Fifteen—Fourteen—Thirteen

Author Unknown

It was on a blustering evening in March that Mr. Alexander Ashe, pausing in his rapid progress through one of the tree-christened streets which bisect the city of Penn, took from his pocket a letter, and holding it well up to catch the somewhat uncertain light of a lamp, studied the address with zeal sharpened by sudden apprehension.

"Confound Uncle Nat!" he muttered. "I wish he would learn to put tails to his 5's. 1314, no; 1514, no; that quirl certainly must mean a 3. Well, this is really too bad. It never occurred to me till this moment that there could be a mistake, but certainly it is 3 and not 5. A nice business it would be to make a blunder in heiress-hunting. Pshaw! But it's to please Uncle Nat. He's been good to me in his way, the old fellow has, and I can't well refuse so slight a favour as that I should call on these—what's their name?—Ashurst, even if he does go on to air what he calls his "long matured hopes" that call may lead to something more interesting. It won't though. I never saw a girl with money yet that wasn't altogether detestable, 1514, 1314—which is it? Never mind, this is Thirteenth street; so much is certain. Now, let's see—the house must be on this side. Perhaps the name is on the door. By Jove! I never thought of that."

Sure enough, the name was on the door—"Ashurst"—revealed plainly enough by an opportune street lamp directly opposite; and Alex. Ashe rang the bell, muttering to himself: "A good hit that. It's lucky I didn't go off in search of 1514. Still, I wish Uncle Nat would mend the tails of his 5's."'

A narrow entry presented itself to his view when the door opened, for the house was small, and the misfortune of a small house is that each new comer instinctively makes his measurements, and deduces from what he sees the probable extent and compass of what he does not see. "The ladies were at home," and a white-capped maid took his card into the parlor and returning presently, ushered him in. "What a pleasant room!" was his first thought as he entered. "Not a handsome parlor" in the least. He was used to those parlors where every mirror, bronze, curtain, and piece of furniture was the exact complement of similar articles on the other side the party-wall on either hand; where sofas and chairs wore fine clothes on occasion, and common petticoats for common days, and nothing seemed intended for use, comfort, or the indulgence of unauthorised or impromptu pleasures. This was a room of different type, not handsome at all in the convential sense, but full of individuality and charm. Thick rug-like hangings of the cheap Abruzzi tapestry of Italy draped doors and windows; the walls, of a sort harmonious tint, were hung thickly with pictures and drawings, among which wandered, apparently at will, the shoots of a magnificent ivy. A bright fire of cannel coal shone in the low grate; there were books everywhere; the piano stood open, and strewed with music sheets; a writing-table heaped with paper in one corner, and an easel and paints in another, showed that busy people used the room, and worked there when so inclined—a thing not often permitted in parlors kept for show; and on the chimney piece stood a bowl of fresh violets, which diffused a spring like color about the place.

Two young ladies, evidently sisters, rose from seats beside the fire and came forward to receive the guest. The elder, who held his card between her fingers, had a sweet and sensible countenance, a remarkably pretty figure, and a manner full of gracious dignity and composure. She was of that type of woman whom other women wonder that all men don't fall in love with; but they don't. The younger was in totally different style—fair, brilliant, smiling, seduisante, possessed of a thousand untaught graces, which lent to her manner inexhaustible variety and charm, but withal with the sunny candour of a child shining in her clear blue eyes. Amy Ashurst was altogether an enchanting creature, and Alex. Ashe, struck and dazzled, muttered to himself with sudden excitement: "By Jove! Uncle Nat has hit it for once. Here is a girl with money who beats all the girls without any that I ever met. I am everlastingly indebted to him." And while these thoughts whirled through his mind, Miss Ashurst was enunciating her soft little sentences of welcome.

We are glad to see you, Mr. Ashe, and mamma will be very glad when she comes home. I am only sorry that she should happen to be out this evening, at Mr. Berguin's cercle, but they always break up early. She had a letter from—your aunt, I think it was in the autumn, in which she said that there was talk of your coming here toward spring; but she named no time, and mamma did not known when to look for you."

"My uncle, probably. He is not married. I had no idea, however, that he had written to Mrs. Ashurst so long beforehand, though he bade me call upon her without fail."

"Your uncle?" repeated Miss Ashurst, doubtfully. "I thought I recollected—but of course, I might easily mistaken. Pray, sit down, Mr. Ashe. Oh, not on that chair; that is only comfortable for ladies. Try that big square one. What a blustering night it is!"

"I thought so till I came in, but no one would suspect it from the atmosphere of your room, Miss Ashurst. What a delightful room it is!"

"I am so glad you think so," put in the beautiful Amy, whose voice was as sweet as her face. "Florence and I are always pleased when any one praises our rooms, because they are mamma's doing, and we think that she has the most perfect taste in the world."

"Nothing could be pleasanter, I am sure. It is thoroughly individual, and yet has such a look of home, and that is not an easy look to produce in a house, it seems to me."

"No, it isn't; but mamma is a real wonder-worker; she always gives that look," cried Amy, eagerly, dimpling and flushing, and looking twice as handsome for the pretty glow of pleasure.

We hear occasionally of love at first sight, and we smile at the notion as romantic; but for all our disbelief and our derision, the thing does sometimes happen even in these matter-of-fact days, and it happened that evening in the case of Alexander Ashe. His excuse must be that nothing in the world was easier than to fall in love at first sight with Amy Ashurst. Apart from her beauty and her remarkable charm of manner, which in itself would have been an irresistible outfit for a far plainer girl, every moment spent in her company made it more and more apparent that this outward loveliness was but the exponent of a nature lovelier still, "pure as her cheek, and tender her eyes." It would have required a tough heart indeed, or an already occupied one, to have resisted her spell, and Alex. Ashe had neither. He had been rather indifferent to young ladies up to this time, and piped himself a little as beauty-proof; but he melted like frost in sun under the influence of Amy's sunny looks, and with a feeling akin to that of the old woman of the nursery legend, wondered if this were indeed he, as he drifted unresistingly on under the bewitchment of the occasion. Two hours sped like two minutes. It was ten o'clock before Mrs. Ashurst walked in from her cercle. Her coming was like the breaking of a dream. She greeted him cordially, but there was a little perplexity in her manner as she said, "I am very glad to see you, but somehow you surprise me a good deal. I was not prepared for anything so tall or—formed. You know, I recollect you as 'little Albert,' and your Aunt Carry never mentioned that you were so astonishingly grown."

"Albert, Aunt Carry!" thought the mystified Alex.; and then, with a sudden sinking of heart, he began to surmise a blunder.

"I—I do not quite understand," he stammered. "I—Can there be—I am half afraid I may have made a mistake. I am Alexander Ashe, not Albert."

Mrs. Ashurst looked more puzzled than ever. Florence blushed deeply, and became grave and embarrassed; but Amy's blue eyes met his frankly, with such a sparkle of kindly fun in them that Alex. took courage to go on.

"Pray let me explain," he said. "The mistake, if mistake there be, comes in this way. My uncle, Mr. Nathaniel Ashe, off Boston, whom possibly you may know by name, wrote me this note"—taking it from his letter-case—" in which he laid upon me his commands to call on his old friends the Ashursts before I left Philadelphia. He should write in advance, he said, to mention my coming, so they would be prepared to see me. My uncle writes a blind hand, as you may perceive, and I was quite at a loss whether 13 or 15 was the number; and while I was casting about, I found the name I was in search of upon your door-plate, and made sure that I was right. Miss Ashurst seemed prepared to receive a Mr. Ashe, which confirmed my impression, and so in short, you see how it is, I trust, and will accept my assurance that the blunder was unintentional, and made in perfect good faith."

"It was a perfectly natural one," said Mrs. Ashurst, pleasantly. "And now pray resume your seat, Mr. Ashe, and let me explain in in my turn. I have a dear old friend, Mrs. Galloway Cummings, of Newburyport, whose sister married Mr. Francis Ashe, of Salem. She wrote some months ago to say that her young nephew, Albert Ashe, was coming on to study in the Medical School of Philadelphia, and we have been looking for him in a vague way since February; so when my daughters read your card, 'Mr. A. G. Ashe,' she naturally took it for granted that you were he. You see, there was a blunder on both sides, and we have apologies to make as well as you."

"I cannot regret my share in the mistake," said Alex., rising to go, "since it has procured me one of the pleasantest evenings of my life." He glanced at Amy as he spoke. Was there a little answering gleam in her eyes? He half dared to hope it.

"But about these Salem Ashes," said Mrs. Ashurst, desirous to set him at ease, and end the interview without embarrassment, "are they your relatives in any way?"

"I am afraid it is a distant cousinship, if any. My uncle, I think, has spoken of some remote connections at Salem or Marblehead, but I am not sure of the facts. And now I must wish you good evening, with renewed apologies, and go in search of those other Ashursts, at 13—no, 1514. That will be two squares farther up in the same street, will it not?"

"Yes, and I think 1514 is Mr. Walter Ashurst's number. He is a distant connection of my husband's, but we have never met them. They are old residents in Philadelphia, and we new comers, you must know. You see, we have mixed up obscure cousinships as well as names and numbers in this odd double misunderstanding of ours, Mr. Ashe."

So with courteous farewells Aelx. took his leave, and, finding it too late for further calls, went back to his hotel down-hearted, for, with all her courtesy and all her pleasantness, Mrs. Ashurst had not asked him to call again. What could be done? for go he must and would; that he was resolved upon. His spirits rose when, a little later, he missed his letter-case. "I shall have to ask for it," he thought; and fortified by this reflection, went to bed and slept soundly.

Next morning he devoted himself to the "other Ashursts," who were easily found. No. 1514 proved to be a mansion of pretensions, wide and ample, with bays, balconies, carved stone-work, a stable alongside, and in all respects belonging to that order of architecture known in newspaper parlance as the "truly palatial," Mr. Ashe was ushered through a marble-paved hall into two dimly-lighted and magnificent drawing-rooms, where rivulets of satin meandered down either side of lofty, close-blinded windows, and a parterre of huge pale-colored flowers from the looms of Aubussion covered the floor. Each gilded and carved chair and sofa wore a jacket of linen for the protection of its silken glories, each table and console boasted its unmeaning strew of costly trifles; chandeliers, pictures, mirrors, all were swathed in tarlatan as a protection from possible flies; while the family hearth was represented by a lacquered register which grinned uncheerfully from the midst of a slab of marble, monumental apparently, which filled the whole opening of the fireplace. This chic and gorgeous solicitude Alex. had to himself for a quarter of an hour, before a rustling on the stairs announced the approach of the ladies of the family, and Mrs. Ashurst and her daughters appeared in a resplendence of French dresses. She, a stately dame of the conventional type, welcomed him very graciously, and invited him to dinner on the next day but one. It was but short notice to collect a party, she remarked, but they would do their best. The young ladies, three in number, were handsome creatures, very like each other, and like half a hundred girls whom Alex. had met before. They talked enough for animation, and not too much for good taste; their attitudes and movements were studiously graceful; they had shrill, high-pitched voices, and were so perfectly at their ease as to give the impression of having been born equal to every social emergency which could possibly arise in the course of their lives. Alex. mentioned his mistake of the night before, and found the tale received with rather contemptuous amusement. There was a family of that name, Mrs. Ashurst believed, but she knew nothing about them. They lived near 13th street, did they? Ah! very odd, to be sure. Hadn't she heard somewhere that they taught something or other?—appealing to her girls. Miss Ashurst thought that they did, and with a faint very faint—degree of interest asked, "Isn't one of the daughters rather pretty?" after which the subject dropped.

Alex. Ashe was conscious of a sense of relief, when, the call being over, he found himself again in the street. "What tiresome women!" he muttered. Yet why were they so tiresome? He had been familiar with just such women all his life, but never before had found them unendurable. "But then I had never seen Amy Ashurst," he meditated. "Marry one of those girls! Not if they owned the mines of Golconda, and Uncle Nat went down on his knees to me."

His call of inquiry after the note-case he timed so as to hit what he suspected to be the leisurely hour of the family in the later evening. He was fortunate; the ladies were at home, and evidently expecting him, for the letter-case lay conspicuous on the table, and Mrs. Ashurst began with apology.

"I should have sent it to you had we known your address; but you gave us none, you remember."

"I should have been most unwilling to give you that trouble; and besides"—candidly—"when I missed it I was very glad, for it gave me a pretext for seeing you all again."

He was so frankly handsome as he spoke, looking straight into Mrs. Ashurst's eyes the while, that she was greatly pleased with him.

"We are glad to see you, without any pretext," she said. "And now, Mr. Ashe, sit down and tell us if your quest of to-day has been successful—if you have found your uncle's Ashursts, the real Simon Pure."

So began another evening of enchantment. This time, when our hero took leave, Mrs. Ashurst cordially invited him to come again; and while he eagerly thanked her, Amy, taking the forgotten letter-case from the table, handed it to him, with a wicked little smile, saying, "You mustn't forget this, Mr. Ashe;' and he, quite unable to keep from laughing, replied, "No, since, Mrs. Ashurst is so kind as to say I may come without an excuse; otherwise I should try hard to leave it for the second time."

Other evenings followed, each pleasanter than the last. There was the sweetest atmosphere about the mother and daughters, Alex. thought; they were so cordial, so intelligent; so unaffectedly fond of one another. Little by little he gathered the facts of their history, not from any formal revelation, but by chance hints and casual allusions. Mrs Ashurst, as he conjectured, had been left slenderly provided for on her husband's death, and, with far-sighted wisdom, had used her little capital in giving her girls a first rate education in Europe, with a view to their becoming teachers. They had but lately returned, and were not yet thoroughly at home in their own country; but already Miss Ashurst was instructing large classes in French and German, and Amy giving music-lessons to a number of pupils. Their evenings they kept for the enjoyment of each other and of the little home which they so valued; and entering into the spirit of this life, so bravely busy, yet so tranquilly content, Alex. realised for the first time what the charm of home may be, where each inmate has independent occupation, but where all interests are shared and united as only they can be in those homes where love is lord and king.

He dined duly with "the other Ashursts," and duly paid his 'digestion visit," but there the acquaintance rested. The insipidity of mere fashionable intercourse struck him so keenly, as contrasted with the domestic life he had just learned to understand; the elaborate graces taught in worldly schools seemed so poor and shallow compared with "the maid, the music, breathing in the face of Amy, that it struck him as sheer waste of time to devote his hours to them.

Who would care for a doll, though its clothes were of lace,
And its petticoats trimmed in the fashion?

He hummed to himself as he walked home after his second call at 14, 15; and from thenceforward he gave himself up with heart and soul to the cultivation of his "happy accident."

Uncle Nat was grievously disappointed when his favorite nephew, after a stay in Philadelphia so prolonged as to justify his most sanguine hopes, wrote to announce his engagement to an entirely wrong Miss Ashurst. "A girl without a penny, sir, I give you my word," and it was long before the old gentleman could forgive the outrage. He never did forgive it, in fact, till Mrs. Alexander Ashe came to Boston in proprie persona, and then she made such a conquest of Uncle Nat as left him nothing to say in his own justification or to the reproach of his nephew. He lived to thank Heaven for his own bad handwriting. "For," as he would explain, "if the tails of my 5's had been one whit less indistinct than they are, you would never have gone astray in Hemlock street that night, my boy, and we should never have had this little jewel of ours for our own, and a sad thing that would have been for us all—hey, now, wouldn't it?"

To which Alexander replied, with emphasis, "Rather!"

Warragul Guardian and Buln Buln and Narracan Shire Advocate, Thursday 4 November 1880, supplement page 2