Ragged Lady - Volume 2 , livre ebook

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104 pages

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pubOne.info present you this new edition. Mrs. Lander went to a hotel in New York where she had been in the habit of staying with her husband, on their way South or North. The clerk knew her, and shook hands with her across the register, and said she could have her old rooms if she wanted them; the bell-boy who took up their hand-baggage recalled himself to her; the elevator-boy welcomed her with a smile of remembrance.

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Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	06 novembre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819948261
Langue	English

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Part 2
XV.
Mrs. Lander went to a hotel in New York where shehad been in the habit of staying with her husband, on their waySouth or North. The clerk knew her, and shook hands with her acrossthe register, and said she could have her old rooms if she wantedthem; the bell-boy who took up their hand-baggage recalled himselfto her; the elevator-boy welcomed her with a smile ofremembrance.
Since she was already up, from coming off thesleeping-car, she had no excuse for not going to breakfast likeother people; and she went with Clementina to the dining-room,where the head-waiter, who found them places, spoke with anoutlandish accent, and the waiter who served them had a parlancethat seemed superficially English, but was inwardly something else;there was even a touch in the cooking of the familiar dishes, thatneeded translation for the girl's inexperienced palate. She wasfinding a refuge in the strangeness of everything, when she wasstartled by the sound of a familiar voice calling, “ClementinaClaxon! Well, I was sure all along it was you, and I determined Iwouldn't stand it another minute. Why, child, how you have changed!Why, I declare you are quite a woman! When did you come? How prettyyou are! ” Mrs. Milray took Clementina in her arms and kissed herin proof of her admiration before the whole breakfast room. She wasvery nice to Mrs. Lander, too, who, when Clementina introducedthem, made haste to say that Clementina was there on a visit withher. Mrs. Milray answered that she envied her such a visitor asMiss Claxon, and protested that she should steal her away for avisit to herself, if Mr. Milray was not so much in love with herthat it made her jealous. “Mr. Milray has to have his breakfast inhis room, ” she explained to Clementina. “He's not been so well,since he lost his mother. Yes, ” she said, with decorous solemnity,“I'm still in mourning for her, ” and Clementina saw that she wasin a tempered black. “She died last year, and now I'm taking Mr.Milray abroad to see if it won't cheer him up a little. Are yougoing South for the winter? ” she inquired, politely, of Mrs.Lander. “I wish I was going, ” she said, when Mrs. Lander guessedthey should go, later on. “Well, you must come in and see me allyou can, Clementina; and I shall have the pleasure of calling uponyou, ” she added to Mrs. Lander with state that was lost in thesoubrette-like volatility of her flight from them the next moment.“Goodness, I forgot all about Mr. Milray's breakfast! ” She ranback to the table she had left on the other side of the room.
“Who is that, Clementina? ” asked Mrs. Lander, ontheir way to their rooms. Clementina explained as well as shecould, and Mrs. Lander summed up her feeling in the verdict, “Well,she's a lady, if ever I saw a lady; and you don't see many of 'em,nowadays. ”
The girl remembered how Mrs. Milray had once beforeseemed very fond of her, and had afterwards forgotten the prettypromises and professions she had made her. But she went with Mrs.Lander to see her, and she saw Mr. Milray, too, for a little while.He seemed glad of their meeting, but still depressed by thebereavement which Mrs. Milray supported almost with gayety. When heleft them she explained that he was a good deal away from her, withhis family, as she approved of his being, though she had apparentlyno wish to join him in all the steps of the reconciliation whichthe mother's death had brought about among them. Sometimes hissisters came to the hotel to see her, but she amused herselfperfectly without them, and she gave much more of her leisure toClementina and Mrs. Lander.
She soon knew the whole history of the relationbetween them, and the first time that Clementina found her alonewith Mrs. Lander she could have divined that Mrs. Lander had beentelling her of the Fane affair, even if Mrs. Milray had not at oncecalled out to her, “I know all about it; and I'll tell you what,Clementina, I'm going to take you over with me and marry you to anEnglish Duke. Mrs. Lander and I have been planning it all out, andI'm going to send down to the steamer office, and engage yourpassage. It's all settled! ”
When she was gone, Mrs. Lander asked, “What do yous'pose your folks would say to your goin' to Europe, anyway,Clementina? ” as if the matter had been already debated betweenthem.
Clementina hesitated. “I should want to be su'a,Mrs. Milray really wanted me to go ova with her. ”
“Why, didn't you hear her say so? ” demanded Mrs.Lander.
“Yes, ” sighed Clementina. “Mrs. Lander, I thinkMrs. Milray means what she says, at the time, but she is one thatseems to forget. ”
“She thinks the wo'ld of you, ” Mrs. Landerurged.
“She was very nice to me that summer at Middlemount.I guess maybe she would like to have us go with her, ” the girlrelented.
“I guess we'll wait and see, ” said Mrs. Lander. “Ishouldn't want she should change her mind when it was too late, asyou say. ” They were both silent for a time, and then Mrs. Landerresumed, “But I presume she ha'n't got the only steams that'scrossin'. What should you say about goin' over on some otha steams?I been South a good many wintas, and I should feel kind of lonesomegoin' round to the places where I been with Mr. Landa. I felt itsince I been here in this hotel, some, and I can't seem to want togo ova the same ground again, well, not right away. ”
Clementina said, “Why, of cou'se, Mrs. Landa. ”
“Should you be willin', ” asked Mrs. Lander, afteranother little pause, “if your folks was willin', to go ova the'a,to some of them European countries, to spend the winta? ”
“Oh yes, indeed! ” said Clementina.
They discussed the matter in one of the full talksthey both liked. At the end Mrs. Lander said, “Well, I guess youbetta write home, and ask your motha whetha you can go, so't if wetake the notion we can go any time. Tell her to telegraph, ifshe'll let you, and do write all the ifs and ands, so't she'll knowjust how to answa, without havin' to have you write again. ”
That evening Mrs. Milray came to their table fromwhere she had been dining alone, and asked in banter: “Well, haveyou made up your minds to go over with me? ”
Mrs. Lander said bluntly, "We can't ha'dly believeyou really want us to,
Mrs. Milray. "
“I don't want you? Who put such an idea into yourhead! Oh, I know! ” She threatened Clementina with the door-key,which she was carrying in her hand. “It was you, was it? What anartful, suspicious thing! What's got into you, child? Do you hateme? ” She did not give Clementina time to protest. “Well, now, Ican just tell you I do want you, and I'll be quite heart-broken ifyou don't come. ”
“Well, she wrote to her friends this mohning, ” Mrs.Lander said, “but I guess she won't git an answa in time for youasteamer, even if they do let her go. ”
“Oh, yes she will, ” Mrs. Milray protested. “It'sall right, now; you've got to go, and there's no use trying to getout of it. ”
She came to them whenever she could find them in thedining-room, and she knocked daily at their door till she knew thatClementina had heard from home. The girl's mother wrote, without apunctuation mark in her letter, but with a great deal of sense,that such a thing as her going to Europe could not be settled bytelegraph. She did not think it worth while to report all the factsof a consultation with the rector which they had held upon gettingClementina's request, and which had renewed all the originalquestion of her relations with Mrs. Lander in an intensified form.He had disposed of this upon much the same terms as before; andthey had yielded more readily because the experiment had so farsucceeded. Clementina had apparently no complaint to make of Mrs.Lander; she was eager to go, and the rector and his wife, who hadbeen invited to be of the council, were both of the opinion that acourse of European travel would be of the greatest advantage to thegirl, if she wished to fit herself for teaching. It was anopportunity that they must not think of throwing away. If Mrs.Lander went to Florence, as it seemed from Clementina's letter shethought of doing, the girl would pass a delightful winter in studyof one of the most interesting cities in the world, and she wouldlearn things which would enable her to do better for herself whenshe came home than she could ever hope to do otherwise. She mightnever marry, Mr. Richling suggested, and it was only right and fairthat she should be equipped with as much culture as possible forthe struggle of life; Mrs. Richling agreed with this rather vaguetheory, but she was sure that Clementina would get married togreater advantage in Florence than anywhere else. They neither ofthem really knew anything at first hand about Florence; therector's opinion was grounded on the thought of the joy that asojourn in Italy would have been to him; his wife derived her hopeof a Florentine marriage for Clementina from several romances inwhich love and travel had gone hand in hand, to the lasting creditof triumphant American girlhood.
The Claxons were not able to enter into their viewof the case, but if Mrs. Lander wanted to go to Florence instead ofFlorida they did not see why Clementina should not go with her toone place as well as the other. They were not without a sense offlattery from the fact that their daughter was going to Europe; butthey put that as far from them as they could, the mother severelyand the father ironically, as something too silly, and they triednot to let it weigh with them in making up their mind, but toconsider only Clementina's best good, and not even to regard herpleasure. Her mother put before her the most crucial questions shecould think of, in her letter, and then gave her full leave fromher father as well as herself to go if she wished.
Clementina had rather it had been too late to gowith the Milrays, but she felt bound to own her decision when shereached it; and Mrs. Milray, whatever her real wish was, made it apoint of honor to help get Mrs. Lander berths on her steamer. Itdid not re