The Deane Girls. A home story

Front matter

"DO VOU EVER HAVE AN H.OUR TO SPEND ON YOUR INDOLENT FELLOW-MORTALS?" ASKED THE DOCTOR. Page 132. A HOME STORY BY ADELAIDE L. ROUSE K Author os " Wendcroer House" "Stephen Vane's Trust" "Almost a Genius" ele. fFon&ott H ODDER AND STOUGHTON 27 paternoster row MDCCCXCV TIIE DEANE GIRLS. CUAPTEIt. TAOn. XXI. A Disappointment .... 281 XXII. A Womanly "Woman . . . . 29S XXIII. A Tremendous Love-Story . . 310 XXIV. Broken Hopes 328 XXV. A Change ok Scene . . . .348 XXVI. " When the Sea gives itp her Dead" 3G2 XXVII. Pen's Story 373 XXVIII. Seven Years After ....

Chapter I

ways and means. " Do not dare to live without some clear intention toward which your living shall be bent." — Phillips Brooks. " One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and Helen makes eight," counted Bee. " What a pity that we all are girls. Janie, I'll thank you for another muffin." Bee sighed as she buttered her muffin. Maud took advantage of the lull in the conversation to sob more loudly than ever. At last Becky spoke from behind the teapot. " I am not sorry that I am a girl, but I do wish that I could make some money." " I wish I were a man," said Phil decidedly. " As a man I might amount To something, as a woman I am a fizzle." Then with a change of tone she added, " Maud, stop crying aud come to supper. I'll not have any more dawdling. After the dishes are washed you will ask for something to eat.

Stop crying, it will not make your old hat new." " What is the matter with Maud ? " asked Helen, who had just come in. "I am late, girls, I know; I stopped to exchange the library books. Maud, child, how your eyes look, and your nose is swollen out of shape." "Maud is in her diurnal stew," explained Phil. "She wouldn't be Maud if she was not in hot water at least once every twenty-four hours. Mamie John son said on the way home from school that Maud's hat looked like a withered turnip, hence these tears. Maud demands a new hat at once, and she might as well ask for Cleopatra's needle. Never mind, Maud, we all are as badly off as you are. Wait till I make my fortune, and I'll buy you a dozen new hats every month." " I would rather have one now," said Maud, wiping her eyes and looking over the supper-table.

" Phil, can't I please have some honey ? I don't like plum preserves, and I never eat boiled ham, and the muf fins are cold. I have so much trouble with my old hats that I think I might have some honey to com fort me." Phil laughed and went to get the honey. The other girls had finished supper, but they sat and chatted while Helen and Maud were eating. Phil began carrying the dishes into the kitchen. Pres ently she put her tray down, and said, " Maud, I wish you had not begun on the subject of hats. It has set me wondering what we shall do for clothes this spring. There are so many of us." " Which one would you like to spare ? " " Aggie, you know I don't want to spare anyone," said Phil, going to give Aggie's pillows a patting. "I was thinking how nice it would be if some of us were boys. However, if we did have a brother he might be a regular good-for-nothing."

" Like Branwell Bronte," suggested Pen. " Char lotte and her sisters had no end of trouble with him." " Phil, if you will get the basket ready for old Mrs. Benson, I will go over there now," interposed Becky. " I came near forgetting her, and I know mother would be sorry. Bee, will you go along for company ? " she asked, as she pinned on her hat. " I would like the walk with you, Becky, but I can't stand Mrs. Benson's flow of language." And Bee curled herself up in the rocking-chair and began a new chapter of "Pendennis." TIIE DEFINE GIRLS. " You'll go, I know, chicken," said Becky, turning to Maud. "Put on your jacket, the evenings are chilly." " Dishes are waiting, Pen," called Phil from the kitchen, and Pen went out to dry the dishes. Phil would never allow her to wash them, for she argued that dish-washing would make her hands stiff for the piano.

After the dishes were done they made ready for breakfast and locked the kitchen windows ; then their duties were done for the day. Pen went into the parlor where Aggie and Helen were talking in the twilight, and one after another all the sisters followed. Phil was last, and she closed the door after her with a little bang which meant volumes. She said nothing, however, but sat down on the hearth-rug and seemed to be in a brown study. Mr. and Mrs. Deane were away for the day, so the girls had the parlor to themselves. It always was a pleasant room, although the furniture gave evidence of long use. To-night the windows were open, and the sweet spring air blew through the room. There were other suggestions of spring, for a vase of wild violets stood on a table by Aggie's couch, and a huge jar filled with apple-blossoms was on the center-table.

Perhaps as they are together it will.be a good opportunity to make the reader acquainted with " the Deane girls," as they were always called among their acquaintances. Aggie, the dear, patient, lame sister, lay on the lounge, her thin hand holding one of her favorite books. She was not reading, her deep gray eyes were scanning the faces of her sisters. She was a beautiful character ; although she had borne a burden of suffering for twenty-four years, no one had ever heard her complain. She was always cheerful and happy, always ready to help some one, whether it was to explain some difficulty in Maud's lesson or to give comfort and advice to one of the older sisters. She was a great help to her father, and her mother loved to chat with Aggie when weary and dis couraged. Indeed, none ever went to that quiet corner without receiving help.

Helen was a year younger than Aggie. She was a tall, handsome blonde, with a noble bearing which gave her the name of the Queen among her sisters. She was quite different in temperament from the other girls, being very quiet and reticent about her own affairs. As Phil was wont to say, Helen never "babbled." Her sisters had the utmost respect for THE DEANE GIIiLS. her judgment, and as they went to " Saint Agnes " for comfort, they went to " Queen Helen " for advice. Helen was a hard student; she had finished the course at the Harvard Annex, and was studying Hebrew with her father, and keeping up her Greek, which was her favorite study, by translating some of the dramatists. An enthusiastic naturalist, she knew as much of bird-lore and plant-life as she did of the languages. Helen was suspected of being a bluestocking, but she never told anything, no matter how much the girls quizzed her.

As was said, she kept her own counsel, and no one, unless it were Phil, was in her confidence. Nevertheless, the whole family had unlimited faith in her talents, and they fully expected that some day she would write a book which would immortalize the name of Deane. Rebecca, or Becky, who was next in age, was twenty-one, a plump, good-natured girl, whom every one loved and no one thought of criticising. She was not handsome like Helen ; her skin was freckled, and her nose was a very decided pug ; but she had kind, honest brown eyes, and wavy hair, and alto gether was good to look upon. Becky enjoyed the distinction of being the only engaged sister ; she was to marry a young German who held a professorship in a small college in the west. Both Becky and her lover were poor, so there was no immediate prospect of their marriage, though all the sisters regarded August as a brother.

Janie was a cousin, but none of the other girls ever realized that she was not a sister. She was a niece of Mr. Deane's, and he had adopted her when she was a mere baby. She was Becky's age, and she was as particular and proper as Becky was easy going and jolly. Janie was pretty in her way, with auburn hair and little white hands of which she was rather vain. She was very ladylike, with numerous luxurious instincts, which she had never been able to gratify. Janie was supposed to be engaged to a sailor nephew of Mrs. Deane's, and all the family wondered how the fastidious Jane could fancy Steve Harley, for a greater mischief never sailed the ocean. He was perfectly ridiculous when he chose to be, and made a point of professing a supreme contempt for all the little conventionalities in which Janie's soul delighted.

However, she liked him, though she never owned it, and it was expected that some day there would be two weddings in the family. Phil and Pen came next. They were twins, aged TIIE DEANE GIRLS. eighteen. No two people ever looked more unlike ; for Phil was fair and tall and strong, and gave one the impression of power and capability, while Pen was dark and shy and little. Even Maud's head was nearly as high as hers. Phil and Pen had been inseparable from the time they were babies, and no shadow of any disagreement had ever come between them. Neither cared very much for books and study. Phil was a practical creature whose forte was housekeeping, and music was all that Pen cared for. Her family thought that she had considerable talent, but she had a poor opinion of her own attain ments, being a modest little woman.

Pen was exceedingly shy. She moved about the house in a quiet manner, and never asserted herself, so that the nickname of the Mouse, given her by Phil, was not wholly inappropriate. She was afraid to trust herself to do anything unless it was in music. There was a tradition in the family that Pen had once attempted to cut out a gingham apron for herself, but after the pattern was pinned on the gingham, she dropped the scissors and fled, frightened at her own boldness. But once seated at the piano she would forget herself, and sometimes she conquered her shyness enough to play before com pany. For some time Pen had practiced on the church organ, for she and Mr. Leigh, the organist, were very good friends, and he had taught her all the music she knew. He was a quiet, retiring man, who made few friends.

No doubt his shyness put Pen at her ease with him. Bee was disposed to joke Pen about the kindness of her middle-aged teacher, and she hinted at a musical romance. Mrs. Deane forbade her to say anything more to Pen, lest she should be so frightened that she would give up the lessons, much as she enjoyed them. When the gentle Mrs. Deane spoke with such decision Bee knew that she meant to be obeyed, so she had to content herself with looking the mischief she did not dare put into words. The names of the twins were a constant wonder to the family. Phillippa was named for her grand mother Deane, an old-school lady who would have fainted had anyone addressed her as Phil. But Phillippa the second was seldom called anything but Phil. " Much more sensible than carrying the whole name about," quoth she.

No one knew just why her twin was named Pene lope, but it was supposed that her name, as well as Llelen's, was due to her father's love for Greek liter- TEE DEANE GIRLS. ature. Barbara sometimes said that she was thank ful for such an everyday name, for she might have been called Andromeda or Iphigenia. Like her twin, Penelope seldom heard her full name, it was usually shortened to Pen. Bee, whose real name was Barbara, was fifteen, and the beauty of the family. She had golden hair which curled all over her head, a cream and white complexion, and great brown eyes, shaded by long, curly lashes. She and Pen were of the same height, but there the resemblance ceased. Bee was artistic, and she had made pictures ever since she was a baby. There was no question about her talent, but she was indolent, and given to dreaming when she should work, so there was some doubt whether she would apply herself enough to make the real artist that she longed so to be.

Maud was the baby, and all united in spoiling her. Her hair, like Janie's, bordered on the red, and she never for a moment forgot the painful fact. Maud was nine years old, and very tall for her age. Everyone said that she was growing up like Phil, who, at one period of her life, seemed all arms and legs. Mr. Deane was a clergyman, and had little in the world besides his large family of girls. His salary had always been small, and there were so many to feed, clothe, and educate, that there never was any surplus at the end of the year. And he would educate every one of his daughters, no matter how much self-denial it cost. He would cheerfully do without a much needed overcoat to pay for drawing lessons, or write an article to meet the bill from the music teacher. As for clothes, if Mrs. Deane had not possessed a genius for contriving new garments from old, her family would scarcely have been presentable.

Many a night she sat up till long after midnight, turning or otherwise altering one of her old gowns into a neat frock for one of her numerous brood. She had been rich before she married her poor young clergyman, and quite a belle, and her long ago finery had done duty in dressing her girls. As they grew older, and needed more, they turned and remodeled and dyed their gowns, till they fairly hated the sight of them. Although Becky was a treasure with her sewing-machine and her deft fingers, and Bee had a gift for making bonnets out of nothing, they were often brought face to face with the question, " wherewithal shall we be clothed ? " TIIE DEANE GIRLS. Mr. Deane might have filled a larger pulpit and so commanded a better salary ; but he loved to study and write, and this parish being small, he had a large margin of time.

Besides, he loved his people, and they loved him, and neither could bear to think of a change. So he stayed on year after year, preach ing, writing, and studying. The pet dream of his life was the completion of commentaries on the gospels, on which he had been at work since the twins were babies. With the best of intentions, Mr. Deane was a poor financier. He always had some needy friend who had been a college chum, or a friend of his boyhood, and who wanted to borrow money on the strength of the old friendship. His bread thus cast upon the waters never came back to him, and his invest ments were invariably unfortunate. He had lately placed some money iu a railroad in the west, which had ceased to pay any dividend, and was reported on the verge of bankruptcy. This was the cause of the conversation with which my story opens.

No doubt people wondered why his daughters did not go out into the world and fend for themselves. Mr. Deane was a Southerner, and had an idea that women should be taken care of, so he kept all his girls at home. When one of the elder daughters chafed under the yoke of poverty and proposed doing something toward her support, he would look grieved and say, " Wait, girls, there may be better times just ahead of us. I cannot spare any of you, and I think we must try to pull along together yet a while. Find some work to do at home and try to be content." Then he would ask, " Becky, will you copy my sermon ? Your writing is very legible." Or, "Helen, if you have time I wish you would make out the report of the missionary meeting." So the girls grew to think it a conspiracy against their father to make any plans for leaving home.

And he was so brave and cheerful that they had not the heart to complain of their poverty. In spite of many scrimps and much close planning, they managed to get much enjoyment out of life. The deanery, as the rectory was often called, was in a pleasant town near enough to Boston for shop ping excursions and occasional junketings. The rectory was the dearest old house in the world, a great rambling building, full of delightful nooks and corners. A wide hall ran through the center of the house. The stairs paused to rest three times before they reached the second story, and one of these TBE DEANE GIRLS. landings made a place for a tall old clock, which did not " go," but the case was very handsome, and as Bee was wont to remark, " the effect was everything." Opening from the hall were parlors, sitting-room, study, and dining-room.

The study was a long room where Mr. Deane kept a heterogeneous collec tion of books and curiosities, for he was a born collector. He was never so happy as when seated in this den behind a barricade of books and pamph lets, at work upon his beloved commentaries. Upstairs were large, hospitable chambers, with a view which was better than a houseful of fine furni ture. Above the chambers was an ideal garret where the girls had romped and played as children, and where they still loved to dream on rainy days. Mrs. Deane seldom kept a servant unless she took in some homeless creature and kept her till she was competent to earn her living elsewhere. As Phil said, all the poor, inefficient characters in the town drifted to the deanery, as a matter of course. Such being the case, perhaps it is no wonder that Mr. Deane did not save anything.

The mother and daughters did the housework, and the girls worked in the garden, drove the old " pony " about the country roads, rowed on the little river, attended the lyceum and the sewing society, and waited, Micawber-like, " for something to turn up." They were healthy and strong, with one exception. It seemed strange that the eldest should be afflicted when there was so much surplus strength among the others. That was the only real shadow that hung over the home, and that was lightened by Aggie's sweet spirit of submission. Naturally, among so many girls there was much diversity of character. Each one had her own char acteristics and hobbies about which she was particularly sensitive. But they were too fond of one another to disagree much, and a discordant note was seldom heard among the eight, or rather among the seven, for Aggie was always in tune.

Janie and Phil did not always get along smoothly. Janie was so exceedingly nice that Phil's ways tried her soul. Phil did so enjoy being a httle boyish that her sisters did not mind, especially as her masculine airs and graces were confined to the bosom of her family. Janie took great delight in what she termed Helen's repose of manner, and she also ad mired the classic cut of her features. THE DEANE GIRLS. On this particular evening when our story begins each girl was busied in some characteristic way. Helen sat at a side-table writing letters. Becky, who had stopped at the post-office on her way from Mrs. Benson's, had read a voluminous letter from August, and was softly playing her beloved violin. Janie was knitting a couvre-pied for Aggie. Bee was still deep in Pendennis, and Maud studied her geography lesson in an undertone.

Pen was playing snatches of Mendelssohn with the soft pedal down, to accompany Becky. Aggie read now and then from her little book, and listened to the music. Phil kept her position upon the hearth-rug, her hands folded, a most unusual thing for her. At last she spoke. " Girls, I tell you that some thing must be done." " You have made that remark before," said Becky. " Hand me the rosin, please. What shall we do ? " "My dear girl, that is the very question I am asking myself this minute. Let's have a conclave. Are we all here ? " "What is wrong? is there anything new?" in quired Barbara, carefully putting a hair-pin in her book to mark the place. "Oh, nothing so terrible, but that Astoria and Western stock is as good as nothing. I have always expected to hear that it was a humbug. Father asked mother and me if we could not cut down ex penses a little, and you know what that means.

I don't see how we can cut them down any more. I think that he is worrying about the money he let Mr. Murray have. Mother says that the Murray man is not doing well, and just suppose he fails us now. We can barely live off father's salary, and he has kept almost nothing. I wish he was not so optimistic about his friends. Now I move that we put our heads together and devise some way to help ourselves and so help father." " I don't see what we can do," said Bee, twisting a curl about her finger. " If we made a dozen plans father would not let us carry them out." " Father is foolish about wanting to keep us home, bless him ! It is a shame that we are not independent. I can't look in the glass without blushing." And Phil ran her fingers through her hair in a frenzied manner. "It is a shame," assented Becky, looking grave.

" I do think about these things sometimes, but I fear I am not very ambitious, and dear old father will not listen — " TIIE DEANE GIRLS. " I know," Phil cut in. " I am not censuring any one. But some things must be faced. The dining room carpet has gone down for the last time, for it is as thin as a shadow, to say nothing of the darns. This carpet is getting very shabby, and there is the kitchen range, it is enough to provoke a saint on baking days." " I really don't see how I am to use the old sew ing-machine any longer," sighed Becky. "And we need new window-shades all over the house," put in Bee. "And there are our spring bonnets," added Aggie mischievously. " It is no laughing matter," said Phil. " Here are eight girls, all more or less in the condition of Miss Flora McFlimsey, — nothing to wear.

I flattered myself that this gown would never wear out, it is such a miracle of ugliness ; but it is getting decidedly thin about the elbows. Oh, do say something, some of you ! Helen Deane, you are serene enough now, but do you realize that spring is here, the voice of the turtle is heard in the land, and our wardrobes are as bare as Mother Hubbard's cupboard ? " Helen laughed. "Why, Phil, I did not know that you cared so much about dress." " I am not more than human, ma'am. It is all very well for you to be indifferent, for you look nice and ladylike in anything. You have worn that gray serge for a generation, and it will fall in classic folds about your figure. But it takes a good deal of dry goods to make me look like other people." " Of course we can do some making over," said Becky, hopefully.

" We really do not need many new things. Summer will soon be here, and then we always wear white. I haven't the face to ask father for a cent." "I am perishing to do something, but I haven't any talent, unless it is a knack for housework," said Phil, sticking to her text. " I know somebody who takes good care of me," said Aggie from her corner. " I know, dear, but housework and nursing don't help pay the bills. Girls, that is, most of them, can't do anything but teach school, and that I can't and won't do." " Perhaps matters are not so hopeless after all," said Janie. " Phil has a spasm like this quite often." "Matters are hopeless enough, Janie Deane. I know this much, I am sick and tired of genteel poverty ; it is so hard to keep up the gentility." "I think Phil is right," said Helen thoughtfully.

" I do not wish to criticise father and mother, but I think they made a mistake in bringing us up in this way. As Phil says, we are fitted for nothing. I am tired of being a barnacle. I believe that every woman should know how to do something and do it well. I can't endure the idea of a girl living along till some man is good enough to come and marry her." "Hear, hear!" cried Phil, applauding with the tongs. " Go on, my strong-minded sister." " I have nothing more to say, except that I thank you, Phil, for stirring me up." "You don't need any stirring, Queen. I know that you think of these things. You will be rich and famous some day, and we shall be proud of you. There, I will say it." " Perhaps I could make a success of dressmaking," said Becky, as if thinking aloud. " But how people would talk," cried conservative Janie, and Bee dropped Pendennis in her horror of the idea.

"Let them talk," said Phil, sharply. "Who do you mean by 'they,' and what do we care what 'they' say? Haven't 'they' always talked about our business ? How all the gossips went on about our new parlor suite. One woman supposed that the girls drove the rector to such extravagance, and another didn't see how he could keep up with such a wasteful family. All that talk because we covered our old chairs with Aunt Maria's old repp bed hang ings, and they happened to be a fashionable shade of red. How they talked when Bee made her debut in the new blue silk which had been mother's twenty-five years before. But Bee made the old thing look so ravishing that I don't wonder they thought it new." "Girls, couldn't some of you teach a private school ? " Aggie asked. " Perhaps some of the girls who go away to school would be glad to stay at home if they could go to a good private school.

" "Aggie Deane," cried Phil, "you are a genius. Becky, I think you are the one to try the school. You are splendid in the languages, and you have no end of patience." "I am willing to try, but I do not want to be alone. ' The Misses Deanes' School ' will sound much better than 'Becky Deane's School,' for that is what it would be called. Who will help me?" " Janie," said Phil. " Pen is busy with her music and the Queen has her hands full. As for myself, I am entirely out of the question. Rebecca, I think I see you at the head of a seminary." " Becky looks frightened," said Pen. " What will become of August while she is at the head of her seminary ? " "You'll no more than have your school begun when August will strike luck and carry you off," and Phil made a wry face at the prospect. " Perhaps you'll like it better when Dr. Griswold carries you off," said Maud, pertly.

"I forgot that the child was here," said Phil. " Maud, you talk too much. Do you suppose she will ' devulgate ' this all around, as Priscilly Bedott would say. I am afraid that her bosom friend will know all we have said by recess Monday morning." " Don't be too hard on the child," said Becky, as Maud retired behind her geography. " I wish that father would go where he could get a better salary," said Phil. " They are so stingy here. Yes, Aggie, I must say it ; they are stingy, stingy, stingy! However, it may be a good thing if it makes us independent — " " Bravo, Phil," said a voice outside, and a moment later the broad shoulders and six feet one inch of manhood belonging to Jack Harley, their cousin, came through the window. "Well, I call this cool," cried Phil, brandishing the tongs, which she had taken up for defense.

" I'm sure we are frightened to death. Where did you come from ? ' "From Cambridge, of course," returned Jack, kissing all his cousins. " I came to spend Sunday with you. Aren't you glad to see me ? You should be, for I haven't been here for two weeks. Hallo ! Maud, I didn't see you," and Jack pulled one of her long red braids. " What were you spouting about, Phil, as I came up ? What did I get into ? It looks like a caucus meeting." "This is a society for the Promotion of Industry. Don't you want to join ? " "Not I. Don't talk to me of industry, after grinding all week as I have done. Phil, can I have something to eat? I am almost starved, and I couldn't get here in time for supper. I'll eat in the kitchen." "Oh, stay where you are, and I'll feed you. I suppose you are tired. Poor boy, you work so hard !