Фрэнсис Элиза Ходжсон Бёрнетт
Louisiana
CHAPTER III.
"HE IS DIFFERENT."
The same evening, as they sat on one of the seats upon the lawn, Miss Ferrol became aware several times that Louisiana was regarding her with more than ordinary interest. She sat with her hands folded upon her lap, her eyes fixed on her face, and her pretty mouth actually a little open.
"What are you thinking of?" Olivia asked, at length.
The girl started, and recovered herself with an effort.
"I – well, I was thinking about – authors," she stammered.
"Any particular author?" inquired Olivia, "or authors as a class?"
"About your brother being one. I never thought I should see any one who knew an author – and you are related to one!"
Her companion's smile was significant of immense experience. It was plain that she was so accustomed to living on terms of intimacy with any number of authors that she could afford to feel indifferent about them.
"My dear," she said, amiably, "they are not in the least different from other people."
It sounded something like blasphemy.
"Not different!" cried Louisiana. "Oh, surely, they must be! Isn't – isn't your brother different?"
Miss Ferrol stopped to think. She was very fond of her brother. Privately she considered him the literary man of his day. She was simply disgusted when she heard experienced critics only calling him "clever" and "brilliant" instead of "great" and "world-moving."
"Yes," she replied at length, "he is different."
"I thought he must be," said Louisiana, with a sigh of relief. "You are, you know."
"Am I?" returned Olivia. "Thank you. But I am not an author – at least," – she added, guiltily, "nothing I have written has ever been published."
"Oh, why not?" exclaimed Louisiana.
"Why not?" she repeated, dubiously and thoughtfully. And then, knitting her brows, she said, "I don't know why not."
"I am sure if you have ever written anything, it ought to have been published," protested her adorer.
"I thought so," said Miss Ferrol. "But – but they didn't."
"They?" echoed Louisiana. "Who are 'they?'"
"The editors," she replied, in a rather gloomy manner. "There is a great deal of wire-pulling, and favoritism, and – even envy and malice, of which those outside know nothing. You wouldn't understand it if I should tell you about it."
For a few moments she wore quite a fell expression, and gloom reigned. She gave her head a little shake.
"They regret it afterward," she remarked, – "frequently."
From which Louisiana gathered that it was the editors who were so overwhelmed, and she could not help sympathizing with them in secret. There was something in the picture of their unavailing remorse which touched her, despite her knowledge of the patent fact that they deserved it and could expect nothing better. She was quite glad when Olivia brightened up, as she did presently.
"Laurence is handsomer than most of them, and has a more distinguished air," she said. "He is very charming. People always say so."
"I wish I could see him," ventured Louisiana.
"You will see him if you stay here much longer," replied Miss Ferrol. "It is quite likely he will come to Oakvale."
For a moment Louisiana fluttered and turned pale with pleasure, but as suddenly she drooped.
"I forgot," she faltered. "You will have to be with him always, and I shall have no one. He won't want me."
Olivia sat and looked at her with deepening interest. She was thinking again of a certain whimsical idea which had beset her several times since she had attired her protégée in the cream-colored robe.
"Louise," she said, in a low, mysterious tone, "how would you like to wear dresses like mine all the rest of the time you are here?"
The child stared at her blankly.
"I haven't got any," she gasped.
"No," said Miss Ferrol, with deliberation, "but I have."
She rose from her seat, dropping her mysterious air and smiling encouragingly.
"Come with me to my room," she said. "I want to talk to you."
If she had ordered her to follow her to the stake it is not at all unlikely that Louisiana would have obeyed. She got up meekly, smiling, too, and feeling sure something very interesting was going to happen. She did not understand in the least, but she was quite tractable. And after they had reached the room and shut themselves in, she found that it was something very interesting which was to happen.
"You remember what I said to you this morning?" Miss Ferrol suggested.
"You said so many things."
"Oh, but you cannot have forgotten this particular thing. I said you looked as if you had been born in New York."
Louisiana remembered with a glow of rapture.
"Oh, yes," she answered.
"And I said Laurence himself would not know, if he was not told, that you had lived all your life here."'
"Yes."
"And I said I should like to try you on him."
"Yes."
Miss Ferrol kept her eyes fixed on her and watched her closely.
"I have been thinking of it all the morning," she added. "I should like to try you on him."
Louisiana was silent a moment. Then she spoke, hesitatingly:
"Do you mean that I should pretend – ," she began.
"Oh, no," interrupted Miss Ferrol. "Not pretend either one thing or the other. Only let me dress you as I choose, and then take care that you say nothing whatever about your past life. You will have to be rather quiet, perhaps, and let him talk. He will like that, of course – men always do – and then you will learn a great many things from him."
"It will be – a very strange thing to do," said Louisiana.
"It will be a very interesting thing," answered Olivia, her enthusiasm increasing. "How he will admire you!"
Louisiana indulged in one of her blushes.
"Have you a picture of him?"
"Yes. Why?" she asked, in some surprise.
"Because I should like to see his face."
"Do you think," Miss Ferrol said, in further bewilderment, "that you might not like him?"
"I think he might not like me."
"Not like you!" cried Miss Ferrol. "You! He will think you are divine – when you are dressed as I shall dress you."
She went to her trunk and produced the picture. It was not a photograph, but a little crayon head – the head of a handsome man, whose expression was a singular combination of dreaminess and alertness. It was a fascinating face.
"One of his friends did it," said Miss Ferrol. "His friends are very fond of him and admire his good looks very much. They protest against his being photographed. They like to sketch him. They are always making 'studies' of his head. What do you think of him?"
Louisiana hesitated.
"He is different," she said at last. "I thought he would be."
She gave the picture back to Miss Ferrol, who replaced it in her trunk. She sat for a few seconds looking down at the carpet and apparently seeing very little. Then she looked up at her companion, who was suddenly a little embarrassed at finding her receive her whimsical planning so seriously. She herself had not thought of it as being serious at all. It would be interesting and amusing, and would prove her theory.
"I will do what you want me to do," said Louisiana.
"Then," said Miss Ferrol, wondering at an unexpected sense of discomfort in herself, "I will dress you for supper now. You must begin to wear the things, so that you may get used to them."
CHAPTER IV.
A NEW TYPE
When the two entered the supper-room together a little commotion was caused by their arrival. At first the supple young figure in violet and gray was not recognized. It was not the figure people had been used to, it seemed so tall and slenderly round. The reddish-brown hair was combed high and made into soft puffs; it made the pretty head seem more delicately shaped, and showed how white and graceful the back of the slender neck was. It was several minutes before the problem was solved. Then a sharp young woman exclaimed, sotto voce:
"It's the little country-girl, in new clothes – in clothes that fit. Would you believe it?"
"Don't look at your plate so steadily," whispered Miss Ferrol. "Lean back and fan yourself as if you did not hear. You must never show that you hear things."
"I shall be obliged to give her a few hints now and then," she had said to herself beforehand. "But I feel sure when she once catches the cue she will take it."
It really seemed as if she did, too. She had looked at herself long and steadily after she had been dressed, and when she turned away from the glass she held her head a trifle more erect, and her cheeks had reddened. Perhaps what she had recognized in the reflection she had seen had taught her a lesson. But she said nothing. In a few days Olivia herself was surprised at the progress she had made. Sanguine as she was, she had not been quite prepared for the change which had taken place in her. She had felt sure it would be necessary to teach her to control her emotions, but suddenly she seemed to have learned to control them without being told to do so; she was no longer demonstrative of her affection, she no longer asked innocent questions, nor did she ever speak of her family. Her reserve was puzzling to Olivia.
"You are very clever," she said to her one day, the words breaking from her in spite of herself, after she had sat regarding her in silence for a few minutes. "You are even cleverer than I thought you were, Louise."
"Was that very clever?" the girl asked.
"Yes, it was," Olivia answered, "but not so clever as you are proving yourself."
But Louisiana did not smile or blush, as she had expected she would. She sat very quietly, showing neither pleasure nor shyness, and seeming for a moment or so to be absorbed in thought.
In the evening when the stages came in they were sitting on the front gallery together. As the old rattletraps bumped and swung themselves up the gravel drive, Olivia bent forward to obtain a better view of the passengers.
"He ought to be among them," she said.
Louisiana laid her hand on her arm.
"Who is that sitting with the driver?" she asked, as the second vehicle passed them. "Isn't that – "
"To be sure it is!" exclaimed Miss Ferrol.
She would have left her seat, but she found herself detained. Her companion had grasped her wrist.
"Wait a minute!" she said. "Don't leave me! Oh – I wish I had not done it!"
Miss Ferrol turned and stared at her in amazement.
She spoke in her old, uncontrolled, childish fashion. She was pale, and her eyes were dilated.
"What is the matter?" said Miss Ferrol, hurriedly, when she found her voice. "Is it that you really don't like the idea? If you don't, there is no need of our carrying it out. It was only nonsense – I beg your pardon for not seeing that it disturbed you. Perhaps, after all, it was very bad taste in me – "
But she was not allowed to finish her sentence. As suddenly as it had altered before, Louisiana's expression altered again. She rose to her feet with a strange little smile. She looked into Miss Ferrol's astonished face steadily and calmly.
"Your brother has seen you and is coming toward us," she said. "I will leave you. We shall see each other again at supper."
And with a little bow she moved away with an air of composure which left her instructress stunned. She could scarcely recover her equilibrium sufficiently to greet her brother decently when he reached her side. She had never been so thoroughly at sea in her life.
After she had gone to her room that night, her brother came and knocked at the door.
When she opened it and let him in he walked to a chair and threw himself into it, wearing a rather excited look.
"Olivia," he began at once, "what a bewildering girl!"
Olivia sat down opposite to him, with a composed smile.
"Miss Rogers, of course?" she said.
"Of course," he echoed. And then, after a pause of two or three seconds, he added, in the tone he had used before: "What a delightfully mysterious girl!"
"Mysterious!" repeated Olivia.
"There is no other word for it! She has such an adorable face, she looks so young, and she says so little." And then, with serious delight, he added: "It is a new type!"
Olivia began to laugh.
"Why are you laughing?" he demanded.
"Because I was so sure you would say that," she answered. "I was waiting for it."
"But it is true," he replied, quite vehemently. "I never saw anything like her before. I look at her great soft eyes and I catch glimpses of expression which don't seem to belong to the rest of her. When I see her eyes I could fancy for a moment that she had been brought up in a convent or had lived a very simple, isolated life, but when she speaks and moves I am bewildered. I want to hear her talk, but she says so little. She does not even dance. I suppose her relatives are serious people. I dare say you have not heard much of them from her. Her reserve is so extraordinary in a girl. I wonder how old she is?"
"Nineteen, I think."
"I thought so. I never saw anything prettier than her quiet way when I asked her to dance with me. She said, simply, 'I do not dance. I have never learned.' It was as if she had never thought of it as being an unusual thing."
He talked of her all the time he remained in the room. Olivia had never seen him so interested before.
"The fascination is that she seems to be two creatures at once," he said. "And one of them is stronger than the other and will break out and reveal itself one day. I begin by feeling I do not understand her, and that is the most interesting of all beginnings, I long to discover which of the two creatures is the real one."
When he was going away he stopped suddenly to say:
"How was it you never mentioned her in your letters? I can't understand that."
"I wanted you to see her for yourself," Olivia answered. "I thought I would wait."
"Well," he said, after thinking a moment, "I am glad, after all, that you did."
CHAPTER V.
"I HAVE HURT YOU."
From the day of his arrival a new life began for Louisiana. She was no longer an obscure and unconsidered young person. Suddenly, and for the first time in her life, she found herself vested with a marvellous power. It was a power girls of a different class from her own are vested with from the beginning of their lives. They are used to it and regard it as their birthright. Louisiana was not used to it. There had been nothing like it attending her position as "that purty gal o' Rogerses." She was accustomed to the admiration of men she was indifferent to – men who wore short-waisted blue-jean coats, and turned upon their elbows to stare at her as she sat in the little white frame church. After making an effort to cultivate her acquaintance, they generally went away disconcerted. "She's mighty still," they said. "She haint got nothin' to say. Seems like thar aint much to her – but she's powerful purty though."
This was nothing like her present experience. She began slowly to realize that she was a little like a young queen now. Here was a man such as she had never spoken to before, who was always ready to endeavor to his utmost to please her: who, without any tendency toward sentimental nonsense, was plainly the happier for her presence and favor. What could be more assiduous and gallant than the every-day behavior of the well-bred, thoroughly experienced young man of the period toward the young beauty who for the moment reigns over his fancy! It need only be over his fancy; there is no necessity that the impression should be any deeper. His suavity, his chivalric air, his ready wit in her service, are all that could be desired.
When Louisiana awakened to the fact that all this homage was rendered to her as being only the natural result of her girlish beauty – as if it was the simplest thing in the world, and a state of affairs which must have existed from the first – she experienced a sense of terror. Just at the very first she would have been glad to escape from it and sink into her old obscurity.
"It does not belong to me," she said to herself. "It belongs to some one else – to the girl he thinks I am. I am not that girl, though; I will remember that."
But in a few days she calmed down. She told herself that she always did remember, but she ceased to feel frightened and was more at ease. She never talked very much, but she became more familiar with the subjects she heard discussed. One morning she went to Olivia's room and asked her for the address of a bookseller.
"I want to send for some books and – and magazines," she said, confusedly. "I wish you – if you would tell me what to send for. Father will give me the money if I ask him for it."
Olivia sat down and made a list. It was along list, comprising the best periodicals of the day and several standard books.
When she handed it to her she regarded her with curiosity.
"You mean to read them all?" she asked.
"Isn't it time that I should?" replied her pupil.
"Well – it is a good plan," returned Olivia, rather absently.
Truth to tell, she was more puzzled every day. She had begun to be quite sure that something had happened. It seemed as if a slight coldness existed between herself and her whilom adorer. The simplicity of her enthusiasm was gone. Her affection had changed as her outward bearing. It was a better regulated and less noticeable emotion. Once or twice Olivia fancied she had seen the girl looking at her even sadly, as if she felt, for the moment, a sense of some loss.
"Perhaps it was very clumsy in me," she used to say to herself. "Perhaps I don't understand her, after all."
But she could not help looking on with interest. She had never before seen Laurence enjoy himself so thoroughly. He had been working very hard during the past year, and was ready for his holiday. He found the utter idleness, which was the chief feature of the place, a good thing. There was no town or village within twenty miles, newspapers were a day or two old when they arrived, there were very few books to be found, and there was absolutely no excitement. At night the band brayed in the empty-looking ball-room, and a few very young couples danced, in a desultory fashion and without any ceremony. The primitive, domesticated slowness of the place was charming. Most of the guests had come from the far South at the beginning of the season and would remain until the close of it; so they had had time to become familiar with each other and to throw aside restraint.
"There is nothing to distract one," Ferrol said, "nothing to rouse one, nothing to inspire one – nothing! It is delicious! Why didn't I know of it before?"
He had plenty of time to study his sister's friend. She rode and walked with him and Olivia when they made their excursions, she listened while he read aloud to them as he lay on the grass in a quiet corner of the grounds. He thought her natural reserve held her from expressing her opinion on what he read very freely; it certainly did not occur to him that she was beginning her literary education under his guidance. He could see that the things which pleased him most were not lost upon her. Her face told him that. One moonlight night, as they sat on an upper gallery, he began to speak of the novelty of the aspect of the country as it presented itself to an outsider who saw it for the first time.
"It is a new life, and a new people," he said. "And, by the way, Olivia, where is the new species of young woman I was to see – the daughter of the people who does not belong to her sphere?"
He turned to Louisiana.
"Have you ever seen her?" he asked. "I must confess to a dubiousness on the subject."
Before he could add another word Louisiana turned upon him. He could see her face clearly in the moonlight. It was white, and her eyes were dilated and full of fire.
"Why do you speak in that way?" she cried. "As if – as if such people were so far beneath you. What right have you – "
She stopped suddenly. Laurence Ferrol was gazing at her in amazement. She rose from her seat, trembling.
"I will go away a little," she said. "I beg your pardon – and Miss Ferrol's."
She turned her back upon them and went away. Ferrol sat holding her little round, white-feather fan helplessly, and staring after her until she disappeared.
It was several seconds before the silence was broken. It was he who broke it.
"I don't know what it means," he said, in a low voice. "I don't know what I have done!"
In a little while he got up and began to roam aimlessly about the gallery. He strolled from one end to the other with his hands thrust in his coat pockets. Olivia, who had remained seated, knew that he was waiting in hopes that Louisiana would return. He had been walking to and fro, looking as miserable as possible, for about half an hour, when at last she saw him pause and turn half round before the open door of an upper corridor leading out upon the verandah. A black figure stood revealed against the inside light. It was Louisiana, and, after hesitating a moment, she moved slowly forward.
She had not recovered her color, but her manner was perfectly quiet.
"I am glad you did not go away," she said.
Ferrol had only stood still at first, waiting her pleasure, but the instant she spoke he made a quick step toward her.
"I should have felt it a very hard thing not to have seen you again before I slept," he said.
She made no reply, and they walked together in silence until they reached the opposite end of the gallery.
"Miss Ferrol has gone in," she said then.
He turned to look and saw that such was the case. Suddenly, for some reason best known to herself, Olivia had disappeared from the scene.
Louisiana leaned against one of the slender, supporting pillars of the gallery. She did not look at Ferrol, but at the blackness of the mountains rising before them. Ferrol could not look away from her.
"If you had not come out again," he said, after a pause, "I think I should have remained here, baying at the moon, all night."
Then, as she made no reply, he began to pour himself forth quite recklessly.
"I cannot quite understand how I hurt you," he said. "It seemed to me that I must have hurt you, but even while I don't understand, there are no words abject enough to express what I feel now and have felt during the last half hour. If I only dared ask you to tell me – "
She stopped him.
"I can't tell you," she said. "But it is not your fault – it is nothing you could have understood – it is my fault – all my fault, and – I deserve it."
He was terribly discouraged.
"I am bewildered," he said. "I am very unhappy."
She turned her pretty, pale face round to him swiftly.
"It is not you who need be unhappy," she exclaimed. "It is I!"
The next instant she had checked herself again, just as she had done before.
"Let us talk of something else," she said, coldly.
"It will not be easy for me to do so," he answered, "but I will try."
Before Olivia went to bed she had a visit from her.
She received her with some embarrassment, it must be confessed. Day by day she felt less at ease with her and more deeply self-convicted of some blundering, – which, to a young woman of her temperament, was a sharp penalty.
Louisiana would not sit down. She revealed her purpose in coming at once.
"I want to ask you to make me a promise," she said, "and I want to ask your pardon."
"Don't do that," said Olivia.
"I want you to promise that you will not tell your brother the truth until you have left here and are at home. I shall go away very soon. I am tired of what I have been doing. It is different from what you meant it to be. But you must promise that if you stay after I have gone – as of course you will – you will not tell him. My home is only a few miles away. You might be tempted, after thinking it over, to come and see me – and I should not like it. I want it all to stop here – I mean my part of it. I don't want to know the rest."
Olivia had never felt so helpless in her life. She had neither self-poise, nor tact, nor any other daring quality left.
"I wish," she faltered, gazing at the girl quite pathetically, "I wish we had never begun it."
"So do I," said Louisiana. "Do you promise?"
"Y-yes. I would promise anything. I – I have hurt your feelings," she confessed, in an outbreak.
She was destined to receive a fresh shock. All at once the girl was metamorphosed again. It was her old ignorant, sweet, simple self who stood there, with trembling lips and dilated eyes.
"Yes, you have!" she cried. "Yes, you have!"
And she burst into tears and turned about and ran out of the room.
