Гарриет Бичер-Стоу
My Wife and I. Harry Henderson's History
CHAPTER LII.
PREPARATIONS FOR OUR DINNER PARTY
"Harry," said my wife, the morning of the day of our projected house-warming, "there's one thing you must get me."
"Well, Princess?"
"Well, you know you and I don't care for wine and don't need it, and can't afford it, but I have such a pretty set of glasses and decanters, and you must get me a couple of bottles just to set off our table for celebration."
Immediately I thought of Bolton's letter, of what he had told me of the effect of wine upon his senses at Hestermanns dinner table. I knew it must not be at ours, but how to explain to my wife without compromising him! At a glance I saw that all through the future my intimacy with Bolton must be guided and colored by what I knew of his history, his peculiar struggles and temptations, and that not merely now, but on many future occasions I should need a full understanding with my wife to act as I should be obliged to act. I reflected that Eva and I had ceased to be two and had become one, that I owed her an unlimited confidence in those respects where my actions must involve her comfort, or wishes, or coöperation.
"Eva, darling," I said, "you remember I told you there was a mystery about the separation of Bolton and Caroline."
"Yes, of course," said she, wondering, "but what has this to do with this wine question?"
"A great deal," I said, and going to my desk I took out Bolton's letter and put it into her hand. "Read that my dear and then tell me what to do." She took it and read with something of the eagerness of feminine curiosity while I left the room for a few moments. In a little while she came after me and laid her hand on my arm.
"Harry, dear," she said "I'll stand by you in this thing. His secret shall be sacred with me, and I will make a safe harbor for him where he may have a home without danger. I want our house to seem like a home for him."
"You are an angel, Eva."
"Well, Harry, I must say I always have had conscience about offering wine to some young men that I knew ought to keep clear of it, but it never occurred to me in regard to such a grave noble man as Bolton."
We never know who may be in this danger. It is a diseased action of the nervous system – often inherited – a thing very little understood, like the tendency to insanity or epilepsy. But while we know such things are, we cannot be too careful.
"I should never have forgiven myself, Harry, if I had done it."
"The result would have been that Bolton would never have dined with us again, he is resolute to keep entirely out of all society where this temptation meets him."
"Well, we don't want it, don't need it, and won't have it. Mary makes magnificent coffee and that's even so much better. So that matter is settled, Harry, and I'm ever and ever so glad you told me. I do admire him so much! There is something really sad and noble in his struggle."
"Many a man with that temptation who fails often exercises more self-denial, and self-restraint, than most Christians," said I.
"I'm sure I don't deny myself much. I generally want to do just what I do," said Eva.
"You always want to do all that is good and generous," said I.
"I think, on the whole," said Eva, reflectively, "my self-denial is in not doing what other people want me to. I'm like Mrs. Quickly. I want to please everybody. I wanted to please mamma and Aunt Maria."
"And came very near marrying a man you couldn't love purely to oblige people."
"If you hadn't rescued me," she said, laughing. "But now, Harry, really I want some little extravagance about our dinner. So if we don't have wine, buy the nicest of grapes and pears, and I will arrange a pretty fruit piece for the center of the table."
"My love, I will get you all the grapes and pears you want."
"And my little Ruth has sent me in this lovely tumbler of apple jelly. You see I held sweet council with her yesterday on the subject of jelly-making, where I am only a novice, and hers is splendid; literally now, splendid, for see how the light shines through it! And do you think the generous little Puss actually sent me in half a dozen tumblers."
"What a perfect saint!" said I.
"And I am to have all the flowers in her garden. She says the frost will take them in a day or two if we don't. Harry, next summer we must take lessons of her about our little back yard. I never saw so much made of so little ground."
"She'll be only too delightful," said I.
"Well, now, mind you are home at five. I want you to look the house over before your friends come, and see if I have got everything as pretty as it can be."
"Are they to "process" through the house and see your blue room, and your pink room, and your guest chamber, and all?"
"Yes. I want them to see all through how pretty the rooms are, and then sometimes, perhaps, we shall tempt them to stay all night."
"And sleep in the chamber that is called Peace," said I, "after the fashion of Pilgrim's Progress."
"Come, Harry, begone. I want you to go, so as to be sure and come back early."
CHAPTER LIII.
THE HOUSE-WARMING
Dear reader, fancy now a low-studded room, with crimson curtains and carpet, a deep recess filled a crimson divan with pillows, the lower part of the room taken up by a row of book-shelves, three feet high, which ran all round the room and accommodated my library. The top of this formed a convenient shelf, on which all our pretty little wedding presents – statuettes, bronzes, and articles of vertu– were arranged. A fire-place, surrounded by an old-fashioned border of Dutch tiles, with a pair of grandmotherly brass andirons, nibbed and polished to an extreme of brightness, exhibits a wood fire, all laid in order to be lighted at the touch of the match. My wife has dressed the house with flowers, which our pretty little neighbor has almost stripped her garden to contribute. There are vases of fire-colored nasturtiums and many-hued chrysanthemums the arrangement of which has cost the little artist an afternoon's study, but which I pronounce to be perfect. I have come home from my office an hour earlier to see if she has any commands.
"Here, Harry," she says, with a flushed face, "I believe everything now is about as perfect as it can be. Now come and stand at this door, and see how you think it would strike anybody, when they first came in. You see I've heaped up those bronze vases on the mantel with nothing but nasturtiums; and it has such a surprising effect in that dark bronze! Then I've arranged those white chrysanthemums right against these crimson curtains. And now come out in the dining-room, and see how I've set the dinner-table! You see I've the prettiest possible center-piece of fruit and flowers. Isn't it lovely?"
Of course I kissed her and said it was lovely, and that she was lovelier; and she was a regular little enchantress, witch, and fairy-queen, and ever so much more to the same purport. And then Alice came down, all equipped for conquest, as pretty an additional ornament to the house as heart could desire. And when the clock was on the stroke of six, and we heard the feet of our guests at the door, we lighted our altar-fire in the fire-place; for it must be understood that this was a pure coup de théâtre, a brightening, vivifying, ornamental luxury – one of the things we were determined to have, on the strength of having determined not to have a great many others. How proud we were when the blaze streamed up and lighted the whole room, fluttered on the pictures, glinted here and there on the gold bindings of the books, made dreamy lights and deep shadows, and called forth all the bright glowing color of the crimson tints which seemed to give out their very heart to firelight! My wife was evidently proud of the effect of all things in our rooms, which Jim declared looked warm enough to bring a dead man to life. Bolton was seated in due form in a great, deep arm-chair, which, we informed him, we had bought especially with reference to him, and the corner was to be known henceforth as his corner.
"Well," said he, with grave delight, "I have brought my final contribution to your establishment;" and forthwith from the capacious hinder pockets of his coat he drew forth a pair of kittens, and set them down on the hearth-rug. "There, Harry," he said, gravely, "there are a pair of ballet dancers that will perform for you gratis, at any time."
"Oh, the little witches, the perfect loves!" said my wife and Alice, rushing at them.
Bolton very gravely produced from his pocket two long strings with corks attached to them, and hanging them to the gas fixtures, began, as he said, to exhibit the ballet dancing, in which we all became profoundly interested. The wonderful leaps and flings and other achievements of the performers occupied the whole time till dinner was announced.
"Now, Harry," said my wife, "if we let Little Cub see the kittens, before she's waited on table, it'll utterly demoralize her. So we must shut them in carefully," which was done.
I don't think a dinner party was ever a more brilliant success than ours; partly owing to the fact that we were a mutual admiration society, and our guests felt about as much sense of appropriation and property in it as we did ourselves. The house was in a sort of measure "our house," and the dinner "our dinner." In short, we were all of us strictly en famille. The world was one thing, and we were another, outside of it and by ourselves, and having a remarkably good time. Everybody got some share of praise. Mary got praised for her cooking. The cooking-stove was glorified for baking so well, and Bolton was glorified for recommending the cooking-stove. And Jim and Alice and my wife congratulated each other on the lovely looks of the dining-room. We shuddered together in mutual horror over what the wall-paper there had been; and we felicitated the artists that had brought such brilliant results out of so little. The difficulties that had been overcome in matching the paper and arranging the panels were forcibly dwelt upon; and some sly jokes seemed to pass between Jim and Alice, applicable to certain turns of events in these past operations. After dinner we had most transcendent coffee, and returned to our parlor as gay of heart as if we had been merry with wine. The kittens had got thoroughly at home by that time, having investigated the whole of the apartment, and began exhibiting some of their most irresistible antics, with a social success among us of a most flattering nature. Alice declared that she should call them Taglioni and Madame Céleste, and proceeded to tie blue and pink bows upon their necks, which they scratched and growled at in quite a warlike manner. A low whine from the entry interrupted us; and Eva, opening the door and looking out, saw poor old Stumpy sitting on the mat, with the most good-dog air of dejected patience.
"Why, here's Stumpy, poor fellow!" she said.
"Oh, don't trouble yourself about him," said Bolton. "I've taught him to sit out on the mat. He's happy enough if he only thinks I'm inside."
"But, poor fellow," said Eva, "he looks as if he wanted to come in."
"Oh, he'll do well enough; never mind him," said Bolton, looking a little embarrassed. "It was silly of me to bring him, only he is so desolate to have me go out without him."
"Well, he shall come in," said Eva. "Come in, you poor homely old fellow," she said. "I daresay you're as good as an angel; and to-night's my house-warming, and not even a dog shall have an ungratified desire, if I can help it."
So poor Stumpy was installed by Bolton in the corner, and looked perfectly beatified.
And now, while we have brought all our characters before the curtain, and the tableau of the fireside is complete, as we sit there all around the hearth, each perfectly at home with the other, in heart and mind, and with even the poor beasts that connect us with the lower world brightening in our enjoyment, this is a good moment for the curtain to fall on the fortunes of
My Wife and I
THE END
P. S. – If our kind readers still retain a friendly interest in the fortunes of any of the actors in this story, they may hear again from us at some future day, in the
