Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 by Various

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70

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"Now, Mademoiselle, regard yourself, and pronounce that you are
ravishing," Victorine said at length, folding her hands with a sigh of
satisfaction, as she fell back in an attitude of serene triumph.

Debby obeyed, and inspected herself with great interest and some
astonishment; for there was a sweeping amplitude of array about the
young lady whom she beheld in the much-befrilled gown and embroidered
skirts, which somewhat alarmed her as to the navigation of a vessel
"with such a spread of sail," while a curious sensation of being
somebody else pervaded her from the crown of her head, with its shining
coils of hair, to the soles of the French slippers, whose energies
seemed to have been devoted to the production of marvellous rosettes.

"Yes, I look very nice, thank you; and yet I feel like a doll, helpless
and fine, and fancy I was more of a woman in my fresh gingham, with a
knot of clovers in my hair, than I am now. Aunt Pen was very kind to get
me all these pretty things; but I'm afraid my mother would look
horrified to see me in such a high state of flounce externally and so
little room to breathe internally."

"Your mamma would not flatter me, Mademoiselle; but come now to Madame;
she is waiting to behold you, and I have yet her toilet to make"; and,
with a pitying shrug, Victorine followed Debby to her aunt's room.

"Charming! really elegant!" cried that lady, emerging from her towel
with a rubicund visage. "Drop that braid half an inch lower, and pull
the worked end of her handkerchief out of the right-hand pocket, Vic.
There! Now, Dora, don't run about and get rumpled, but sit quietly down
and practise repose till I am ready."

Debby obeyed, and sat mute, with the air of a child in its Sunday-best
on a week-day, pleased with the novelty, but somewhat oppressed with the
responsibility of such unaccustomed splendor, and utterly unable to
connect any ideas of repose with tight shoes and skirts in a rampant
state of starch.

* * * * *

"Well, you see, I bet on Lady Gay against Cockadoodle, and if you'll
believe me--Hullo! there's Mrs. Carroll, and deuse take me if she hasn't
got a girl with her! Look, Seguin!"--and Joe Leavenworth, a "man of the
world," aged twenty, paused in his account of an exciting race to make
the announcement.

Mr. Seguin, his friend and Mentor, as much his senior in worldly
wickedness as in years, tore himself from his breakfast long enough to
survey the new-comers, and then returned to it, saying, briefly,--

"The old lady is worth cultivating,--gives good suppers, and thanks you
for eating them. The girl is well got up, but has no style, and blushes
like a milk-maid. Better fight shy of her, Joe."

"Do you think so? Well, now I rather fancy that kind of thing. She's
new, you see, and I get on with that sort of girl the best, for the old
ones are so deused knowing that a fellow has no chance of a--By the Lord
Harry, she's eating bread and milk!"

Young Leavenworth whisked his glass into his eye, and Mr. Seguin put
down his roll to behold the phenomenon. Poor Debby! her first step had
been a wrong one.

All great minds have their weak points. Aunt Pen's was her breakfast,
and the peace of her entire day depended upon the success of that meal.
Therefore, being down rather late, the worthy lady concentrated her
energies upon the achievement of a copious repast, and, trusting to
former lessons, left Debby to her own resources for a few fatal moments.
After the flutter occasioned by being scooped into her seat by a
severe-nosed waiter, Debby had only courage enough left to refuse tea
and coffee and accept milk. That being done, she took the first familiar
viand that appeared, and congratulated herself upon being able to get
her usual breakfast. With returning composure, she looked about her and
began to enjoy the buzz of voices, the clatter of knives and forks, and
the long lines of faces all intent upon the business of the hour; but
her peace was of short duration. Pausing for a fresh relay of toast,
Aunt Pen glanced toward her niece with the comfortable conviction that
her appearance was highly creditable; and her dismay can be imagined,
when she beheld that young lady placidly devouring a great cup of
brown-bread and milk before the eyes of the assembled multitude. The
poor lady choked in her coffee, and between her gasps whispered irefully
behind her napkin,--

"For Heaven's sake, Dora, put away that mess! The Ellenboroughs are
directly opposite, watching everything you do. Eat that omelet, or
anything respectable, unless you want me to die of mortification."

Debby dropped her spoon, and, hastily helping herself from the dish her
aunt pushed toward her, consumed the leathery compound with as much
grace as she could assume, though unable to repress a laugh at Aunt
Pen's disturbed countenance. There was a slight lull in the clatter, and
the blithe sound caused several heads to turn toward the quarter whence
it came, for it was as unexpected and pleasant a sound as a bobolink's
song in a cage of shrill-voiced canaries.

"She's a jolly little thing and powerful pretty, so deuse take me if I
don't make up to the old lady and find out who the girl is. I've been
introduced to Mrs. Carroll at our house; but I suppose she won't
remember me till I remind her."

The "deuse" declining to accept of his repeated offers, (probably
because there was still too much honor and honesty in the boy,) young
Leavenworth sought out Mrs. Carroll on the piazza, as she and Debby were
strolling there an hour later.

"Joe Leavenworth, my dear, from one of our first families,--very
wealthy,--fine match,--pray, be civil,--smooth your hair, hold back your
shoulders, and put down your parasol," murmured Aunt Pen, as the
gentleman approached with as much pleasure in his countenance as it was
consistent with manly dignity to express upon meeting two of the
inferior race.

"My niece, Miss Dora Wilder. This is her first season at the beach, and
we must endeavor to make it pleasant for her, or she will be getting
homesick and running away to mamma," said Aunt Pen, in her society-tone,
after she had returned his greeting, and perpetrated a polite fiction,
by declaring that she remembered him perfectly, for he was the image of
his father.

Mr. Leavenworth brought the heels of his varnished boots together with a
click, and executed the latest bow imported, then stuck his glass in his
eye and stared till it fell out, (the glass, not the eye,) upon which he
fell into step with them, remarking,--

"I shall be most happy to show the lions: they are deused tame ones, so
you needn't be alarmed, Miss Wilder."

Debby was good-natured enough to laugh; and, elated with that success,
he proceeded to pour forth his stores of wit and learning in true
collegian style, quite unconscious that the "jolly little thing" was
looking him through and through with the smiling eyes that were
producing such pleasurable sensations under the mosaic studs. They
strolled toward the beach, and, meeting an old acquaintance, Aunt Pen
fell behind, and beamed upon the young pair as if her prophetic eye even
at this early stage beheld them walking altarward in a proper state of
blond white vest and bridal awkwardness.

"Can you skip a stone, Mr. Leavenworth?" asked Debby, possessed with a
mischievous desire to shock the piece of elegance at her side.

"Eh? what's that?" he inquired, with his head on one side, like an
inquisitive robin.

Debby repeated her question, and illustrated it by sending a stone
skimming over the water in the most scientific manner. Mr. Joe was
painfully aware that this was not at all "the thing," that his sisters
never did so, and that Seguin would laugh confoundedly, if he caught him
at it; but Debby looked so irresistibly fresh and pretty under her
rose-lined parasol that he was moved to confess that he _had_ done such
a thing, and to sacrifice his gloves by poking in the sand, that he
might indulge in a like unfashionable pastime.

"You'll be at the hop tonight, I hope, Miss Wilder," he observed,
introducing a topic suited to a young lady's mental capacity.

"Yes, indeed; for dancing is one of the joys of my life, next to husking
and making hay"; and Debby polked a few steps along the beach, much to
the edification of a pair of old gentlemen, serenely taking their first
"constitutional."

"Making what?" cried Mr. Joe, polking after her.

"Hay; ah, that is the pleasantest fun in the world,--and better
exercise, my mother says, for soul and body, than dancing till dawn in
crowded rooms, with everything in a state of unnatural excitement. If
one wants real merriment, let him go into a new-mown field, where all
the air is full of summer odors, where wild-flowers nod along the walls,
where blackbirds make finer music than any band, and sun and wind and
cheery voices do their part, while windrows rise, and great loads go
rumbling through the lanes with merry brown faces atop. Yes, much as I
like dancing, it is not to be compared with that; for in the one case we
shut out the lovely world, and in the other we become a part of it, till
by its magic labor turns to poetry, and we harvest something better than
dried buttercups and grass."

As she spoke, Debby looked up, expecting to meet a glance of
disapproval; but something in the simple earnestness of her manner had
recalled certain boyish pleasures as innocent as they were hearty, which
now contrasted very favorably with the later pastimes in which fast
horses, and that lower class of animals, fast men, bore so large a part.
Mr. Joe thoughtfully punched five holes in the sand, and for a moment
Debby liked the expression of his face; then the old listlessness
returned, and, looking up, he said, with an air of _ennui_ that was half
sad, half ludicrous, in one so young and so generously endowed with
youth, health, and the good gifts of this life,--

"I used to fancy that sort of thing years ago, but I'm afraid I should
find it a little slow now, though you describe it in such an inviting
manner that I should be tempted to try it, if a hay-cock came in my way;
for, upon my life, it's deused heavy work loafing about at these
watering-places all summer. Between ourselves, there's a deal of humbug
about this kind of life, as you will find, when you've tried it as long
as I have."

"Yes, I begin to think so already; but perhaps you can give me a few
friendly words of warning from the stores of your experience, that I may
be spared the pain of saying what so many look,--'Grandma, the world is
hollow; my doll is stuffed with sawdust; and I should like to go into a
convent, if you please.'"

Debby's eyes were dancing with merriment; but they were demurely
downcast, and her voice was perfectly serious.

The milk of human kindness had been slightly curdled for Mr. Joe by
sundry college-tribulations; and having been "suspended," he very
naturally vibrated between the inborn jollity of his temperament and the
bitterness occasioned by his wrongs. He had lost at billiards the night
before, had been hurried at breakfast, had mislaid his cigar-case, and
splashed his boots; consequently the darker mood prevailed that morning,
and when his counsel was asked, he gave it like one who had known the
heaviest trials of this "Piljin Projiss of a wale."

"There's no justice in the world, no chance for us young people to enjoy
ourselves, without some penalty to pay, some drawback to worry us like
these confounded 'all-rounders.' Even here, where all seems free and
easy, there's no end of gossips and spies who tattle and watch till you
feel as if you lived in a lantern. 'Every one for himself, and the Devil
take the hindmost': that's the principle they go on, and you have to
keep your wits about you in the most exhausting manner, or you are done
for before you know it. I've seen a good deal of this sort of thing, and
hope you'll get on better than some do, when it's known that you are the
rich Mrs. Carroll's niece; though you don't need that fact to enhance
your charms,--upon my life, you don't."

Debby laughed behind her parasol at this burst of candor; but her
independent nature prompted her to make a fair beginning, in spite of
Aunt Pen's polite fictions and well-meant plans.

"Thank you for your warning, but I don't apprehend much annoyance of
that kind," she said, demurely. "Do you know, I think, if young ladies
were truthfully labelled when they went into society, it would be a
charming fashion, and save a world of trouble? Something in this
style:--'Arabella Marabout, aged nineteen, fortune $100,000, temper
warranted'; 'Laura Eau-de-Cologne, aged twenty-eight, fortune $30,000,
temper slightly damaged'; 'Deborah Wilder, aged eighteen, fortune, one
pair of hands, one head, indifferently well filled, one heart, (not in
the market,) temper decided, and _no expectations_.' There, you see,
that would do away with much of the humbug you lament, and we poor
souls would know at once whether we were sought for our fortunes or
ourselves, and that would be so comfortable!"

Mr. Leavenworth turned away, with a convicted sort of expression, as she
spoke, and, making a spyglass of his hand, seemed to be watching
something out at sea with absorbing interest. He had been guilty of a
strong desire to discover whether Debby was an heiress, but had not
expected to be so entirely satisfied on that important subject, and was
dimly conscious that a keen eye had seen his anxiety, and a quick wit
devised a means of setting it at rest forever. Somewhat disconcerted, he
suddenly changed the conversation, and, like many another distressed
creature, took to the water, saying briskly,--

"By-the-by, Miss Wilder, as I've engaged to do the honors, shall I have
the pleasure of bathing with you when the fun begins? As you are fond of
haymaking, I suppose you intend to pay your respects to the old
gentleman with the three-pronged pitchfork?"

"Yes, Aunt Pen means to put me through a course of salt water, and any
instructions in the art of navigation will be gratefully received; for I
never saw the ocean before, and labor under a firm conviction, that,
once in, I never shall come out again till I am brought, like Mr.
Mantilini, a 'damp, moist, unpleasant body.'"

As Debby spoke, Mrs. Carroll hove in sight, coming down before the wind
with all sails set, and signals of distress visible long before she
dropped anchor and came along-side. The devoted woman had been strolling
slowly for the girl's sake, though oppressed with a mournful certainty
that her most prominent feature was fast becoming a fine copper-color;
yet she had sustained herself like a Spartan matron, till it suddenly
occurred to her that her charge might be suffering a like

"sea-change
Into something rich and strange."

Her fears, however, were groundless, for Debby met her without a
freckle, looking all the better for her walk; and though her feet were
wet with chasing the waves, and her pretty gown the worse for salt
water, Aunt Pen never chid her for the destruction of her raiment, nor
uttered a warning word against an unladylike exuberance of spirits, but
replied to her inquiry most graciously,--

"Certainly, my love, we shall bathe at eleven, and there will be just
time to get Victorine and our dresses; so run on to the house, and I
will join you as soon as I have finished what I am saying to Mrs.
Earle,"--then added, in a stage-aside, as she put a fallen lock off the
girl's forehead, "You are doing beautifully! He is evidently struck;
make yourself interesting, and don't burn your nose, I beg of you."

Debby's bright face clouded over, and she walked on with so much
stateliness that her escort wondered "what the deuse the old lady had
done to her," and exerted himself to the utmost to recall her merry
mood, but with indifferent success.

* * * * *

"Now I begin to feel more like myself, for this is getting back to first
principles, though I fancy I look like the little old woman who fell
asleep on the king's highway and woke up with abbreviated drapery; and
you look funnier still, Aunt Pen," said Debby, as she tied on her
pagoda-hat, and followed Mrs. Carroll, who walked out of her
dressing-room an animated bale of blue cloth surmounted by a gigantic
sun-bonnet.

Mr. Leavenworth was in waiting, and so like a blond-headed lobster in
his scarlet suit that Debby could hardly keep her countenance as they
joined the groups of bathers gathering along the breezy shore.

For an hour each day the actors and actresses who played their different
_roles_ at the ---- Hotel with such precision and success put off their
masks and dared to be themselves. The ocean wrought the change, for it
took old and young into its arms, and for a little while they played
like children in their mother's lap. No falsehood could withstand its
rough sincerity; for the waves washed paint and powder from worn faces,
and left a fresh bloom there. No ailment could entirely resist its
vigorous cure; for every wind brought healing on its wings, endowing
many a meagre life with another year of health. No gloomy spirit could
refuse to listen to its lullaby, and the spray baptized it with the
subtile benediction of a cheerier mood. No rank held place there; for
the democratic sea toppled down the greatest statesman in the land, and
dashed over the bald pate of a millionnaire with the same white-crested
wave that stranded a poor parson on the beach and filled a fierce
reformer's mouth with brine. No fashion ruled, but that which is as old
as Eden,--the beautiful fashion of simplicity. Belles dropped their
affectations with their hoops, and ran about the shore blithe-hearted
girls again. Young men forgot their vices and their follies, and were
not ashamed of the real courage, strength, and skill they had tried to
leave behind them with their boyish plays. Old men gathered shells with
the little Cupids dancing on the sand, and were better for that innocent
companionship; and young mothers never looked so beautiful as when they
rocked their babies on the bosom of the sea.

Debby vaguely felt this charm, and, yielding to it, splashed and sang
like any beach-bird, while Aunt Pen bobbed placidly up and down in a
retired corner, and Mr. Leavenworth swam to and fro, expressing his firm
belief in mermaids, sirens, and the rest of the aquatic sisterhood,
whose warbling no manly ear can resist.

"Miss Wilder, you must learn to swim. I've taught quantities of young
ladies, and shall be delighted to launch the 'Dora,' if you'll accept me
as a pilot. Stop a bit; I'll get a life-preserver"; and leaving Debby to
flirt with the waves, the scarlet youth departed like a flame of fire.

A dismal shriek interrupted his pupil's play, and looking up, she saw
her aunt beckoning wildly with one hand, while she was groping in the
water with the other. Debby ran to her, alarmed at her tragic
expression, and Mrs. Carroll, drawing the girl's face into the privacy
of her big bonnet, whispered one awful word, adding, distractedly,--

"Dive for them! oh, dive for them! I shall be perfectly helpless, if
they are lost!"

"I can't dive, Aunt Pen; but there is a man, let us ask him," said
Debby, as a black head appeared to windward.

But Mrs. Carroll's "nerves" had received a shock, and, gathering up her
dripping garments, she fled precipitately along the shore and vanished
into her dressing-room.

Debby's keen sense of the ludicrous got the better of her respect, and
peal after peal of laughter broke from her lips, till a splash behind
her put an end to her merriment, and, turning, she found that this
friend in need was her acquaintance of the day before. The gentleman
seemed pausing for permission to approach, with much the appearance of a
sagacious Newfoundland, wistful and wet.

"Oh, I'm very glad it's you, Sir!" was Debby's cordial greeting, as she
shook a drop off the end of her nose, and nodded, smiling.

The new comer immediately beamed upon her like an amiable Triton,
saying, as they turned shoreward,--

"Our first interview opened with a laugh on my side, and our second with
one on yours. I accept the fact as a good omen. Your friend seemed in
trouble; allow me to atone for my past misdemeanors by offering my
services now. But first let me introduce myself; and as I believe in the
fitness of things, let me present you with an appropriate card"; and,
stooping, the young man wrote "Frank Evan" on the hard sand at Debby's
feet.

The girl liked his manner, and, entering into the spirit of the thing,
swept as grand a curtsy as her limited drapery would allow, saying,
merrily,--

"I am Debby Wilder, or Dora, as aunt prefers to call me; and instead of
laughing, I ought to be four feet under water, looking for something we
have lost; but I can't dive, and my distress is dreadful, as you see."

"What have you lost? I will look for it, and bring it back in spite of
the kelpies, if it is a human possibility," replied Mr. Evan, pushing
his wet locks out of his eyes, and regarding the ocean with a determined
aspect.

Debby leaned toward him, whispering with solemn countenance,--

"It is a set of teeth, Sir."

Mr. Evan was more a man of deeds than words, therefore he disappeared at
once with a mighty splash, and after repeated divings and much laughter
appeared bearing the chief ornament of Mrs. Penelope Carroll's comely
countenance. Debby looked very pretty and grateful as she returned her
thanks, and Mr. Evan was guilty of a secret wish that all the worthy
lady's features were at the bottom of the sea, that he might have the
satisfaction of restoring them to her attractive niece; but curbing this
unnatural desire, he bowed, saying, gravely,--

"Tell your aunt, if you please, that this little accident will remain a
dead secret, so far as I am concerned, and I am very glad to have been
of service at such a critical moment."

Whereupon Mr. Evan marched again into the briny deep, and Debby trotted
away to her aunt, whom she found a clammy heap of blue flannel and
despair. Mrs. Carroll's temper was ruffled, and though she joyfully
rattled in her teeth, she said, somewhat testily, when Debby's story was
done,--

"Now that man will have a sort of claim on us, and we must be civil,
whoever he is. Dear! dear! I wish it had been Joe Leavenworth instead.
Evan,--I don't remember any of our first families with connections of
that name, and I dislike to be under obligations to a person of that
sort, for there's no knowing how far he may presume; so, pray, be
careful, Dora."

"I think you are very ungrateful, Aunt Pen; and if Mr. Evan should
happen to be poor, it does not become me to turn up my nose at him, for
I'm nothing but a make-believe myself just now. I don't wish to go down
upon my knees to him, but I do intend to be as kind to him as I should
to that conceited Leavenworth boy; yes, kinder even; for poor people
value such things more, as I know very well."

Mrs. Carroll instantly recovered her temper, changed the subject, and
privately resolved to confine her prejudices to her own bosom, as they
seemed to have an aggravating effect upon the youthful person whom she
had set her heart on disposing of to the best advantage.

Debby took her swimming-lesson with much success, and would have
achieved her dinner with composure, if white-aproned gentlemen had not
effectually taken away her appetite by whisking bills-of-fare into her
hands, and awaiting her orders with a fatherly interest, which induced
them to congregate mysterious dishes before her, and blandly rectify
her frequent mistakes. She survived the ordeal, however, and at four
P.M. went to drive with "that Leavenworth boy" in the finest turnout
---- could produce. Aunt Pen then came off guard, and with a sigh of
satisfaction subsided into a peaceful doze, still murmuring, even in
her sleep,--

"Propinquity, my love, propinquity works wonders."

* * * * *

"Aunt Pen, are you a modest woman?" asked the young crusader against
established absurdities, as she came into the presence-chamber that
evening ready for the hop.

"Bless the child, what does she mean?" cried Mrs. Carroll, with a start
that twitched her back-hair out of Victorine's hands.

"Would you like to have a daughter of yours go to a party looking as I
look?" continued her niece, spreading her airy dress, and standing very
erect before her astonished relative.

"Why, of course I should, and be proud to own such a charming
creature," regarding the slender white shape with much
approbation,--adding, with a smile, as she met the girl's eye,--

"Ah, I see the difficulty, now; you are disturbed because there is not a
bit of lace over these pretty shoulders of yours. Now don't be absurd,
Dora; the dress is perfectly proper, or Madame Tiphany never would have
sent it home. It is the fashion, child; and many a girl with such a
figure would go twice as _decolletee_, and think nothing of it, I assure
you."

Debby shook her head with an energy that set the pink heather-bells
a-tremble in her hair, and her color deepened beautifully as she said,
with reproachful eyes,--

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