The matrimonial bureau

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II

This green plot shall be our stage, this hawthorn brake our tyring-house ; and we will do it in action. — Midsummer Night's Dream.

How the town came to be named Whitfield nobody who was fortunate enough to live there could remember, even if ever there had been any accurate information on the subject. The town was as old as those others in central and southern New York which are still worrying along under the burden of names bestowed upon them by that band of surveyors who, fresh from the schools where they had learned much of the history of ancient cities, had christened the still unpopulated quarter sections with the names of classic heroes, states, and battles. Utica, Syracuse, Troy, Palmyra, Cicero, Manlius, Sparta, Homer, Ovid, Ithaca, — these towns, it had been hoped by their sponsors in baptism, might grow up to be a credit to their distinguished namesakes. Whitfield may have been named for an

IO

THE MATRIMONIAL BUREAU e= ^

eminent Methodist clergyman. Or possibly not. And it did n’t matter anyway.

Whitfield was like a hundred other towns of its sort. One may find the sort in almost any state except perhaps Arizona. It had an escape about three miles wide from being on the railroad, and in consequence there was little manufacturing. There was a long street which ran out at both ends of the town and got lost somewhere in the country. This street was cut at right angles by another of less pretension. Both streets were bordered by great old trees, maples and elms and an occasional hickory, which had been left from the days when there had been a forest thereabouts. Looking at the town from the surrounding hillsides, these trees shut out all view of the houses, but when the casual visitor arrived in the village he found that they merely shaded them, and they were grateful. There were other streets in the village, and according to the census reports Whitfield had a population of 896, but that was before the Henderson twins were born, and before the Richardsons — eight of them — had moved into the Bradley house. Of course, this increase had been offset somewhat by the death of Kirk Buckley, who in a moment of temporary inebriety had walked one dark night into Deacon Wilson’s stone quarry, with a fatal result.

So Whitfield had remained for some years practically stationary as to population. It was a quiet, orderly, rather dignified town. Its officials took it seriously. Casual visitors, who were entirely unsympathetic because they had been born in cities, were apt to smile a little at its peculiarities, which were not peculiarities, but only the natural outpourings of a heart interested in the doings of whosoever came within the line of vision. That was, and is to this day, the Whitfield of this story.

At one corner of the long street and the shorter one which intersected it stood the Adams house. When it had been built, a century before, the Putnam Adams who built it had called the place Elmwood, but the name had been forgotten. The house itself showed that essential severity which 12 characterized the Adamses, and was the pride of all Whitfield. It reproduced, as well as wood and white paint could do so, the development of the classic impulse which had its beginnings in eastern New York at the time when Sir William Johnson was made colonel of the Six Nations.

The broad, low pediment set squarely upon four Ionic columns, the wide stone veranda and massive stone steps were as much a part of the landscape as the historic Whitfield elms. The interior of the house reflected the Adams attitude of mind and action. There were few curves in the decorations. The white-painted panels were uncompromisingly square. The mahogany balustrade ran straight up from the broad hall, and the stairs opened frankly at the top into the wide corridor which cut the upper floor into two halves, — five rooms on one side, five on the other, all precisely similar in size and shape. Every line which, architecturally, had to do with the making of the house, was straight up and down or straight across. There were no angles but right ones. There were no curves except those of the Ionic columns, and Colonel Adams had said after the house was built that he even wished he had made these square. But it was too late, and to-day in Whitfield these same columns stand, a lasting monument to the one weakness of decision in the character of Colonel Putnam Adams, of His Majesty’s forces in the Colonies.

But there was one other monument — the library.

While the library as it exists now could not, in the very nature of things, have been built entire by the first Putnam Adams, yet he laid the foundation for it; and when he was sent to America by the king, and found a place where he was to build his home, he fetched with him from England the library which he had collected in France and Italy and Germany. Begun with little thought as to its ultimate fate, this collection of books had grown with the changing tastes of the young soldier. There were the classics in original and translation ; much Greek H poetry, a wonderful edition of Horace, picked up in Rome, and bound in leather and gold, which bore the magic signature, deeply wrought, of Leonardo da Vinci. Then there was a Machiavelli and the stories of his wars and his methods of statesmanship; there was the story of the Life, which Benvenuto Cellini himself had written, and this book the Colonel had caused to be inclosed in a case of silver which bore upon its cover the arms of the House of the Cenci. This book he worshiped with a worship which was little short of idolatry. In the long evenings, when the Indians were at rest and the messages from Sir William were such as to allow him some freedom, he would shut himself in his rooms — wherever he might be — and sit the whole night through, living again with the Benvenuto those fearsome hours when he fought his way through the streets of Florence, leaving in his wake a line of fourteen dead men’s bodies — but rushing on to his Art and his Love.

Perhaps, after all, that was why Colonel

Putnam Adams decided on the curves for the capitals of the columns which guarded the entrance to the home which he had built for Margery, the daughter of the governor of Plymouth Colony.

The second Putnam Adams inherited his father’s tastes and spent much of his time among the books, eagerly adding to the shelves such volumes as his somewhat limited opportunities made possible.

Miss Esther’s father, the third Putnam Adams, enlarged the collection still further, for in his time the flood of literature which marked the Victorian era had already begun. He acquired not only valuable classics, as had his ancestors, but also contemporary fiction, essays, and poetry.

The wife of the third Putnam Adams died when Esther was a baby, and the child grew up in the great house with only her father for guide, counselor, and friend. He was a silent man, — not stern with his little daughter, but maintaining the uncompromising dignity of the Adams family. He spent his days in the library, and Esther was allowed to stay there only on condition that she should not speak to him when he was reading. Often the child would stand wistfully waiting until he should lay down his book. But often he would do so only to take up another, and Esther would turn hopelessly away to amuse herself. Her amusements were peculiarly her own, and were not those which would have been considered entertaining by most children. She invented her own games. For the lonely child there was a certain fascination about a crowd of people, and her games always included certain strange individuals, who, though invisible to others, were very real to her. She peopled the stairs with vast armies marching valiantly up the hill and down again; she crowded the parlors with squires and dames of high degree, who danced minuets of great intricacy, bowing gallantly and languidly waving feathered fans.

The old Adams stables she filled with palfreys and milk-white steeds, and the barnyard with peacocks and falcons. In the grass plot in front of the house Esther could see

l 7 a sun-dial where she fully expected in some year to come to hold tryst with a lover who should wear a velvet cloak and a curling feather, and who would say “ Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I could say good-night till it be morrow,” and then would kiss her hand — just as Romeo did in the wonderful old engraving in the Gilbert Shakespeare.

Thus Esther Adams grew up. She went through the Whitfield school as a matter of course, but her tasks were easily learned and her school life was casual and perfunctory and quite outside the sentient part of her being. She lived in “ that land where Rosalind and Imogen are — a Paradise apart.” The woodland about the old place was the Forest of Arden. The bank of the brook formed the shores of Illyria where the musicians played before the duke, and where Esther played the part — yes, lived the part — of Viola, and told to the wondering birds how she was letting concealment feed on her damask cheek.

Instead of these fancies passing away, later 18 years brought to Esther Adams a stronger sense of reality in her dreams, and she but the more thoroughly identified herself with the creatures which her imagination had appropriated. Through girlhood to womanhood she lived Romance, sometimes as Rosalind, sometimes as Iseult, and sometimes, when in desperate mood, as Catherine of Medici.

But though the grass plot and the stairs had certain advantages of stage-setting, yet it was in the library that Esther gave her fancy fullest rein. The reason for this was too subtle to be understood by the child; but she had an inexplicable, intangible sense of the atmosphere of the books. As she grew older, this became clear to her, and she enjoyed her library with the definite knowledge of the satisfaction to be derived from the actual physical presence of books.

For forty-five years she had enjoyed this library, as she believed, as much as was possible for her, without quite realizing that there was a sense of restraint in the presence of her father. Though she adored the silent man and gladly submitted to his mandates, the restrictions placed upon her as a child were never removed until the day of her father’s death, and it was not until after that event that she came to know what freedom from even unconsciously obeyed authority meant. And in the ten years since she had invested the room with more of her own personality, and instead of being as it had been before, merely a library, it was now her home.

Although always surrounded by her unreal associates, for the last seven years Miss Esther’s only human companion had been Tekla, the maid, and Tekla was very human. When she came to live at the Adams house, Miss Esther was shocked at her deplorable ignorance, and immediately began to teach her at least the rudiments of an education. The good lady consciously and laboriously taught her charge reading and writing, but far more easily yet, she unwittingly instilled in Tekla’s mind a romantic sort of fancy not unlike her own. And that ’s how it happened 20 that Tekla’s stolidly practical German adaptation of Miss Esther’s ideas clothed the problematical farmer with a reality only second to Miss Esther’s Romeos.

Ill

But where is Kate ? where is my lovely bride ?

— Taming of the Shrew.

Not that Miss Esther had preferred imaginary Romeos. Imagination was all very well in its place, but she would have gladly welcomed a hero who could have spoken his own lines. Although she had never consciously or definitely wished for a husband, yet she had often felt the lack of that companionship which she knew could only be afforded by association with one whose mentality was equal to her own, whose tastes were congenial, and whose temperament was similar.

Without reflection upon her own sex, but with total indifference to the lack of feminine comradeship, Miss Esther preferred masculine society. During their long and somewhat lonely life together, her association with her father had been a real friendship; and though not a whit mannish, indeed 22 being herself the essence of femininity, men’s traits and characteristics appealed strongly to Esther Adams.

More than this, she had, and knew she had, the capability to be a great deal to some one man. Responsive, tactful, loyal, and possessed of an instant perception, she demanded these qualities in the man she could love.

No one in Whitfield had ever qualified.

The young men who had entered into Miss Esther’s girlhood life were not of inferior mental calibre, in the opinion of the best Whitfield society, but owing to Esther’s possibly unfortunate fastidiousness, they did not come up to her standards. Her mentally intimate association with Galahad, Romeo, and The Admirable Crichton had made her exacting. It is not that she was unreasonable, nor did she complain; her demeanor toward the young men of Whitfield was marked by a gentle courtesy and frank good comradeship. Whitfield society did not understand her attitude, and could not have done so had she explained it to them — which she did not. Indeed, so misleading was her apparent

2 3 acceptance of their attentions, that more than one young man had put himself in a position to receive her gracious but decided refusal.

Through her girlhood years Miss Esther had thought it not impossible that she might yet meet a man who would be the realization of her ideals. But no strangers ever came to Whitfield, and her filial sense of duty would not allow her to leave her father alone, so she could not accept invitations to visit elsewhere, which would otherwise have given her great pleasure. Major Adams was so deeply occupied with his books that it never occurred to him that his daughter needed a change, or recreation of any sort other than that which was offered at home, although had she asked to go he would have gladly given consent. It had never occurred to him, either, but that she would sometime make a choice among the men of Whitfield, for he knew nothing of his daughter’s ideals and was himself amply content with the society of his native town.

Once, when Whistler was shooting at a Scotch country place, he deliberately shot 24 a dog which was standing near by. Because, as he afterward explained, the dog was out of drawing. He should have been twenty feet further to the left, if in the landscape at all. And so it seemed to Miss Esther that the men who had come into her life had been “out of drawing.” She did not shoot them, but she put them out of her life as completely as if they had been shot.

This state of things, however, did not leave Miss Esther’s life as empty as might have been expected. The very qualities which induced this lack brought with them their own means of fulfilling it. Although without any definite acceptance of these facts, Miss Esther went on from day to day, living in the way which seemed to her to offer the best possible selection from all that life had to offer. The Romeos and Galahads of her happy fancies came nearer the perfection of her standards than did the men of Whitfield, and her dream-life with them was happier in its ideality than any real life she had seen. This play-life was begun by Esther Adams, sitting in prim frocks, silent, her foot tucked comfortably under her on the straight-backed sofa of her father’s library. It continued through the girlhood days when she was still known as Esther Adams ; and now, after many years, when, a woman of fifty, she was called Miss Esther by everybody in Whitfield, the gentle, grayhaired lady still found in the atmosphere of her wonderful old books the realization of the ideals which had been denied her elsewhere.

And so this is the explanation of why Miss Esther Adams never married.

One morning Miss Esther sat in her broadarmed veranda chair with her hands idly folded in her lap. She rocked slowly as she gazed across the lawn at the riotous rosegarden.

“Ay, ’tis as thou sayest, Rosalind ; the blossoms be o’er-blown. They ought to have been cut earlier. They are really of no use now except to make potpourri. Heigh-ho, Rosalind, I wonder if your roses in the Forest of Arden ever bothered you as much as mine do me.”

Miss Esther’s attention was attracted from the roses by a stranger within her gates. This was an unusual occurrence ; even more so in that this stranger was a man. And he was big and broad and black-bearded, and distinctly of Teutonic origin. His air was assured, yet deferential, and he approached the house with the look of one who was certain of a waiting welcome.

“ He looks like Thor,” said Miss Esther, critically, “ but I never saw a brunette Thor before.”

With the pleasant manner of childlike confidence characteristic of the people of his country, he said :

“ Is this Tekla Klein’s house?”

“ No, — not exactly — ”

“That is too bad. I wished to marry her.”

“ Is that so ? ” said Miss Esther, with interest. “ In that case perhaps I had better call her.”

“ If you will be so kind.”

The big man seated himself on the lowest of the stone steps, removed his wide-brimmed

2 7 hat, and calmly wiped his forehead with a huge handkerchief.

Miss Esther looked at her brunette Thor steadily, with a dawning appreciation that here at last she was confronted by a dramatic situation quite to her taste. She went into the house and into the library. She rang the bell and in a moment Tekla appeared.

“ There is a person inquiring for you at the front door,” said Miss Esther.

“ Yes, ma’am,” said Tekla.

The stranger had not moved since Miss Esther went into the house, but at the sound of a footstep behind him he rose and went up the steps to where Tekla Klein stood by one of Putnam Adams’s fluted pillars.

He took a letter from his pocket, and she saw that it was the one which she had written in answer to the advertisement.

“ I have come,” he said, simply.

Tekla looked at him critically, and then with an air of satisfaction she said, “ It is good. And you have the farm ? ”

“Yes, a half-section, many — three hundred and twenty acres — one hundred 28 wheat, one hundred corn, one hundred and twenty in pasture.”

“ Is it in America? ” asked Tekla.

“It is in Nebraska,” he replied.

“Oh! I would rather it had been in America. But it does not matter. I will go.”

Again the pleased smile broke over the big, good-natured face.

“ I was born near Breslau. I am a German. I have lived in America fifteen years — ten years in Nebraska. I own my farm there, and my cattle. I am thirty-five years old. My name is Adolf Hecksher.”

“Adolf is a nice name,” said Tekla.

“Yes, it is a good name. It was my father’s. Can you go soon ? ”

“Yes, soon; but first I must tell Miss Esther. She will not be pleased.”

“ She will miss you ? ”

“ Yes, I have lived with her for seven years, and she has been very kind to me.”

“ But she will let you go ? ”

“ Oh, yes; I will go. Come with me and we will tell her together.”

Leading her big captive, Tekla went straight to the library. Miss Esther smiled at the pair as they entered, and said indulgently, “Well?”

“ He has come to marry me,” said Tekla.

“ So he told me,” said Miss Esther. “Who is he?”

“I am Adolf Hecksher — ” began the accepted suitor.

“ And he has three hundred and twenty acres,” interrupted Tekla, “and he wants to marry me.”

“ I understand that,” said Miss Esther, “ but where did you find him or where did he find you ? ”

“ It was an advertisement,” said Tekla, “and — ”

“What!” exclaimed Miss Esther, “you answered an advertisement? a matrimonial advertisement! ”

“ It was in one of those papers Lieutenant Adams sent with the cast,” asserted Tekla, “ and it cost but a dollar.”

Miss Esther smiled. “ He ’s big enough to be worth it,” she said.

“ Yes, ma’am,” and Tekla looked at the giant beside her, “ he is.”

“ But I don’t understand,” pursued Miss Esther. “ Did that dreadful matrimonial agency send this man to you? Have you ever seen him before ? Do you know who he is ? ”

“ Yes,” said Tekla; “he is Adolf Hecksher”

“You are a little fool,” said Miss Esther. “ Leave the room and I will talk with your Adolf Hecksher myself.”

Tekla left the room, smiling. Miss Esther invited her guest to be seated, and in the next half hour satisfied herself from the credentials which he produced in the shape of savings-bank books, deeds of property, and a draft which he had received from the last lot of cattle which had been shipped to Chicago, that he was at least in a position to take care of a wife. She promised to communicate with the people whom he had named as references in the little Nebraska town where he lived. This matter being disposed of, Miss Esther again rang the bell for Tekla. “ It is all right,” she said, “ and you may ask Mr. Hecksher to stay to dinner with you if you wish.”

“ Yes, ma’am,” said Tekla.

As Miss Esther passed through the kitchen shortly before dinner, Tekla showed her the picture she had cut from the paper.

“ That is what my farm will be like,” she said. “ There will be cows and sheep and many, many acres — and Adolf.”

Miss Esther returned to the veranda. “ It is very nice for them,” she thought; “but where can I find another Tekla ? ”

IV

Did you ever see the picture of we three ? — Twelfth Night .

After several trials Miss Esther succeeded in obtaining a maid who, while she was not another Tekla, seemed capable of following in her footsteps. In most respects the new maid was competent and satisfactory, but in the matter of afternoon tea Miss Esther had found some difficulty in having her instructions rightly carried out. Afternoon tea was rather unusual in Whitfield, except as a special function. It was only at the Adams house that tea was served every afternoon at five o’clock, whether guests were present or not, but the custom appealed to Miss Esther because in the English novels she had read it had been such an attractive feature. Consequently tea was served every day at five o’clock — in winter in the library, and in summer on the veranda.

The mistress of the house was punctilious as to the appointments of her tea service, and

Tekla, who was after all but a reflection of Miss Adams, had found no difficulty in pleasing her. But Nora, the new maid, had not yet learned to appreciate the vital importance of synchronizing the time and the tea.

As a consequence of this, Miss Esther had sometimes to arrange or rearrange her own tea-table. And so when Jean Richards came flying across the lawn one warm afternoon, she found Miss Esther fussing over her alcohol lamp with her usual calm a little bit ruffled.

“Tea ready?” she called out.

“No, it is not. That good sister in the kitchen is making a bondmaid and a slave of me. She has n’t toasted the muffins.”

“ Let me take them out and toast them.”

“No, you can’t. They’re already buttered.”

“Oh, well, never mind. We’ll eat them as they are. What are you playing to-day. Miss Esther?”

“ To-day I am Katherine. Nora is enough to make a shrew of anybody.”

THE MATRIMONIAL BUREAU < ^ s '

“ Well, I ’m sure you ’re Bonny Kate, and not Kate the Curst May I take this chair or is Petruchio sitting in it?”

“ He has already risen, that you may have it. Sit down.”

Jean sat down suddenly, as she always did everything, and took her cup of tea from Miss Esther.

“ This is the very nicest part of the day’s work,” she said, “ drinking tea here with you. I wonder if the other girls are coming.”

“ I hope so,” said Miss Esther; “ I have n’t seen Helen for a week.”

“ Helen’s got the blues,” said Jean. “ She’s had ’em for three days.”

“ What’s the matter this time?” asked Miss Esther; “ or is she just having the blues from a sense of duty ? ”

“ That’s it,” said Jean, cheerfully. "It’s her make-up, you know. She has to have the blues about once in so often to live up to that temperament of hers. I ’m glad I have n’t any.”

"Yes. It is a fearful thing to have to entertain a temperament. Don’t ever acquire one, Jeanie.”

“No, ma’am,” said Jean, submissively; “I would n’t have one of the ridiculous things. People don’t like people with temperaments.”

“Nonsense,” replied Miss Esther; “everybody likes Helen.”

“ Not as much as they like me,” said Jean, comfortably sipping her tea.

“Well, if they don’t,” said Miss Esther, stoutly, “ it is Helen’s own fault. She likes so few people.”

“That’s just what I said; and that’s the fault of her everlasting temperament.”

Jean leaned back in her chair and happily munched her untoasted muffin.

“Now just look at the two of them,” she said, as two girls came in at the gate. “ Could n’t you tell at a glance which one has the blues? Helen looks as though she owned all the indigo mines in India, or wherever it comes from. Anybody could see, though, that Lillian has n’t a blue to her name.”

But if Helen Fairbanks had the blues they were certainly rather becoming to her than 3 6 otherwise. As she approached the house, trailing her parasol listlessly along the walk, she was apparently paying no attention to her companion, who was pointing enthusiastically toward the distant landscape.

Helen Fairbanks’s sponsors in baptism had disagreed as to the child’s name. Her father had insisted on Pearl, but her mother had finally carried the day, and had given to her daughter the only name which absolutely fitted her. Tall, fair, graceful, statuesque, Helen Fairbanks’s beauty was of that classic perfection which is inevitably associated with the name of Helen. Her large, calm, gray eyes which had never yet lived up to the possibilities of their dark lashes, her golden hair which she wore a bit too smooth, her mouth which showed all too seldom the little curves at its corners, were trustworthy indexes of her beautiful but cold nature. Miss Esther had said of Helen that she reminded her of Cassius:

“ Seldom he smiles ; and smiles in such a sort,

As if he mock'd himself, and scorn’d his spirit That could be mov’d to smile at any thing.”

As for Lillian Hastings, she was as unlike Helen as Helen was unlike Jean. But the three were united in their friendship for each other and their admiration of Miss Esther, which amounted almost to adoration. Lillian was an artist; that is, she was by every implication of her being, by every wish and desire of her soul, and by every intent of her strong and somewhat stubborn character. The mere fact that owing to limited opportunities she had not as yet achieved much on canvas, in no way contradicts the statement that she was an artist. She had spent two blessed weeks one summer at Shinnecock, and there fallen under the direction of Chase and his associates. There the impulse had its beginnings — possibly from the inspiration of the instructors, possibly because of the fact that she met there other girls who, so they had told her, could paint no better than she did when they began, but who now, after three years of work, had had the distinction of really selling a picture. So her ambition formed itself into an absolute mania for definite accomplishment.

During those two weeks a great artist had asked her to pose for him, and he had painted her portrait. “ Gad ! ” he had said to his friends, afterward, “ she’s built like a greyhound. Her figure is the figure of a girl of eight — grown up. Her hair is Burne- Jones’s ladies’ hair, and her complexion — well, I tried to paint it here, but I have n’t got the transparency of it yet.”

“ Who is this paragon ? ” his friends had asked him.

“ By George ! ” he exclaimed, “ I forgot to ask her name. She was just a painter girl, working with the others down there on Peconic Bay.”

And so Lillian had kept on painting. She had a studio which was an honest workroom, without draperies, plaster casts, or cosy corners, and here she worked doggedly, perseveringly, and without a moment’s doubt as to her ultimate success. She understood herself. She had no false or flattering opinions of her own ability, but she was sure that intelligent effort, properly directed, would lead her eventually to the Roman Road.