Miss Theodora/Chapter 23



Ben was again in Boston. A position on the staff of a great railroad had been offered him, and Boston for some time would be his headquarters. He was not sorry to be at home. His mother and father seemed to him to be growing less capable. His sisters needed him, and his salary was large enough to enable him to do for them the many little things that add so much to young girls' pleasure.

To Miss Theodora his return was almost as great a boon as to his own family. At least once a day he called to see what he could do for her, and usually he went within the house to have a little chat with her. It was not strange that they talked chiefly of Ernest. Ben's nature was strongly sympathetic, and he knew what subject lay nearest Miss Theodora's heart. Yet he disturbed her by telling her plainly that he really thought that she ought to take some notice of Eugenie.

"But they're not engaged," apologized Miss Theodora, who discerned in Ben a feeling that she was unjust to Ernest.

"I know they're not," he replied; "but it's much the same thing as if they were. Ernest won't change, and her father will soon give his consent."

Yet Miss Theodora could not get herself into a relenting mood, though Ben, like Richard Somerset, added to her confusion.

Sometimes when Ben called at Miss Theodora's he found Kate there. In her presence little was said about Ernest, and nothing about Eugenie.

He had thought himself almost disloyal to Kate when he had asked Miss Theodora to recognize Eugenie. His only defence was his friendship for Ernest, and he was pleased enough that Ernest had never sought his advice in this love affair of his. How could he have counselled Ernest to be more appreciative of Kate without disclosing his view of her feelings, and how could he have encouraged Ernest in his love for Eugenie without being disloyal to Kate?

But what was Ernest made of, he queried, to pass Kate by for a girl like Eugenie, well enough in her way, perhaps, but oh! so different from Kate? Then, as he glanced at the latter, he could but wonder if certain changes which he noticed in her—a quietness of expression, an unwonted slowness of response, so unlike her former habit of repartee—were induced by regret at this new turn in Ernest's affairs. It was a matter about which he himself could say nothing. His own feeling for her was now too strong. He wondered if any one would even suspect how much he had cared for Kate. Kate of course must never know. He would not run the risk of destroying their friendship by rash expressions of a regard warmer than she had dreamed of. Surely he was not presumptuous in believing that Kate valued this friendship. Certainly there was no one else to whom he could open his own heart as freely as to her; and he flattered himself that she confided not a little in him. This autumn she had come to town in advance of her mother, and was spending a month with Miss Theodora. He saw her often, therefore, sometimes when he called at Miss Theodora's, sometimes in one of the neighboring side streets, on her way, as he usually thought, to visit some of her colored beneficiaries.

Ben knew that Kate, since she had come of age, had spent no small share of her income in furthering schemes for the improvement of various poor people. Some of these schemes he fully approved; others seemed to him of doubtful value. Yet his disapproval, though he might not have admitted it to himself, was based on no firmer ground than his wish that Kate, as far as possible, should be spared the sight and knowledge of disagreeable things.

Meeting her one day, "It seems to me that you are always running away from Miss Theodora's," he had said in a tone of mock reproof.

"Oh, well, only when I go to my cooking class. You see, it's such fascinating work, and the new teacher doesn't get on with those children half as well as I do. She's a good teacher, but it's the human nature, the black human nature, that she does not exactly understand. When things are running smoothly I don't expect to see her more than once or twice a week."

"Once or twice a week," echoed Ben, "about twice as often as you ought to inhale the odors of Phillips Street."

"Oh, nonsense, you should see our room, as clean and bright as fresh paint and paper can make it, with its perfectly ideal arrangements in the shape of stove and dishes."

Ben smiled, though not exactly in approval. Yet more and more he realized her power in the neighborhood.

"See that new machine," said Miss Chatterwits, when he called on her one day, and she pointed proudly to a new combination of polished wood and shining metal. "Well, Kate bought me that. She gives me a good deal of fine sewing to do, and thought this machine would be handier than my old one, which I'd had—well, I won't say how long, but almost ever since they were first made. It had grown kind of rickety, and hadn't any modern improvements."

"This one looks as if it could do almost everything," said Ben, glancing at it a second time.

"Well, I do get a sight of comfort with it. Kate, or p'r'aps I ought to say Miss Digby, allows me so much a week, and expects to have all my time. She has me do white stitching for her,—which I always do by hand,—and make garments of various kinds for her poor people, which I do on the machine." Miss Chatterwits said "poor people" in a very dignified tone. She was never quite sure that she enjoyed sewing for these dependents.

"You must be kept pretty busy, then," responded Ben.

"Well, not so busy as I might be," she answered. "Some weeks there's very little for me to do. But I get my money just the same," she added quickly. "To tell you the truth, I guess Kate wanted to keep me out of the Old Ladies' Home, where I certainly should be living this very minute if she hadn't planned things out for me. Of course you wouldn't mention this to any one else;"—and she looked at Ben earnestly, for she suddenly remembered that the outside world did not know of this little arrangement.

"Of course I won't mention it," said the young man; "but it's just like Kate, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is; you see, she found out just how I was situated after my sisters died. There wasn't a cent of our savings left, and people began to get so dressy that they thought they had to have their things made out of the house, or employ young women. Not that I couldn't have done as well as anybody, with the help of paper patterns, but people didn't think so, and I was at my wits' end. What to do I didn't know—"

"There was Miss Theodora," began Ben.

"Yes, she was ready enough, and she kept me along with the little work she had. But Kate herself kind of interfered with that. She said Miss Theodora had worn old clothes long enough, and she some way persuaded her to get that dress for Ernest's graduating exercises made down town. Well, it seems a pity, when Miss Theodora's got almost a whole trunk of things to be cut over, that she shouldn't use them up. However, just when I was at my wits' end, Kate came along, and says she: 'How much ought you to earn every week to live comfortably? I'll add a third to that if you'll save all your time for me; I see that I'll have to have lots of sewing done the next year or two;'—and though I knew it was me she was thinking of more than herself, I was glad enough to say 'yes' to her offer."

After this Miss Chatterwits wondered how she had happened to open her heart so to Ben. A third person would have accounted for it by the fact that Ben and Miss Chatterwits were both deeply interested in the same object.