as a model of manners," replied Mrs. Gray, coolly. "And that reminds me to say just one other word about good breeding toward servants and people who work for us, or are poor and need our help. Gentleness and politeness are even more important with them than they are with other people."
"Why more, mamma?"
"Because their lives are harder than ours, and we owe them all the little help that courtesy can give. Because, too, we are their models, consciously or unconsciously, and if we are polite to them they will in return be polite to us. And besides, they meet us at a disadvantage. If a servant 'answers back,' she is called impertinent and discharged; but I should think it must be rather hard not to answer back to some mistresses."
"Is that why you are always so very polite to Jane?" asked Gertrude. Jane was the cook.
"Yes, partly that; and partly because I want Jane to be very polite to me; and she always is."
"There is the sun at last, I do declare," cried Marian, springing up. "Hurrah! I should think it was time. Now we shall have some nice weather, Cannie. Newport is lovely after a fog. It looks so nicely washed, and so green. Mamma, couldn't we have a long drive this afternoon in the wagonette, across the beaches and way round by the windmill? I like that drive so much."
"Yes; and at dinner we will eat Cannie's health in her birthday cake. It is making now, and Jane has the seventeen little pink candles all ready. How the fog is rolling away! It will be a charming afternoon.".