Out of the question; a comedy

Front matter

Soulliem Jurisdiction, U.S.A.

Washington, D.C.

Class No

Contents

I. In the Parlor op the Ponkwasset Hotel . 3 II. " In Fayke Forest " 37

III. A Slight Misunderstanding 65

IV. Mrs. Murray's Triumph 99

I. In The Parlor Of The Ponkwasset Hotel

OUT OF THE QUESTION.

I.

Miss II^^aggie Wallace and Miss Lilly Roberts.

The Ponkwasset Hotel stands on the slope of a hill and fronts the UTCgular mass of Ponkwasset Mountain, on which the galleries and northern windows of the parlor look out. The parlor is furnished with two hair-cloth sofas, two hair-cloth easychairs, and cane-seated chairs of divers patterns ; against one side of the room stands a piano, near either end of which a door opens into the corridor ; in the center of the parlor a marble-topped table supports a state-lamp of kerosene, — a perfume by day, a flame by night, — and near this table sit two young ladies with what they call work in their hands and laps.

Miss Maggie Wallace^ with her left wrist curved in the act of rolling up a part of her work, at which she looks down with a very thoughtful air and a careworn little sigh : " I don't think I shall cut it bias, after all, Lilly."

Miss Lilly Roberts, letting her work fall into her lap, in amazement : " Why, Maggie ! "

Maggie : " No. Or at least I shan't decide to do so till I 've had Leslie's opinion on it. She has 'perfect taste, and she could tell at a glance whether it would do."

Lilly : " I wonder she is n't here, now. The stage must be very late."

Maggie: "I suppose the postmaster at South Herodias waited to finish his supper before he ' changed the mail,' as they call it. I was so in hopes she would come while they were at tea / It will so disgust her to see them all strung along the piazza and staritig their eyes out at the arrivals, when the stage drives up," — a horrible picture which Miss Wallace dreamily contemplates for a moment in mental vision.

Lilly: "Why don't you go down, too, Maggie? Perhaps she 'd find a familiar face a relief."

Maggie, recalled to herself by the wild suggestion : " Thank you, Lilly. I 'd rather not be thought so vulgar as that, by Leslie Bellingham, if it 's quite the same to other friends. Imagine her catching sight of me in that crowd ! I should simply wither away."

Lilly, rebelliously : " Well, I don't see why she should feel authorized to overawe people in that manner. What does she do to show her immense superiority ? "

3Iaggie : " Everything ! In the first place she 's so refined and cultivated, you can't live ; and then she takes your breath away, she 's so perfectly lovely ; and then she kills you dead with her style, and all that. She is n't the least stiff". She 's the kindest to other people you ever saw, and the carefullest of their feelings ; and she has the grandest principles, and she 's divinely impulsive ! But tomehow you feel that if you do anything that 's a little vulgar in her presence, you 'd better die at once. It was always so at school, and it always will be. Why you would no more dare to do or say anything just a little common, don't you know with Leslie Bellingham " — A young lady, tall, slender, and with an air of delicate distinction, has appeared at the door of the parlor. She is of that type of beauty which approaches the English, without losing the American fineness and grace ; she is, fair, and her eyes are rather gray than blue ; her nose is slightly aquiline ; her expression is serious, but becomes amused as she listens to Miss "Wallace. She wears one of those blonde travelingcostumes, whose general fashionableness she somehow subdues into character with herself; over her arm she carries a shawl. She drifts lightly into the room. At the rustling of her dress Miss Wallace looks up, and with a cry of surprise and ecstasy springs from her chair, scattering the contents of her work-box in every direction over the floor, and flings herself into Miss Leslie Bellingham's embrace. Then she starts away from her and gazes rapturously into her face, while they prettily clasp hands and hold each other at arm's length : " Leslie ! You heard every word ! "

II. Miss Leslie Bellingham, Maggie, and Lilly

Leslie : " Every syllable, my child. And when you came to my grand principles, I simply said to myself, ' Then listening at keyholes is heroic,' and kept on eavesdropping without a murmur. Had you quite finished ? "

Maggie : " O Leslie ! You know I never can finish when I get on that subject ! It inspires me to greater and greater flights every minute. Where is your mother ? Where is Mrs. Murray ? Where is the stage ? Why, excuse me ! This is Miss Roberts. Lilly, it's Leslie Bellingham! Oh, how glad I am to see you together at last ! Didn't the stage " —

Leslie, having graciously bowed to Miss Roberts : " No, Maggie. The stage did n't bring me here. I walked."

Maggie : " Why, Leslie ! How perfectly ghast-

Leslie : " The stas^e has done nothins: but disgrace itself ever since we left the station. In the first place it pretended to carry ten or twelve people and their baggage, with two horses. Four horses ought n't to drag such a load up these precipices ; and wherever the driver would stop for me, I insisted upon getting out to walk."

Maggie : " How like yon, Leslie ! "

Leslie : " Yes ; I wish the resemblance were not BO striking. I 'm here in character, Maggie, if you like, but almost nothing else. I 've nothing but a nand-bag to bless me with for the next twenty-four hours. Shall you be very much ashamed of me ? "

Maggie : " Why, you don't mean to say you 've lost your trunks ? Horrors ! "

Leslie : " No. I meau that I was n't going to let the driver add them to the cruel load he had already, and I made him leave them at the station till to-morrow night."

Maggie, embracing her : " Oh, you dear, good, grand, generous Leslie ! How — Why, but Les-

In the Parlor of the Porikwasset Hotel. 11

lie ! He '11 have just as many people to-morrow night, and your trunks besides theirs ! "

Leslie^ with decision : " Very well ! Then I shall not be there to see the outrage. I will not have suffering or injustice of any kind inflicted in my presence, if I can help it. That is all." Nevertheless, Miss Bellingham sinks into one of the armchairs with an air of some dismay, and vainly taps the toe of her boot with the point of her umbrella in a difficult interval of silence.

Maggie, finally : " But where is your hand-bag ? "

Leslie, with mystery , " Oh, he 's bringing it."

Maggie: "He?"

Leslie, with reviving spirits : " A young man, the good genius of the drive. He 's bringing it from the foot of the hill ; the stage had its final disaster there ; and I left him in charge of mamma and aunt Kate, and came on to explore and surprise, and he made me leave the bag with him, too. But that is n't the worst. I shall know what to io with the hand-bag when it gets here, but I ihan't know what to do with the young man."

Maggie : " With the young man ? Why, Leslie, a young man is worth a thousand hand-bags iu a place like this ! You don't know what you *re talking about, Leslie. A young man " —

Leslie^ rising and going toward the window: " My dear, he 's out of the question. You may as well make up your mind to that, for you '11 see at once that he '11 never do. He 's going to stop here, and as he's been very kind to us it makes his never doing all the harder to manage. He 's a hero, if you like, but if you can imagine it he is n't quite — well, what you 've been used to. Don't you see how a person could be everything that was unselfish and obliging, and yet not — not " —

Maggie, eagerly : " Oh yes ! "

Leslie : " Well, he 's that. It seems to me that he 's been doing something for mamma, or aunt Kate, or me, ever since we left the station. To begin with, he gave up his place inside to one of us, and when he went to get on top, he found all the places taken there ; and so he had to sit on the trunks behind — whenever he rode ; for he walked most of the way, and helped me over the bad places ia the road when I insisted on getting out.

You know how aunt Kate is, Maggie, and how many wants she has. Well, there was n't one of them that this young man did n't gratify : he handed her bag up to the driver on top because it crowded her, and handed it down because she could n't do without it ; he got her out and put her back so that she could face the front, and then restored her to her place because an old gentleman who had been traveling a long way kept falling asleep on her shoulder; he buttoned her curtain down because she was sure it was going to rain, and rolled it up because it made the air too close ; he fetched water for her ; he looked every now and then to see if her trunks were all right, and made her more and more ungrateful every minute. Whenever the stage broke down — as it did twice before the present smash-up — he befriended every^ body, encouraged old ladies, quieted children, and shamed the other men into trying to be of some use ; and if it had n't been for him, I don't see how the stage would ever have got out of its troubles ; he always -knew just what was the matter, and just how to mend it. Is that the window

14 Out of the Questions

that commands a magiuficent prospect of Ponkwasset Mountain — in the advertisement ? "

Maggie : " The very window ! "

Leslie: "Does it condescend to overlook so common a thing as the road up to the house? "

Maggie : " Of course ; but why ? "

Leslie^ going to the open window, and stepping through it upon the gallery, whither the other young ladies follow her, and where her voice is heard : " Yes, there they come ! But I can't see my young man. Is it possible that he 's riding ? No, there he is ! He was on the other side of the stage. Don't you see him ? Why he need n't carrg my hand-bag ! He certainly might have let that ride. I do wonder what he means by it ! Or is it only absent-mindedness ? Don^t let him see us looking ! It would be altogether too silly. Do let 's go in ! "

Maggie, on their return to the parlor : " What a great pity it is that he won't do ! Is he handsome, Leslie ? Why won't he do ? "

Leslie : " You can tell in a moment, when you ve seen him, Maggie. He's perfectly respectful and nice, of course, but he 's no more social perspective than — the man in the moon. He 's never obtrusive, but he 's as free and equal as the Declaration of Independence ; and when you did get up some little perspective with him, and tried to let him know, don't you know, that there was such a thing as a vanishing point somewhere, he was sure to do or say something so unconscious that away went your perspective — one simple crush."

Maggie : " How ridiculous ! "

Leslie: "Yes. It was funny. But not Justin that way. He is n't in the least common or uncouth. Nobody could say that. But he 's going to be here two or three weeks, and it 's impossible not to be civil ; and it 's very embarrassing, don't you see ? "

Lilly: " Let me comfort you. Miss Bellingham. It will be the simplest thing in the world. We 're all on the same level in the Ponkwasset Hotel. The landlord will bring him up during the evening and introduce him. Our table girls teach school in the winter and are as good as anybody. Mine 'Jails me ' Lilly,' and I 'm so small I can't help iU

16 Out of the QuestioJi.

They dress up in the afternoon, and play the piano. The cook 's as affable, when you meet her in society, as can be."

Maggie : « Lilly ! "

Leslie, listening to Miss Roberts with whimsical trepidation : " Well, this certainly complicates matters. But I think we shall be able to manage." At a sound of voices in the hall without, Miss Bellingham starts from her chair and runs to the corridor, where she is heard ; " Thanks ever so much. So very good of you to take all this trouble. Come into the parlor, mamma — there 's nobody there but Maggie AYallace and Miss Roberts — and we '11 leave our things there till after tea." She reenters the parlor with her mother and her aunt Kate, Mrs. Murray ; after whom comes Stephen Blake with Leslie's bag in his hand, and the wraps of the other ladies over his arm. His dress, which is evidently a prosperous fortuity of the clothing-store, lakes character from his tall, sinewy frame ; a smile of somewhat humorous patience lights his black 5yes and shapes his handsome moustache, as he ivaits in quiet self-possession the pleasure of the ladies.

III

Mrs. Bellingham, Mrs. Murray, and the Young Girls.

Mrs. Bellingham, a matronly, middle-aged lady of comfortable, not cumbrous bulk, taking Miss Wallace by the hand and kissing her ; " My dear child, how pleasant it is to see you so strong again ! You 're a living testimony to the excellence of the air ! How well you look ! "

Leslie : *« Mamma, — Miss Roberts." Mrs. Bellingham murmurously shakes hands with Miss Roberts, and after some kindly nods and smiles, and other shows of friendHness, provisionally and expectantly quiesces into a corner of the sofa, while her sister-in-law comes aggressively forward to assume the burden of conversation.

Mrs. Murray: "Well, a more fatiguing drive I certainly never knew ! How do you do, Maggie?" She kisses Miss Wallace in a casual, uninterested way, and takes Lilly's hand. " Is n't this Miss Roberts ? I am Mrs. INI urray. I used to know your family — your uncle George, before that dreadful business of his. I believe it all came out right ; he was n't to blame ; but it was a shocking experience." Mrs. Murray turns from Lilly, and refers herself to the company in general : " It seems as if I should expire on the spot. I feel as if I had been packed away in my own hat-box for a week, and here, just as we arrive, the landlord informs us that he did n't expect us till to-morrow night, and he has n't an empty room in the house ! "

Maggie : " No room ! To-morrow night ! What nonsense ! Why it 's perfectly frantic ! How could he have misunderstood ? Why, it seems to me that I 've done nothing for a week past but tell him you were coming to-night ! "

Mrs. Murray, sharply : " I have no doubt of it. But it does n't alter the state of the case. You may tell us to leave our things till after tea, Leslie. If they can't make up beds on the sofas and the piano, I don't know where we 're going to pass

.he night." In the moment of distressful sensation which follows Miss Wallace whispers something eagerly to her friend, Miss Roberts.

Maggie, with a laughing glance at Leslie and her mother, and then going on with her whispering : " Excuse the little confidence ! "

Mrs. Bellingham : " Conspiracy, I 'm afraid. "What are you plotting, Maggie ? "

Maggie, finishing her confidence : " Oh, we needn't make a mystery of such a little thing "We 're going to ofFer you one of our rooms."

Mi'S. Bellingham : " My dear, you are going to do nothing of the kind. We will never allow it."

Maggie : " Now, Mrs. Bellingham, you break my heart ! It 's nothing, it 's less than nothing. 7 believe we can make room for all three of you."

Mrs. Murray, promptly : " Let me go with you, young ladies. I 'm an old housekeeper, and I can help you plan."

Maggie : " Oh do, Mrs. Murray. You can tell which rooir you 'd better take, Lilly's or mine. Lilly's is" —

Mrs. Murray : " Oh ! I had forgotten that we iO Out of the Question.

were detaining you ! " Mrs. Murray is about to .eave the room with. the two young girls, when her eye falls upon Blake, who is still present, with his burden of hand-bags and shawls. " Leave the things on the table, please. We are obliged to you." Mrs. Murray speaks with a certain finality of manner and tone which there is no mistaking ; Blake stares at her a moment, and then, without replying, lays down the things and turns to quit' the room ; at the same instant Leslie rises with a grand air from her mother's side, on the sofa, and sweeps towards him.

Leslie^ very graciously : " Don't let our private afflictions drive you from a public room, Mr. — "

Blahe: "Blake."

Leslie : " Mr. Blake. This is my mother, Mr. Blake, who wishes to thank you for all your kindness to us."

Mrs. Bellingham : " Yes, indeed, Mr. Blake, we are truly grateful to you."

Leslie^ with increasing significance : " And my aunt, Mrs. Murray ; and my friend. Miss Wallace ; and Miss Roberts." Blake bows to each of the ladies as they are named, but persists in his movement to quit the room ; Leslie impressively offers him her hand. " Must you go ? Thank you, ever, ever so much ! " She follows him to the door in his withdrawal, and then turns and confronts her aunt with an embattled front of defiance.

Maggie, with an effort breaking the embarrassing silence : " Come, Lilly. Let us go and take a look at our resources. We '11 be back in a moment Mrs. Bellinfijham."

IV

Mrs. Bellingham and Leslie ; afterwards Mrs, Murray and Maggie.

Leslie, coming abruptly forward as her aunt goea out with the two young girls, and drooping meekly in front of her mother, who remains seated on the sofa : " Well, mamma ! "

Mrs. Bellingham, tranquilly contemplating her for a moment: "Well, Leslie!" She pauses, and again silently regards her daughter. " Perhaps you may be said to have overdone it."

Leslie, passionately: " I can't help it, mother! I could n't see him sent away in that insolent manner, I don't care who or what he is. Aunt Kate's tone was outrageous, atrocious, hideous ! And after accepting, yes, demanding every service he could possibly render, the whole afternoon ! It made me blush for her, and I was n't going to Uand it."

Mrs. Bellingham : " If you mean by all that that your poor aunt is a very ungracious and exacting woman, I shall not dispute you. But she.'s your father's sister ; and she 's very much older than you. You seem to have forgotten, too, that your mother was present to do any justice that was needed. It 's very unfortunate that he should have been able to do us so many favors, but that can't be helped now. It 's one of the risks of coming to these out-of-the-way places, that you 're so apt to be thrown in with nondescript people that you don't know how to ge\ rid of afterwards. And now that he 's been so cordially introduced to us all ! Well, I hope you won't have to be crueller in the end, my dear, than your aunt meant to be in the beginning. So far, of course, he has behaved with perfect delicacy ; but you must see yourself, Leslie, that even as a mere acquaintance he 's quite out of the question ; that however kind and thoughtful he 's been, and ni one could have been more so, he is n't a gentleman."

Leslie, impatiently : " Well, then, mother, I am! And so are you. And I think we are bound to behave like gentlemen at any cost. I did n't mean to ignore you. I did n't consider. I acted as I thought Charley would have done."

Mrs, Bellingham : " Oh, my dear, my dear Don't you see there 's a very important difference ? Your brother is a man, and he can act without reference to consequences. But you are a young lady, and you can't be as gentlemanly as you like without being liable to misinterpretation. I shall expect you to behave very discreetly indeed from this time forth. We must consider now how our new friend can be kindly, yet firmly and promptly, dropped."

Leslie : " Oh, it 's another of those embarrassments that aunt Kate 's always getting me into ! I was discreet about it till she acted so horridly. You can ask Maggie if I did n't talk in the wisest way about it ; like a perfect — owl. I saw it just as you do, mamma, and I was going to drop him, and so I will, yet ; but I could n't see him so ungratefully trampled on. It 's all her doing ! Who wanted to come here to this out-of-the-way place ? Why, aunt Kate, — when I was eager to go to Conway ! I declare it 's too bad I "

Mrs. Bellingham : " That will do, Leslie."

Leslie : " And now she 's gone off with those poor girls to crowd them out of house and home, I suppose. It 's a shame ! Why did you let her, mamma ? "

Mrs. Bellingham : '*' For the same reason that I let you talk on, my dear, when I 've bidden you stop."

Leslie : " Oh, you dear, kind old mamma, you ! Yoii Ve a gentleman, and you always were ! I only wish I could be half like you ! " She throws her arms round her mother's neck and kisses her. " I know you 're right about this matter, but you mustn't expect me to acknowledge that aunt Kate is. If you both said exactly the same thing, you would be right and she would be wrong, you'd say it so differently ! "

Mrs. Murray, who returns alone with signs of discontent and perplexity, and flings herself into a chair : " Their rooms are mere coops, and I don't see how even two of us are to squeeze into one of them. It 's little better than impertinence to offer >t to us. I've been down to see the landlord again, and you'll be pleased to know, Marion, that the only vacant room in the house had been engaged by the person to whom we 've all just had the honor of an introduction." Leslie makes an impetuous movement, as if she were about to speak, but at a gesture from her mother she restrains herself, and Mrs. Murray continues : " Of course, if he had been a gentleman, in the lowest sense of the word, he would have offered his room to ladies who had none, at once. As long as he could make social capital out of his obtrusive services to us he was very profuse with them, but as soon as it came to a question of real self-sacrifice — to giving up his own ease and comfort for a single night" — A bell rings, and at the sound Mrs. Bellingham rises. 3Irs. Bellingham : " I suppose that's for supper. I think a cup of tea will put a cheerfuller face on our affairs. I don't at all agree with you about Mr. Blake's obligation to give up his room, nor about his services to us this afternoon ; I 'm sui-e common justice requires us to acknowledge that he was everything that was kind and thoughtful. Oli, vou good child ! " — as Miss Wallace appears at the door, — " have you come to show us the way to supper ? Are you quite sure you Ve not gone without tea on our account as well as given up your room ? " She puts her arm fondly round the young girl's waist, and presses her cheek against her own breast.

Maggie, with enthusiasm; Oh, Mrs. Bellingham, you know I would n't ask anything better than to starve on your account. I wish I had rCt been to tea ! I 'm afraid that you '11 think the room is a very slight offering when you come to see it — it is such a little room ; why, when I took Mrs. Murray into it, it seemed all at once as if I saw it through the wrong end of an opera-glass — it did dwindle so ! "

Leslie : " Never mind, Maggie ; you 're only too good, as it is. If your room was an inch bigger, we couldn't bear it. I hope you may be without a roof over your head yourself, some day ! Can 1 say anything handsomer than that ? Don't wait for me, mamma ; I '11 find the dining-ioom myself. r 'm rather too crumpled even for a houseless wanderer." She opens her bag where it stands on the table. " I am going to make a flying toilet at one of these glasses. Do you think any one will come in, Maggie ? "

Maggie : " There is n't the least danger. This is the parlor of the " transients," as they call them, — the occasional guests, — and Lilly and I have it mostly to ourselves when there are no transients. The regular boarders stay in the lower parlor. Shan't I help you, Leslie ? "

Leslie^ rummaging through her bag: "No, indeed ! It 's only a question of brush and hair-pins. Do go with mamma ! " As Maggie obeys, Leslie finds her brush, and going to one of the mirrors touches the blonde masses of her hair, and then remains a moment, lightly turning her head from side to side to get the effect. She suddenly claps her hand to one ear. " Oh, horrors ! That ear drop 's gone again ! " She runs to the table, reopens her bag, and searches it in every part, talking rapidly to herself. " Well, really, it seems as if sorrows would never end ! To think of that working out a third time ! To think of my coming away without getting the clasp fixed ! And to think of my not leaving them in my trunk at the station ! Oh dear me, I shall certainly go wild ! What shall I do ? It is n't in the bag at all. It must be on the floor." Keeping her hand in helpless incredulity upon the ear from which the jewel is missing, she scrutinizes the matting far and near, with a countenance of acute anguish. Footsteps are heard approaching the door, where they hesitatingly arrest themselves. " Have you come back for me ? Oh, I Ve met with such a calamity ! I 've lost one of my ear-rings. I could cry. Do come and help me mouse for it." There is no response to this invitation, and Leslie, lifting her eyes, in a little dismay confronts the silent intruder. " Mr. Blake ! "

V. Leslie and Blake

Blake : " Excuse me. I expected to find your mother here. I did n't mean to disturb " —

Leslie, haughtily : " There 's no disturbance. It 's a public room : I had forgotten that. Mamma has gone to tea. I thought it was my friend Miss Wallace. I " — With a flash of indignation : *' When you knew it was n't, why did you let me speak to you in that way ? "

Blake, with a smile : " I could n't know whom you took me for, and I had n't time to prevent youi speaking."

Leslie : " You remained."

Blake, with a touch of resentment tempering his amusement : " I could n't go away after I had come without speaking to you. It was Mrs. Bellingham I was looking for. I 'm sorry not to find her, and I '11 go, now."