The Squirrel Inn
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"If he turns his steps towards that window," thought the scholar, "I shall see to it that I am there before him."
But the young man did not walk towards the front of the house, but went in the direction of his room, where the ladder stood leaning against the open window. Mounting this, he disappeared within.
The eyes of Mr. Tippengray flashed, and his face was lighted by a bright thought. In an instant he was on his feet and running lightly towards Lanigan's room. Cautiously and silently he approached the ladder; deftly, and without making the least noise, he moved the upper end of it from the side of the building, and then, putting it on his shoulder, gently walked away with it.
Around to the front of the house Mr. Tippengray carried the ladder, and boldly placed it nearly upright, under Miss Mayberry's window. In astonishment that young lady looked out, and asked him what in the world he was doing.
"I want to speak to you," said Mr. Tippengray, "on a subject of great importance, and I cannot afford to lose this opportunity. May I come up?"
"Certainly," said Ida.
In a moment the Greek scholar was standing on one of the upper rounds of the ladder, with his head and shoulders well above the window-sill. Little Douglas was delighted to see him, and, taking hold of his outstretched forefinger, gave it a good wag.
"It was a capital notion," said Mr. Tippengray, "for me to take this ladder. In the first place, it enables me to get up to you, and secondly, it prevents Lanigan Beam from getting down from his room."
Miss Mayberry laughed, and the baby crowed in sympathy.
"Why shouldn't he get down, Mr. Tippengray?" said she.
"If he did," was the answer, "he would be sure to interfere with me. He would come here, and I don't want him. I have something to say to you, Miss Mayberry, and I must be brief in saying it, for bystanders, no matter who they might be, would prevent my speaking plainly. I have become convinced, Miss Mayberry, that my life will be imperfect, and indeed worthless, if I cannot pass it in prosecuting my studies in your company, and with your assistance. You may think this strong language, but it is true."
"That would be very pleasant," said the nurse-maid, "but I do not see how you are going to manage it. My stay here will soon come to an end, for if Mrs. Cristie does not return to the city in a week or two, I must leave her. I am a teacher, you know, and before the end of the summer vacation, I must go and make my arrangements for the next term, and then you can easily see for yourself that when I am engaged in a school I cannot do very much studying with you."
"Oh, my dear young lady," cried Mr. Tippengray, "you do not catch my idea. I am not thinking of schools or positions, and I do not wish you to think of them. I wish you to know that you have translated me from a quiet scholar into an ardent lover, and that it would be of no use at all to try to get me back into my original condition. If I cannot be the man I want to be, I cannot be the man I was. I ask you for your hands, your heart, and your intellect. I invite you to join me in pursuing the higher education until the end of our lives. Take me for your scholar and be mine. I pray you give me – "
"Upon – my word!" was the ejaculation, loud and distinct, which came up from the foot of the ladder, and stopped Mr. Tippengray's avowal. Miss Mayberry instantly thrust her head out of the window, and Mr. Tippengray looked down. It was Calthea Rose who had spoken, and she stood under the window in company with Mr. and Mrs. Petter. A short distance away, and rapidly approaching, were Mrs. Cristie and Walter Lodloe.
"Here is gratitude!" cried Calthea, in stinging tones. "I came all the way back from Lethbury to see if anything had happened to you and that horse, and this is what I find. The top of a ladder and a child's nurse! Such a disgrace never fell on this county."
"Never, indeed," cried Mrs. Petter. "I wouldn't have believed it if angels had got down on their knees and sworn it to me. Come down from that ladder, Mr. Tippengray! Come down from it before I make my husband break it to bits beneath you. Come down, I say!"
"Mr. Tippengray," said Mr. Petter, in solemn voice, "in the name of the laws of domesticity and the hearthstone, and in the honorable name of the Squirrel Inn, I command you to come down."
There was but one thing for Mr. Tippengray to do, and that was to come down, and so down he came.
"Disgraceful!" cried Miss Rose; "you ought to be ashamed to look anybody in the face."
"Never would I have believed it," exclaimed Mrs. Petter. "Never, never, if I had not seen it with my own eyes, and in broad daylight too!"
What Mr. Tippengray would have said or done is not known, for at that instant Ida Mayberry leaned far out of the window and claimed the attention of the company.
"Look here!" she cried, "we have had enough of this. Mr. Tippengray has nothing to be ashamed of, and he had a perfect right to climb up this ladder. I want you all to understand that we are engaged to be married."
This announcement fell like a sudden downpour upon the people beneath the window, and they stood silenced; but in an instant the Greek scholar bounded up the ladder, and, seizing Miss Mayberry by the hand, kissed it rapturously.
"I may have been a little abrupt," she said, in a low voice, "but I wasn't going to stand here and let our affair be broken off like that."
At Mr. Tippengray's spontaneous exhibition of tender affection, Mr. Petter involuntarily and reverently took off his hat, while Mrs. Cristie and Lodloe clapped their hands. The lover, with radiant face, now descended the ladder and received congratulations from everybody except Miss Calthea, who, with her nose pointed about forty-five degrees above the horizon, walked rapidly to the post where she had tied her horse.
Miss Mayberry now appeared, with the baby in her arms, and an expression of great satisfaction upon her face. Mrs. Cristie relieved her of the first, but the latter increased as the little company heartily shook hands with her.
"I had supposed it would be different with you, Mr. Tippengray," said Mrs. Petter, "but people ought to know their own minds, and I have no doubt that Calthea would have often made it very hot for you, especially if you did not turn over an entirely new leaf in regard to coming to your meals. But there must be no more laddering; whether it is right or not, it does not look so. When Ida isn't tending to the child, and it's too wet to be out of doors, you can have the little parlor to yourselves. I'll have it dusted and aired."
"Excuse me," said Lodloe, coming forward, "but if you have no further use for that ladder, Mr. Tippengray, I will take it to Lanigan Beam, who is leaning out of his window, and shouting like mad. I presume he wants to come down, and as I have locked the door of my room he cannot descend in that way."
"Poor Lanigan!" ejaculated Mrs. Petter, "he doesn't know what he's coming down to. But no matter what he undertakes he is always a day after the fair."
Mr. Petter drew the Greek scholar aside.
"My dear sir," he said expressively, "I have a special reason for congratulating you on your decision to unite your blood and culture with those of another. Had you been entrapped by the wiles of our Lethbury neighbor, a person for whom I have but slight regard, and who is looked upon with decided disapprobation by those as competent to judge as the Rockmores of Germantown, I am afraid, my dear sir, I should have been compelled to sever those pleasant relations which for so many months have held us together, and which I hope may continue for years."
"My good Petter," said Mr. Tippengray, "I have a pleasant house in town, which I hope to occupy with my wife this winter, and I should like it very much if you and Mrs. Petter would make us a visit there, and, if you wish, I'll have some of the Germantown Rockmores there to meet you."
The landlord of the Squirrel Inn stepped back in amazement.
"Do you mean to say," he exclaimed, "that you know the Rockmores?"
"The way of it is this," replied the Greek scholar; "you see, my mother was a Purley, and on the maternal side she belonged to the Kempton-Tucker family, and you know that the head of that family married for his second wife a Mrs. Callaway, who was own sister to John Brent Norris, whose daughter married a Rockmore. So you see we are connected."
"And you never told me!" solemnly exclaimed Mr. Petter.
"No," said his companion; "there are pleasures of revelation, which are enhanced by a delay in realization, and besides I did not wish to place myself in a position which might, perchance, subordinate some of your other guests."
"I must admit that I am sorry," said Mr. Petter; "but your action in the matter proves your blood."
And now, Mrs. Cristie having finished her very earnest conversation with Ida, the newly betrothed pair walked together towards the bluff from which there was such a beautiful view of the valley below.
XXVI
ANOTHER SQUIRREL IN THE TAP-ROOM
"If I had known," said Lanigan Beam, as late that night he sat smoking with Walter Lodloe in the top room of the tower, "that that old rascal was capable of stealing my ladder in order to make love to my girl, I should have had a higher respect for him. Well, I'm done for, and now I shall lose no time in saying good-by to the Squirrel Inn and Lethbury."
"Why so?" asked his companion in surprise. "Was the hope of winning Miss Mayberry the only thing that kept you here?"
"Oh, no," said Lanigan; "it was the hope that Calthea might get old Tippengray. You will remember I told you that, but as she cannot now go off with him, there is nobody for her to go off with, and so I must be the one to travel."
Lodloe laughed. "Under the circumstances then," he said, "you think you couldn't stay in this neighborhood?"
"Not with Calthea unattached," replied Lanigan. "Oh, no! Quite impossible."
When Miss Rose had been convinced that all her plans had come to naught, earnestly and with much severity and singleness of purpose she considered the situation. It did not take her long to arrive at the conclusion that the proper thing for her to do was to marry Lanigan Beam, and to do it without loss of time. Having come to this decision, she immediately began to make arrangements to carry it into effect.
It was utterly vain and useless for Lanigan to attempt to get away from her. She came upon him with a sweet assurance which he supposed had vanished with her earlier years; she led him with ribbons which he thought had faded and fallen into shreds long, long ago; she clapped over his head a bag which he supposed had been worn out on old Tippengray; and she secured him with fetters which he imagined had long since been dropped, forgotten, and crumbled into dust. He did not go away, and it was not long before it was generally understood in the neighborhood that, at last, he and Calthea Rose were to be married.
Shortly after this fact had been made public, Lanigan and Walter Lodloe, who had not seen each other for some days, were walking together on the Lethbury road.
"Yes," said the former, "it is a little odd, but then odd things are all the time happening. I don't know whether Calthea has taken me in by virtue of my first engagement to her, or on some of the others. Or it may be that it is merely a repeal of our last breaking off. Anyway, I found she had never dreamed of anything but marrying me, and though I thought I had a loose foot, I found I hadn't, and there's an end of it. Besides, I will say for Calthea that her feelings are different from what I supposed they were. She has mellowed up a good deal in the last year or two, and I shall try to make things as easy for her as I can.
"But one thing is certain; I shall stick to my resolution not to tell her that I have made money, and have reformed my old, loose ways of living and doing business. All that I am going to keep as a sort of saving fund that I can draw on when I feel like it, and let it alone when I don't feel like it. We are going to travel, – she is wild on that point, – and she expects to pay the piper. She can't do it, but I shall let her think she's doing it. She takes me for a rattling scapegrace, and I needn't put on the sober and respectable unless I choose to; and when I do choose it will be a big card in my hand. By George! sir, I know Calthea so well that I can twist her around my finger, and I am not sure, if I had got the other one, that I could have done that. It's much more likely that I should have been the twisted one."
"What is Miss Rose going to do about her business?" asked Lodloe.
"Oh, that's to be wound up with a jerk," answered his companion. "I've settled all that. She wanted to hire somebody to take charge of the store while we're gone, and to sell out the things on her old plan; but that's all tomfoolery. I have engaged a shopkeeper at Romney to come out and buy the whole stock at retail price, and I gave him the money to do it with. That's good business, you know, because it's the same as money coming back to me, and as for the old oddments, and remnants, and endments of faded braids and rotten calicoes, it's a clear profit to be rid of them. If the Romney man sends them to be ground up at the paper-mill, he may pay himself for the cartage and his time. So the shop will be shut day after to-morrow, and you can see for yourself that my style of business is going to be of the stern, practical sort; and, after all, I don't see any better outlook for a fellow than to live a married life in which very little is expected of him, while he knows that he has on tap a good bank-account and a first-class moral character."
The autumn was a very pleasant one, and as there was no reason for doing anything else, the guests at the Squirrel Inn remained until late in the season. Therefore it was that Miss Calthea was enabled to marry and start off on her wedding tour before the engaged couples at the inn had returned to the city, or had even fixed the dates for their weddings. Calthea was not a woman who would allow herself to be left behind in matters of this nature. From her general loftiness and serenity of manner, and the perfect ease and satisfaction with which she talked of her plans and prospects with her friends and acquaintances, no one could have imagined that she had ever departed from her original intention of becoming Mrs. Lanigan Beam.
In the midst of her happiness she could not help feeling a little sorry for Ida Mayberry, and this she did not hesitate to say to some persons with whom she was intimate, including Mrs. Petter. To be sure, she had been informed as to the year of Mr. Tippengray's birth, which, if correct, would make him forty-six; but it was her private opinion that sixty would be a good deal nearer the mark. However, if the young child's nurse should become an early widow, and be thrown upon her own resources, she, for one, would not withhold a helping hand. But she earnestly insisted that not a word she said on this subject should ever be breathed into another ear.
When Ida Mayberry heard what Calthea had said about her and Mr. Tippengray's age, she was very angry, and declared she would not go to the old thing's wedding, which was to take place the next day in the Lethbury church. But, after thinking over the matter, she changed her mind, and concluded that at times like this we should all be pleasant and good-natured towards one another; so she sat down and wrote a letter to Miss Calthea, which she sent to the expectant bride that very afternoon. The missive ran thus:
My Dear Miss Rose:
I have seen so little of Mr. Beam in the last few days that I have had no opportunity to express to him some thanks which are due him from Mr. Tippengray and myself. I am therefore obliged to ask you, my dear Miss Rose, to give to him a message from me, which, as it is one of gratitude, you will be pleased to deliver.
Not long ago, when Mr. Beam took occasion to tell me that he loved me and asked me to marry him, – I remember now that it was on the very day that Mr. Petter's horse behaved so badly and, unfortunately for you, tipped you out of the tail end of the little cart, and made it necessary for you to give up both it and Mr. Tippengray to me, – he (Mr. Beam) was so good as to say that if I would agree to be his wife and still wished the instructive companionship of Mr. Tippengray, he would take that gentleman into his family as a tutor. Now this, as you will readily acknowledge, my dear Miss Rose, was very good in Mr. Beam, and in return I wish you to say to him, both from Mr. Tippengray and from me, that if there should ever be any position in our gift which he is capable of filling, all he has to do is to ask for it.
Most sincerely yours,Ida Mayberry.And the next day in church no face expressed a more delighted interest in the nuptial ceremonies than that of the pretty Miss Mayberry.
It was late in November, and the weather was getting decidedly cool. There was a fire in the tap-room of the Squirrel Inn, and also one in the little parlor, and by this, after supper, sat Mr. and Mrs. Petter.
The guests were all gone; Mr. and Mrs. Tippengray, who had had a quiet wedding in New York, were on their way to Cambridge, England, where the bride would spend a portion of the honeymoon in the higher studies there open to women, while Mrs. Cristie and Mr. Lodloe were passing happy days in the metropolis preparing for their marriage early in the new year. The Beams were in Florida, where, so Lanigan wrote, they had an idea of buying an orange grove, and where, so Calthea wrote, she would not live if they gave her a whole county.
The familiar faces all being absent, and very few people dropping in from Lethbury or the surrounding neighborhood, the Squirrel Inn was lonely, and the hostess thereof did not hesitate to say so. As for the host, he had his books, his plans, and his hopes. He also had his regrets, which were useful in helping him to pass his time.
"What in the world," asked Mrs. Petter, regarding an object in her husband's hands, "made you take down that miserable, dilapidated little squirrel from the sign-post? You might as well have let him stay there all winter, and put up a new one in the spring."
"This has been a most memorable year," replied her husband, "and I wish to place this squirrel in his proper position on the calendar shelf of the tap-room before the storms and winds of winter have blown the fur from his body and every hair from his upturned tail. I have killed and prepared a fresh squirrel, and I will place him on the sign-post in a few days."
"If you would let that one stay until he was a skin skeleton, he would have given people a better idea of the way this year has turned out than he does now," said Mrs. Petter.
"How so?" he asked, looking at her in surprise.
"Don't we sit here stripped of every friendly voice?" she said. "Of course, it's always more lonesome in the winter, but it's never been so bad as this, for we haven't even Calthea to fall back on. Things didn't turn out as I expected them to, and I suppose they never will, but it always was my opinion, and is yet, that nothing can go straight in such a crooked house. This very afternoon, as I was coming from the poultry-yard, and saw Lanigan's ladder still standing up against the window of his room, I couldn't help thinking that if a burglar got into that room, he might suppose he was in the house; but he'd soon find himself greatly mistaken, and even if he went over the roof to Mr. Lodloe's room, all he could do would be to come down the tower stairs, and then he would find himself outside, just where he started from."
"That would suit me very well," remarked Mr. Petter.
"If this house had been built in a plain, straightforward way," his wife continued, "with a hall through the middle of it, and the rooms alike on both sides, then things might have happened in a straightforward way, and not all mixed up, as they were here this summer. Nobody could tell who was going to marry who, and why they should do it, if they ever did."
Mr. Petter arose and, still holding the stuffed squirrel in his hand, stood with his back to the fire.
"It strikes me, Susan," said he, looking reflectively in front of him, "that our lives are very seldom built with a hall through the middle and the rooms alike on both sides. I don't think we'd like it if they were. They would be stupid and humdrum. The right sort of a life should have its ups and downs, its ins and outs, its different levels, its outside stairs and its inside stairs, its balconies, windows and roofs of different periods and different styles. This is education. These things are the advantages that our lives get from the lives of others.
"Now, for myself, I like the place I live in to resemble my life and that of the people about me. And I am sure that nothing could be better suited to all that than the Squirrel Inn.
"All sorts of things come into our lives, and when a thing like Lanigan Beam comes into it, what could be better than to lodge it in a place where it can go no farther? and if something of a high order, something backed up by Matthew Vassar, but which is a little foreign, and not altogether of our kind, how well to be able to put that in a noble and elevated position, where it can have every advantage and can go and come, without being naturalized or made a part of us. Think, too, how high excellence can be worthily lodged, with the comforts of the North and the beauties of the South, as in the case of Mrs. Cristie's rooms; and how blooded service is not forced into a garret, but is quartered in a manner which shows that the blood is recognized and the service ignored."
"If I had known what she was when she came," remarked Mrs. Petter, "I should have put her on the top floor."
"Think, too," continued the landlord, "of noble sentiments, high aspirations, and deep learning, lodged of their own free will – for it appears that there was no necessity for it – so near as to answer every need of social domesticity, and yet in a manner so free and apart as to allow undisturbed and undisturbing reveries beneath the stars, and such other irregular manifestations of genius as are common to the gifted."
"Such as coming late to meals," interpolated the lady.
"Think, too," Mr. Petter went on to say, speaking in a more earnest voice – "think, too, of a life or a house in which there is no place for a Calthea Rose; in which she cannot exist, and which, I am happy to say, she has always opposed and condemned."
Mrs. Petter slightly yawned.
"All that sounds very well," she said, "and there may be truth in it; but, after all, here we are alone by ourselves, and, so far as I can see, no chance of being less lonely next season, for your rules keep out all common folks, and we can't count on the people who were here this year coming again."
Mr. Petter smiled. "There is no reason to suppose," he said, "that next season we shall not be favored with the company of the Rockmores of Germantown."
And with that he walked away to place in its proper position on the shelf in the tap-room the squirrel of the past season.