Papa's own girl: A novel

It is early in Summer. Mrs. Buzzell and Susie, now her trusted and much-loved friend, are sitting on the little vine-shaded porch of her cottage—not really a cottage, for it is at least an ordinary-sized country house, strong and well built; but she herself always so designates it. The baby, Minnie, is creeping over the porch floor, crowing with infantine glee, and now and then climbing up by the knees of Mrs. Buzzell, or by the railing which has been constructed to keep her within bounds. The lower leaves and buds of the roses and morning-glories, have suffered at her little hands, but she has learned by this time that they are not good to eat, and so pulls them off and scatters them in pure wantonness. The two women have been discussing a letter just received from Clara.

For a time Clara’s letters were constantly arriving, not only to Susie, to Dr. Forest, to her mother, but alternately to the twins. These letters breathed the happiness that surrounded Clara like an atmosphere, and was rather implied than directly expressed, except to Susie. Mrs. Forest rejoiced that her eldest daughter was well established, and secretly she was greatly relieved to have Clara’s fate off her mind. There was no knowing, in her opinion, what Clara would have come to, with her inherited tendency to freedom, so unlike other girls, if she had not fortunately married young. Why, she might have become a frequenter of conventions, an agitator of woman’s rights—that was indeed what Mrs. Forest feared most—but, thanks to Providence, she had made an excellent match, and the mother’s soul was at rest, or free to plan and scheme for the respectable establishment of her two remaining daughters.

On this summer day, in the little shaded porch, Susie had read to her friend, some portions of Clara’s last letter. Mrs. Buzzell sighed, and said, “It is too exalted for this commonplace world. It will not last.”

“Oh, do not say that!” exclaimed Susie.

“I know it sounds like croaking, Susie, but you will see I am right. It is always so. Clara worships that man, and we should worship nothing but the Creator. When we do, we lose it. When mothers make idols of their children, as her mother did of Dan, they die, or turn out like him. I am glad you do not love yours unreasonably. It is auntie who is in danger here,” said the good old lady, taking up the child and caressing it fondly.

“I cannot believe it a crime to love—even to love inordinately, as Clara does,” said Susie. “Her nature is peculiarly fervent. She told me once that the look, the touch of Albert’s hand, made her tremulous with emotion. If he should fail her, she would suffer more than most of us could, I think.”

“Of course he will fail her,” said Mrs. Buzzell, with unusual feeling. “Men never meet the demands of a nature like that. They think it adorable at first, and then they grow indifferent. It is much better to love in a calm way, and, like Mrs. Kendrick, to show their husbands that heaven is not wholly confined to their smiles, nor hell to their frowns.”

Susie was astonished at the fervency displayed by Mrs. Buzzell. “Could this faded, gray old lady, have had her romance also?” Susie’s reflections were interrupted by the doctor’s gig, which came almost noiselessly around the corner, over the smooth, sandy road. He sprang upon the porch with the supple nerve of a boy, and astonished Mrs. Buzzell by kissing her right in the face of the village. “You two women are as grave as owls,” he said. “What have you been talking about? Out with it, Susie!”

“We were talking of love,” Susie answered, not intending to be specially definite.

“Do ever two women talk of anything else, I wonder? Abusing us dogs of men, I suppose. Can’t you furnish me with a cup of water and a little piece of soap?” he asked, addressing Mrs. Buzzell. “I want to amuse the baby.”

“We were regretting,” continued Susie, “that we are not able to love sensibly and moderately. When we love with all our hearts, are we ever fully met?—after the first, I mean.”

“With that first, you are satisfied, then,” said the doctor, taking a piece of India-rubber tubing from his pocket, and blowing his first bubble. For a time, all the attention was concentrated on the doctor’s bubbles, some of which, by certain movements of his hands, he managed to keep in the air a long time, while the baby crowed with mad delight. For days after, the little thing amused everybody by her attempts to blow bubbles with every stick or pencil she could get, and even labored very hard to accomplish the feat with her teaspoon. When the doctor grew tired of blowing, he resumed the conversation; but Minnie was insatiable: no sooner was one bubble burst, than she cried for another, but was finally pacified by having the tube and cup all to herself. After sucking some of the soapy water into her mouth, and making a very wry face, she succeeded in blowing some little ones on the top of the water, and got very angry after the twentieth attempt to pick them out with her fingers. Susie was scarcely less excited than the baby, over the exquisite beauty of the soap-bubbles, and listened eagerly to the doctor’s explanation of their colors and construction.

Seeing Susie so interested, he said, “It is a pity your studying was interrupted. You have the spirit of the scientific investigator. I wonder if I can’t manage to take Clara’s place?” he said, after a pause.

“Oh, your time is too precious, doctor,” said Susie.

“I couldn’t be regular, but I tell you what I’ll do. If you’ll have some recitation ready whenever I come, I’ll give you a few minutes.” That was enough for Susie, and from that time the doctor became her tutor, taking up, first, chemistry and natural philosophy, and then other branches. But this is wandering from the subject of conversation interrupted by the blowing of bubbles.

“The truth is,” said the doctor, “women, in their love, do not fully meet men. According to my experience, few women ever comprehend the ardor with which men are capable of loving them. Now, the question is, is it when they do, or do not, so respond perfectly, that women meet the fate of Semele?”

“The fate of Semele?” queried Mrs. Buzzell.

“Yes; she loved Jove, and was utterly consumed for her daring.”

“I remember now,” said Mrs. Buzzell, smiling. “Why, her fate was not so bad, for her suffering was but momentary. Her lover was a god. That must be quite an advantage; and then he loved perfectly, and she also, I suppose.” Mrs. Buzzell was in a complaisant mood, or she would not have treated any heathen mythology so considerately. “I never thought of it before in that light,” replied the doctor. “She must have been the only woman whom any lover ever satisfied. Your sex is very exacting. You expect men to keep up to concert-pitch all the time; but, you see, we have to go out into the world and purvey for bread-and-butter. Sine Cerere et Baccho friget Venus, you know.”

“Sine Cerere,” repeated Susie, laboring with the Latin, of which she knew a little.

“‘Without corn and wine love freezes’ will do,” said the doctor.

“True,” said Mrs. Buzzell; “but it is just where corn and wine are abundant, that you feed us on dry husks—not to mention that you seek pastures new, for yourselves.”

“I see I must defend my sex,” said the doctor, with mock gravity. “Now we do not feed you on dry husks, but we assume to know what is best for you. Are we not your heaven-appointed keepers? You would live forever on ambrosia, and that is not good for the constitution as a regular diet; besides the supply is limited, I am sorry to say. The truth is, dear ladies—I am serious now—you women have not yet found the secret of your power. What we call the material forces, in the beginning rule the world. Man gains his freedom first, then women, then children. Women are not free yet. They should be independent, should travel, mix with the world, conduct enterprises, and never be forced to marry from any pecuniary motives. That is the way the ‘statelier Eden’ is coming back to man. Man cannot be happy, and morally strong, until women have worked out their social salvation. No one should stake everything on the throw of a die. Women do that, and are taught that it is wise. They keep their interests narrowed to a point, and what with petty household cares and ‘tying baby sashes,’ as Mrs. Browning says, they cease to grow, except in one direction. They live as though they had but one organ, and that the heart; figuratively speaking, I mean,” added the anatomist. “This is their fate when they are sensitive and emotional. When they are colder in temperament, they gangrene with social ambition; spend their lives in scheming to out-do their neighbors in fashion and display. This would not be possible if they had other resources, but they have not; because at the start, they have no education to speak of, and few are interested in any literature but that of novels and romances, which they waste time over without much discrimination. Good Lord! what an amount of trash they wade through! But then, very few people have the culture implied in the art of getting the nuts out of a book without swallowing husk and all. It is one of the last things learned by the student, and women are rarely students.”

“So, in the end,” said Mrs. Buzzell, “man, mixing with the world and interesting his mind with politics and science, finds his intellectual needs supplied outside of home. Well, he has other needs.”

“Yes, certainly. Home is the nucleus of all his affections; and because it is the nucleus or centre, it should include the possibilities of answering to the greater part of his needs. The woman who responds most fully to a man’s various attractions, will keep his love fresh the longest; but when she can respond to little else except his desire to be petted and caressed, she is in danger of responding too fully to that, and so clogs his appetite with her very sweetness.”

“Women learn this,” said Susie, “and that is why so many become heartless flirts. Who can wonder?”

“That is true of some very lovely women; but not of the finest, Susie. It would not be possible to you, nor to Clara.”

To be compared in any way to the superb Clara, was a compliment that Susie was keenly sensitive to; and her love and gratitude grew with the self-respect and womanly dignity that the nobler course of her few friends, insensibly and continually stimulated into action.

When the doctor rose to go, Mrs. Buzzell detained him to look at her flowers—“or rather Susie’s,” she said. The large table by the south window was full of plants and flowers in flourishing condition. Two orange shrubs, about three feet high, were loaded with young fruit; and in another room, less warm, by an east window, were boxes of violets and mignonette.

“I never saw any one succeed, as she does, with flowers. I never could get violets or mignonette to blossom in winter. I see now, I kept them too warm. Last winter, Susie sent bouquets of these to the new hotel, and sold them at high prices.” “She must apply what she has learned of botany,” said the doctor. “I see here, the result of what can be nothing else than a scientific method.”

“And yet I confess my patience used to be tried a little last summer and fall, over her persistence in dissecting plants and poring over books about them. I think I was foolish, and am anxious to do a little penance. I’ve been thinking seriously of building a conservatory on this south side; using the window as a door. The village has grown so, there must be quite a demand for flowers and plants in pots, and we are only a few miles from the city, you know.”

“It is the best impulse you ever had, Mrs. Buzzell,” the doctor said, very earnestly. “Susie has practical ideas, and this is the door to her independence. Go ahead without any delay. I will put in some money with pleasure, if you need it, besides giving twenty-five dollars out and out. It is June now. By next winter she could have plenty of violets, and that alone would pay well. I see she has a bed of them outside. Where does she get her stock? I never knew violets so fragrant as these are. The Marie Louise violet, I see.”

“Oh, a root, a slip here and there. Everything she touches succeeds. She is constantly bringing leaf mold from the woods. That is one of her secrets. Her fragrant violets she ordered in January from Anderson. They came in square pieces of turf.”

The doctor encouraged Mrs. Buzzell to such good effect, that in two days the carpenters were at work, and in less than a month a nice flower-room, twenty feet by twelve, heated by a little furnace in the cellar, was in working order; only the furnace, of course, was not yet needed. Susie had written to one of the great florists near the city, and ordered some stock; and somehow her letter had elicited an offer of any advice she might need. Besides this, the florist sent her a manual on hot-house culture. This manual was a godsend to Susie. She wrote back her thanks, and, probably, recognizing a soul in the business man, she told him of herself and her hopes. After this there ensued quite a correspondence. In November Susie’s violets were ready in masses, and she sent him specimens, packed nicely in moss. To this he replied:

“Your success greatly surprises me, but your bouquets are awkwardly put up—that is, wastefully, for ten violets are a generous number for a small winter bouquet. You need a few lessons, and if you desire them enough to come here, you can receive them in my establishment gratis. I will admit frankly that your white Neapolitans are better than mine. This is very remarkable, for it is a shy bloomer. I will sell all your violets for you this winter, if you wish it.”

Susie’s heart leaped at the offer of instruction; and packing up all her violets and many other flowers, that the florist might see them, she set out on her journey, leaving many and oft-repeated directions about the care of the conservatory, and very few about the baby; for Mrs. Buzzell was not likely to neglect Minnie, as Susie well knew.

Arrived at the florist’s, Susie set herself at work as if her life depended upon it. The florist was unusually interested in Susie, who talked with him freely and with confidence. He gave her numerous suggestions about her flower culture, and took her home with him to his family, instead of letting her go to a hotel, as she intended, for she had determined to stay a week. In the florist’s family Susie made more friends; but there was a kind of incubus upon her all the while. How could she know if they would be as kind to her as they were, if they knew her history? At the end of the week, however, she felt that she had made good use of her time. She had not contented herself with learning the theories of flower culture, but had put her own hands to everything, and familiarized them with operations destined to be of great service to her. The florist had noticed that there was something peculiar about this young woman, and shrewdly guessed that there was some secret trouble in her life; but her earnestness and gentleness of demeanor were greatly in her favor, and he was not sorry for the offer he had made her, to dispose of all the violets she should produce the ensuing winter, though that act would be of little service to him. It was, in fact, a generous impulse to help the praiseworthy ambition of the young florist, and Susie felt, rather than knew, this to be the fact, and acknowledged it indirectly. When she shook hands with the florist on leaving, she looked searchingly into his eyes and said, “I shall not forget your goodness to me, an utter stranger to you. Your help means more than you know.”

If we could read Susie’s busy thoughts, as she rode home communing with her own soul, to use a trite expression, we should find them running something in this wise: “This visit is a great step gained. I find I need not be modest. I know a thousand times more of flowers than does this great florist who has built up an immense and successful business; and what he knows of practical details more than I do, I can learn without the hard experience he has had. If I am prudent, I need not make any ruinous failures. Oh, to be rich! To own my own house, my own fortune, and never more be a dependent even upon the dearest and noblest people in the world! I may; I must accomplish this. I must! I must! Minnie is bright and pretty. Better that she died than grow up poor and ignorant, to do the bidding of others. I wonder if she will be really intellectual—capable of being highly educated, capable of lofty sentiments and principles. Ah! I am not proud that one like Dan is her father, but not in all the world could she have better blood than that of Dr. Forest. Great, noble, generous man! He knows I am grateful, but he does not know I could kiss his feet, and not then express how I adore his character. In his eyes, I am just as good, just as virtuous, as if baby had never been born. In Mrs. Buzzell’s I am very dear, I know, but still a Magdalen. She would stand by me during good behavior; he would follow me with tender, helpful sympathy, if I should suffer any degradation. He would never lose hope that I could rise and atone for every folly. What a power there is in such trust. It must give the basest nature a very passion to justify it. So will I justify it, or I will die in the attempt. I could die any death much easier than I could take any course that would make him feel he had been mistaken in me. Yet they say he is not a Christian. He is irreverent. Mrs. Buzzell asked him if he had never suffered gloomy, despairing moods, and he assured her he had; but to her question, had he not, under such circumstances, felt the instinct to pray to God, he looked her calmly, seriously in the face, and said he should as soon think of finding relief in turning double-back somersaults. That was just what he said, and she knew he was perfectly truthful. He said, however, it was wise to pray, or go through any innocent manœuvre that would insure relief; and then he showed how the real method was distraction, as he called it—calling into action new faculties of the mind, and thus resting the overwrought ones. I don’t find it much use to pray. Praying cannot remove disgrace, and shame, and suffering; but I trust in the unknown power that underlies all things. That power must be God. Obeying our highest impulses is the only thing we are sure is right. My highest impulse is to work for baby—to make her life all that life can be to her. Yet I have one awful fear, whenever I think of the future. When she goes out among children, in the streets or at school, they will no doubt tell her she is a bastard! She may come to me crying, and ask me what it means. Sometimes I think I would rather she should die than grow up to find her mother—— Oh! no, no! That is cowardly. I will make her respect me. I can read and study and educate myself, so that she will be forced to respect me, whatever others say. If I can only make money enough, I will take her abroad and educate her there; but I will tell her all, just as soon as she can reason, and if she inherits any of the soul of Dr. Forest, all will be well; but if she should not be like him! If she should be like Mrs. Forest, or coarse in soul like Dan——”

Thus thinking and foreshadowing, Susie reached home.