Chapter VIII: The Tea-Party

FIVE o'clock found the whole party of school-girls assembled in Madam Wentworth spacious, old-fashioned drawing-rooms. From the oldest to the youngest, not one was absent. Most of the girls had been there before; but those who had not, gazed with interest at the family-portraits, by Copley and Stuart, the tall India-cabinets surmounted by almost equally tall china vases of fabulous age and priceless value, the étagères with their curious and beautiful things gathered from all parts of the world, the portfolios of engravings, the heavy, handsome, old-fashioned furniture, and Madam Wentworth's own particular ebony worktable, inlaid with ivory and lined with sea-green satin.

The little girls gathered in the back parlour, where Elsie's old baby-house displayed its attractions, together with gems, puzzles and picture-books innumerable. The elders walked about, or chatted in groups, or disposed of themselves in any way that pleased their fancy.

Madam Wentworth sat by the fire, knitting, as usual; only, instead of fine thread or splendidly coloured Berlin wool, her fingers were occupied with a blue woollen stocking. Some of the girls thought her graver than common; but she had a smile and a kind word for every one,—especially the strangers. Presently she arose and went into the library, where quite a little party had gathered, including Minny, Sarah, Elsie and Christine. Christine stood a little apart from her companions, earnestly engaged in running over the titles of the books on the lower shelves.

"Look at Christine!" said Minny. "One would think she never had been in a library before in her life."

"I dare say she never was," said Sarah. "Christine, dear, did you ever see so many books together in your life before?"

"I have seen as many," replied Christine, simply; "but there are some books here that I never met with." And she mentioned the titles of several. "Oh," she said, with something of a sigh, "how nice it must be to be able to buy every thing that one wants! What a collection of rare books!"

"Rare!" said Sarah,—sneeringly, as usual.

"Rare out West, I suppose she means," remarked Minny. "Of course, they are not rare here."

"Rare anywhere," said Christine, with spirit. "Rare even in London,—some of them. I believe you think that people out West don't know how to read."

"Oh, no!" replied Minny, who was making a great effort that day to do the amiable. "Of course we know that Western people are very industrious and thriving, and all that; but we don't expect them to be literary. We all know that you are a very good scholar, Christine. We were only amused at your thinking so much of seeing these books, and fancying them so rare."

"They 'are' rare!" persisted Christine. "My father buys a great many books, and gets catalogues of all the great sales: so I know. He has been trying these five years to get a copy of 'Pococke's Travels,' without success."

"I believe Christine is right, Minny," said Elsie. "This book belonged to grandfather; and I rather think it is one of the original subscription copies. There are some splendid books in that next case, Christine."

Christine passed on, and was almost struck dumb at the sight of the magnificent folios relating to the zoological world.

"Oh, Elsie!" she said, in a tone almost of awe. "Do you think your aunt would be willing to let me take down one of these volumes?"

"Take down any thing you please, my child," said Madam Wentworth, answering for herself. "I am glad to find some one who is interested in them. Elsie, my dear, draw out that table for Christine. Have you seen those volumes on European birds? You will find them well worth looking at."

Christine flushed up, and seemed almost too shy and too happy to speak. Madam Wentworth well understood the precious art of setting people at their ease, and drawing them out to talk of what they understood best. And the other girls stood amazed to hear the shy, timid girl chatting with their hostess about different authors on Natural History, comparing the relative merits of drawings, and expressing her opinions with modest frankness when they chanced to differ from those of Madam Wentworth.

"Have you the Australian Birds?" asked Christine.

"I am sorry to say I have not," replied Madam Wentworth. "I had fully intended to treat myself to the book this fall; but, after this unhappy war broke out, it did not seem to me right to expend such a sum on what was, after all, but an article of luxury, when so much is required for necessaries. It is no time now to indulge in superfluities."

"I suppose that is right," said Christine, thoughtfully; "and yet buying books does not seem exactly like self-indulgence."

"I do not mean to imply that it is always so," said Madam Wentworth; "but intellectual tastes may be indulged to a selfish extent as well as sensual appetites. A man may spend money improperly upon books as well as upon fine furniture or rich food."

"It seems a higher kind of self-denial, to deny oneself books and such things," remarked Elsie.

"Undoubtedly it is," said Madam Wentworth, "to those who have intellectual tastes. But, my dear Christine, since you are so fond of Natural History, I shall be happy to have you come here and read whenever you are so disposed. It need make no difference whether I am at home or not. Gertrude will find you what you want, and make you comfortable."

Christine expressed her gratitude in few but efficient words. Minny looked on in wonder and envy. Here was this little, ignorant country-girl (as she had been accustomed to consider her) treated by the great lady as an equal, and invited to come to her house whenever she pleased. While she—the rich and beautiful Miss Granger, daughter of a millionnaire—was honoured with no more notice than was given to the youngest of her companions.

"So much for knowing how to get on the right side of people," thought Minny. "I dare say she knew before she came that Madam Wentworth was fond of such things; but hew any one can care so much for a parcel of birds passes my comprehension."

Henrietta was rather later than her companions. She had felt a strange unwillingness to come at all; for she had an uncomfortable presentiment that something was going to happen. It might be the effect of her own uneasy conscience, but she fancied that Madam Wentworth's greeting lacked something of its accustomed cordiality. Elsie had tried to treat her just as usual,—but that is a thing which, under such circumstances, no one ever yet accomplished; and she felt vexed at herself for colouring and feeling constrained and awkward.

Minny sported her injured innocence and wounded affection, and Henrietta thought all the girls were more or less cool to her. As she wandered about the house, and remembered how happy she had been there with Elsie, she could hardly restrain her tears, and, but for the dread of exciting attention and remark, she would have pleaded illness and gone home.

The time passed on, and tea was on last announced. On these occasions, a table was always set the whole length of the long dining-room, and adorned with all the magnificence of the Wentworth plate and china. Mrs. Wentworth sat at the head of the table, and, usually, one of the elder girls at the foot; but now that place was occupied by Miss Delancy.

Henrietta looked at Minny, and tried to catch her eye; but Minny looked resolutely another way. The table was spread as the tea-tables of old-fashioned ladies are wont to be when they entertain their young friends. There was plenty of good wholesome bread and butter, a great abundance of cakes of all sorts and sizes, and such preserved fruits and cream—as many of the girls thought and declared—were never seen anywhere else: cherries as clear as amber, in syrup like virgin honey; peaches not shabbily canned, but preserved by the good old-fashioned rule of pound for pound; pink quinces built into blooming pyramids with a cement of their own jelly; with strawberries, pine-apple, &c., all in rare abundance.

Gertrude took great delight in preparing all these delicacies, and enjoyed equal pleasure in seeing them appreciated by "the young ladies." And Madam Wentworth's own man Septimius stood behind his mistress's chair, and our old friend Peter, in gorgeous array, behind that of Miss Delancy. The places were taken without confusion, grace was said, and all sat down.

"What an odd ideal—saying grace at the tea-table!" whispered Minny to Augusta, who happened to be her next neighbour. "I didn't know any one did such things nowadays."

"Why shouldn't one say grace at tea as well as at dinner?" asked Augusta.

"Well, I don't know. It don't seem appropriate, somehow."

"I don't see why it should be omitted at tea more than at any other meal," answered Augusta. "It seems to me that is like saying, in effect, that you would like a blessing on your breakfast and dinner, but as for your tea, you don't care whether you have one or not."

"How you 'do' like to twist words round, Augusta!"

"I like to 'untwist' them," replied Augusta, laughing. "I like to put them into plain English: and I admit that they sometimes sound very differently when they are so translated."

The meal went on merrily and pleasantly. There was abundance of lively conversation and laughing, and a thorough enjoyment of the good things before them. Madam Wentworth looked on, pleased, as usual, with the pleasure of the young folks; but several of the girls besides Hetty thought she was graver than usual.

When every one had finished, she made a signal to Septimius, who immediately left the room, followed by Peter, and closed the door. The girls, a little surprised, looked at Madam Wentworth, expecting the usual signal to rise; but she remained sitting for some minutes in silence.

"Now that you are all together, girls," she said, at last, in a kind but very serious tone, "I wish to speak to you in relation to a matter which has given me a great deal of pain. I allude to the story which has been circulating among you concerning my niece, Elsie Probert."

The girls looked at each other, and then at Minny and Hetty. Minny coloured deeply, while Henrietta turned as pale as death.

"I understand," Madam Wentworth continued, "that it has been publicly said in the school that Elsie has employed another person to do her work for her, and has then attempted to pass it off as her own,—and that the person in question was her cousin, Miss Delancy, who was actually seen at work upon the stocking in question. Was not that the story?" she asked, addressing herself to Rose Chesterfield.

"It was," replied Rose.

Madam Wentworth continued:—"Elsie herself told me that the girls distrusted her and treated her coldly upon this account, and asked my advice as to what she had better do about it, as she did not, for reasons that you will easily understand, wish to mention the affair to Miss Armitage. I advised her to do nothing, and let it pass over; but, upon consideration, doubted the propriety of allowing such a gross calumny to be unreproved, and I therefore resolved, without saying any thing to her, to take the matter into my own hands. Miss Delancy will now speak for herself."

"I have never taken one stitch on Elsie's work since she commenced it," said Miss Delancy. "I was staying at her father's house while the socks were in progress, and we used to have some trials of speed, in which I confess I was ignominiously beaten. But so conscientious was Elsie that on one occasion when I had ravelled out a part of her work, mistaking it for my own, she would not even let me knit it up to where it was before. The work which I had on the Milton cars was my own. Elsie never told me not to forget to finish her work, as has been reported. What she said was, 'Do not forget!' And the words referred to a message to a friend."

"The facts in the case are these," resumed Madam Wentworth. "Elsie was doubtful at first whether she should have time to finish the socks if she began them. She is, as you know, very busy in school, and she has many home-duties besides. Moreover, she intended to begin taking music-lessons just at that time, to which she had been looking forward with a great deal of pleasure, and which would, of course, occupy most of her time. Her father had already given to the cause of the country all that he felt he could afford, and for that reason Elsie did not like to ask him for money to purchase her materials. Upon consideration, however, she came to the conclusion to devote to her stocking-yarn the funds she had saved for Christmas purposes, and, that she might have time to knit, she gave up her music-lessons, resigning her place in the class to Isabella Chesterfield. By this means, and by carefully husbanding all her spare moments, she was enabled to accomplish what she did, and, having counted the cost before she began, she was not disappointed in the result.

"You know as well as I who were the authors of these slanders," she continued, with a shade more of severity in her voice. "To them I shall say nothing. To those who have believed them, I shall only remark that I am sorry to find them so ready to think evil of a school-mate in whom they certainly have never seen any tendency to deceit. 'Charity,' says the apostle, 'thinketh no evil,' and though we have every thing else, but lack charity, it will profit us nothing."

There was a pause. Henrietta was stunned. She could think of nothing except to wish that she could somehow sink out of sight and memory. But her cup was not full! Ever since Madam Wentworth began speaking, Minny had been considering how best to save her credit. It would be useless to deny any thing,—that she saw at once; but could she not gain something by a frank confession? Like many other politicians, she had no scruple about sacrificing an ally if it became necessary. Before Madam Wentworth concluded, her mind was made up.

"I suppose I am partly to blame," said she, speaking quite clearly and distinctly. "I did suspect Elsie of having help about the work. I saw her knitting on a blue sock with a red stripe round the top, and I afterwards saw Miss Delancy have such a sock on the cars. I told Henrietta what I thought, but begged her not to repeat it to any one, as it was only a guess on my part. She did repeat it, and, I am sorry to say, with very great additions; for she said she knew of her own knowledge that Miss Delancy had knit on Elsie's sock, and a good deal besides. I was very much vexed, and told her so; and we had quite a quarrel about it, as Elsie knows. I never told one of the girls but Henrietta, and no one can say that she ever heard me. I am very sorry that I ever mentioned the matter to any one. If I had known Elsie as well as I do now, I should never have thought of suspecting her of such a thing, and I beg her pardon for having done so."

"There!" she thought. "I don't see how I could be expected to do more than that!"

But Madam Wentworth's face did not relax, as she expected, and Elsie, for the first time, looked very angry.

"Then you never, in any way, helped to give currency to the report, except by telling your suspicions to Henrietta, under the seal of confidence?" said Madam Wentworth.

"No, ma'am," replied Minny, boldly. "I never did. All the rest was Henrietta's doing."

The girls looked at each other in amazement, and Rose and Augusta exchanged intelligent glances.

To Rose's lips came the words, "Shall I speak?"

Augusta nodded.

"I should like to say something about that," Rose began. "Henrietta was undoubtedly very wrong; but it is by no means fair that she should bear all the blame. I do not say that Minny confirmed the story in so many words, but she certainly did all that looks and actions and very broad hints could do, both in the school and, as I understand, in her own house. She never contradicted Henrietta in a single instance, and certainly intimated very clearly that she not only believed what was said, but could tell a great deal more if she would. I do not defend Henrietta, but, I must say, I think Minny was equally to blame."

Minny tried to put on a look of injured innocence; but it was a signal failure.

"Where did you see Elsie have her work?" asked Madam Wentworth, turning to Minny.

"I saw her at her back parlour window," answered Minny. "Our windows look directly across."

"You must have good eyes, to distinguish one sock from another at that distance," observed Miss Delancy.

"She used an opera-glass," said Sarah Stone, loud enough to be heard by every one.

Madam Wentworth smiled in spite of herself.

"I congratulate you upon your zeal in the pursuit of knowledge," said she. "If you bring it to bear upon your school-books, you must be a very good scholar. But it unluckily happens that people who bestow so much attention upon their neighbours' affairs, often have but little left for their own. I see, by Elsie's imploring looks, that she is desirous I should drop the matter; and I am very ready to do so. I hope this will be a lesson to all of you on the subject of slander. You see how great a matter a little fire kindleth. I do not doubt that Henrietta sees clearly the sin and folly of her conduct, and I trust that she will never be tempted to repeat it. As to Minny, I must say, I should think much better of her if she had not tried to clear herself at the expense of her companion. I wish to repeat, and to have it distinctly understood, that all this has been planned by me, without Elsie's knowledge or consent. We will now go up-stairs."

As soon as Elsie could escape from the congratulations and apologies of the girls, she hastened in search of Henrietta, who had disappeared immediately after supper.

After long searching, she found her occupying a low seat behind the curtains in her aunt's dressing-room, crying as if her heart would break.

Minny was occupied in putting on her hat and cloak to go home, talking angrily, though in a low tone.

And as Elsie entered, she heard her say, "I will never speak to you again the longest day I live; and, what's more, I will be revenged on you, if I die for it,—you mean, little, hypocritical story-teller!"

"Hush, Minny," cried Elsie. "You must not talk so. It is very wrong. Henrietta is unhappy enough now."

"I never will speak to her again," repeated Minny, "and I wish I had never known her."

"It would certainly have been a blessed thing for her if you never had," Elsie could not help saying.

Minny deigned no reply, but marched down-stairs, and shut the street-door after her with a violence that shook the house.

Elsie sat down by Henrietta in the window-seat, and tried, by caresses and kind words, to soothe her agitation. She could not help crying herself; and perhaps her tears did as much good as any thing.

Henrietta turned away at first, and would make no response to Elsie's entreaties; but it was not in her nature to resist kindness, and by degrees she was won over to lay her head on her friend's shoulder, and, with her arms around her neck, to beg her pardon:—

"Oh, Elsie, I am so sorry! I never realized till to-night how wicked I had been all the time. I have done nothing but go more and more wrong ever since that first day I spoke to you so about the stockings. You can't guess half the mean and shameful things I have done. I have felt so wicked, I have not dared to say my prayers for ever so long."

"I know how that is," said Elsie. "When I have done any thing very wrong, I have had the same feeling; but, Hetty, I don't think it right to give up to it, because then one only gets worse and worse."

"That is just what I have done," said Henrietta, crying afresh. "If any one had told me, six months ago, that I should have acted so, I never would have believed it. I was even angry at you yesterday for telling Minny that I would not do any thing mean. I know very well that I had done so many mean things, besides talking about you as I did. I have been angry with mother, and cross to poor Cecy; and oh, Elsie, worse than that,—I was ashamed to have any one know that she was my sister, because Minny said she was a frightful little object; and I wished mother would not let Peter carry her out where people could see her."

"She is not frightful," said Elsie, indignantly: "she has the sweetest face I ever saw. I really cannot see, Hetty, how you could let Minny lead you as she did. I should think one such speech would have opened your eyes."

"She flattered me so," replied Henrietta. "I was just such a fool as to believe it all; and she could make me do any thing by coaxing and praising me. And I don't believe she really cared for me, after all. All she thinks about the girls is whether they are rich and fashionable."

"I suppose it is a good deal in the way she was brought up," remarked Elsie. "Frances Percival, who hardly ever speaks against anybody, says her mother is a very silly, half-educated woman, who cares for nothing but dress and show; and of course that makes some excuse for Minny."

"I don't blame Minny half as much as I do myself," said Henrietta.

Elsie was glad to hear this remark. She thought it showed the sincerity of Henrietta's repentance that she did not throw any more blame on her companion. And she could not help contrasting her disposition with Minny's, ready to sacrifice Henrietta for the least chance of clearing herself.

"You must try to forgive Minny, though," she said, with a little hesitation,—for she was always somewhat shy of speaking upon religious subjects. "You know,'If we forgive not men their trespasses—'"

"Yes, I know," said Henrietta. "But, Elsie, when I think about it, it does seem as though—" She paused, and then added, in a much lower tone, "as though He never could forgive me."

"You mustn't think so, Hetty. He is always ready to forgive a great deal more ready than we are to ask it."

"If it was only once or twice," said Henrietta. "But I have done wrong over and over so many times. Sometimes I would be really sorry, and resolve to behave better; but I never did."

"Hetty," said Elsie, "don't you remember what Christ told Peter?—That he should forgive his brother, 'not seven times, but seventy times seven'? And don't you think he would be ready to do as much as he told Peter was right?"

"Do you know, Elsie," said Hetty, after a little silence, "I used really to think I loved him and wanted to be like him?—Last spring, you know."

"I know," replied Elsie. "I thought so too; and that made me all the more sorry—"

"It began with my doing little things that I knew were wrong," continued Henrietta, "not trying to keep my thoughts fixed in prayer-time, and then reading story-books in school. After that, Minny came to sit next to me, and we used to do very bad things. I used to write down dates and numbers on a little piece of paper, and hold it in my hand to look at in the class, and peep into the book if I got a chance. And this week I did something worse. I don't know how to tell you Elsie; but, indeed, I never did any thing quite so bad as this before. I am afraid you will never want to speak to me again when you know what it is."

"I think I know now," said Elsie, desirous to relieve her friend as far as possible from the shame of such a confession: "you mean about your composition."

"How did you find out?" asked Hetty, surprised. "Did Minny tell you?"

"No, indeed," exclaimed Elsie. "If Minny had told me any such thing about you, I should have shut her mouth quickly enough, you may depend upon that. She undertook this morning to say something about your reading your lesson, and I just told her, plainly, that people who lived in glass houses shouldn't throw stones."

Hetty felt a new pang of remorse, as she reflected how differently she had behaved. "But about the composition: how did you find out about it?"

"Oh, I knew in a moment. You see, we have taken Littell's 'Living Age' from the very beginning, and father has always had them bound. And when I get out of any thing else to read, I take down one of the back volumes. So I am pretty familiar with them. I thought the verses sounded very 'natural,' and yet I could not tell where I had heard or seen them. I repeated two or three lines to my father, and asked him if he knew who wrote them, or where they were to be found. And he went to the bookcase and took down the very volume!

"So I just threw the paper into the fire that no one else might see it, and meant to speak to you about it; but all this fuss put it out of my head. But, Hetty, you would have been in a dreadful plight if I had not known—if they had gone into the paper. Maria Bradley read those very verses in school one day when you were not there. Just think how you would have felt if they had been read!"

Hetty shuddered. "It would have served me just right, though! But how shall I manage about the piece? I never can write one now."

"Oh, never mind. You can scribble something, and make it up next time. You are a great deal better off than usual this week, and you know Miss Armitage never asks who is in the paper. I am only glad I saw it before any one else did."

"Those 'Littells' were among my troubles," said Hetty. "I was cross with Cecy one day, and mother sent me to my room and told me not to leave it till tea-time. I had my knitting, but I would not work on that: so I ran up to the attic and brought down a whole armful of magazines. After that, I was always reading them when I ought to have been doing something else,—reading the Bible, or studying, or knitting on my socks; and I wasted a great deal of time on them. That was one reason why I didn't get my sock done. I shall never want to see a 'Littell' again as long as I live."

"I think that is hardly fair," remarked Elsie, smiling. "The poor papers are not in fault. They would have done you no harm if you had read them at a proper time."

"One thing I am determined on," said Henrietta. "I mean to tell mother every thing. I will never have a secret from her again."

Elsie applauded this resolution, and begged her not to defer putting it into practice. "You will find it a hundred times easier to-night than to-morrow, Hetty. The longer such a thing is put off, the harder it is."

"I will do it before I sleep," replied Henrietta. "I know she will be very angry—"

"I don't believe she will," interrupted Elsie.

"Well, perhaps not; but she will be sorry, and that is worse. Do you know, I am so glad it has all come out? Even with the disgrace and all, I feel happier than I have done for weeks. I don't suppose the girls will ever speak to me again, though."

"Oh, yes," replied Elsie. "When they see that you are sorry, they won't remember it against you,—that is, not very long. I dare say there will be some to twit you with it when they get vexed; but they are not those you care the most about. Come; don't let's stay up here in the dark any longer. I want the girls to see that we are friends again."

There was a good deal of staring and whispering, as Elsie and Hetty entered the drawing-room arm in arm.

"Well," said Letty Stanley, emphatically, "if Elsie is not a Christian child, I never saw one. I will never laugh at her preciseness after this."

"She likes to make a show of magnanimity for aunt's benefit," remarked Sarah, sneering as usual. "It is very cheap, and goes a great way."

"Sarah," asked Letty, "did you ever do one single good or true or kind thing in your whole life?"

"Upon my word, Miss Letitia Stanley, that is a singular question! I don't think I am so much worse than any one else. Why do you ask me?"

"Because," replied Letitia, with emphasis, "I never yet, in all the time I have known you, heard you allow that any one acted from good motive, or spoke the simple truth, or did a kind action, without some expectation of advantage; and it is only fair to suppose that you judge others in some degree by yourself."

"But, after all, Letty, don't you think it shows a want of spirit in Elsie to be so ready to take Henrietta up again, after being so badly treated by her?" asked Lizzy, as Sarah turned away, for once too much abashed to answer.

"It shows a want of a certain sort of spirit, I admit," replied Letty,—"but a great abundance of another sort which is infinitely better. It shows a spirit of love and forgiveness—"

"In short, a Christian spirit," interrupted Rose.

"Well, yes, a Christian spirit,—which is much better than pride and resentment."

"Elsie can afford to be magnanimous," said Rose, smiling. "She has been in the right all the time. I think it is comparatively easy to pardon those who have injured us. It is those we have injured that we find it hard to forgive."