The Road to Understanding
Copyright© 2024 by Eleanor H. Porter
Chapter 14: An Understudy
Soon after the doctor started on his trip to the North the Thayers closed their Beacon Street home and went to their North Shore cottage. The move was made a little earlier than usual this year, a fact which pleased the children not a little and delighted Helen Denby especially.
“You see, I’m always so afraid in Boston,” she explained to Mrs. Thayer, as the train pulled out of the North Station.
“Afraid?”
“That somewhere—on the street, or somewhere—I’ll meet some one from Dalton, or somebody that knew—my husband.”
Mrs. Thayer frowned slightly.
“Yes, I know. And there was danger, of course! But—Helen, that brings up exactly the subject that I’d been intending to speak to you about. Thus far—and advisedly, I know—we have kept you carefully in the background, my dear. But this isn’t going to do forever, you know.”
“Why not? I—I like it.”
Mrs. Thayer smiled, but she frowned again thoughtfully.
“I know, dear; but if you are to learn this—this—” Mrs. Thayer stumbled and paused as she always stumbled and paused when she tried to reduce to words her present extraordinary mission. “You will have to—to learn to meet people and mingle with them easily and naturally.”
The earnest look of the eager student came at once to Helen Denby’s face.
“You mean, I’ll have to meet and mingle with swell people if I, too, am— Oh, that horrid word again! Mrs. Thayer, why can’t I learn to stop using it? But you mean— I know what you mean. You mean I’ll have to meet and mingle with—with ladies and gentlemen if I’m to be one myself. Isn’t that it?”
“Y-yes, of course; only—the very words ‘lady’ and ‘gentleman’ have been so abused that we—we—Oh, Helen, Helen, you do put things so baldly, and it sounds so—so— Don’t you see, dear? It’s all just as I’ve told you lots of times. The minute you begin to talk about it, you lose it. It’s something that comes to you by absorption and intuition.”
“But there are things I have to learn, Mrs. Thayer, —real things, like holding your fork, and clothes, and finger nails, and not speaking so loud, and not talking about ‘folks’ being ‘swell’ and ‘tony,’ and—”
“Yes, yes, I know,” interrupted Mrs. Thayer, with a touch of desperation. “But, after all, it’s all so—so impossible! And—” She stopped abruptly at the look of terrified dismay that always leaped to Helen Denby’s eyes in response to such a word. “No, no, I don’t mean that. But, really, Helen,” she went on hurriedly, “the time has come when you must be seen more. And it will be quite safe at the shore, I am sure. You’ll meet no one who ever saw you in Dalton; that is certain.”
“Then, of course, if you say I’ll have to—I’ll have to. That’s all.”
“I do say it.”
“My, but I dread it!” Helen drew in her breath and bit her lip.
“All the more reason why you should do it then,” smiled Mrs. Thayer briskly. “You’re to learn not to dread it. See? And it’ll be easier than you think. There are some very pleasant people coming down. The Gillespies, Mrs. Reynolds and her little Gladys, —about Betty’s age, by the way, —and next month there’ll be the Drew girls and Mr. Donald Estey and his brother John. Later there will be others—the Chandlers, and Mr. Eric Shaw. And I’m going to begin immediately to have them see you, and have you see them.”
“They’ll know me as ‘Mrs. Darling’?”
“Of course—a friend of mine.”
“But I want to—to help in some way.”
“You do help. You help with the children—your companionship.”
“But that’s the way I’ve learned—so many things, Mrs. Thayer.”
“Of course. And that’s the way you’ll learn—many other things. But there are others—still others—that you can learn in no way as well as by association with the sort of well-bred men and women you will meet this summer. I don’t mean that you are always to be with them, my dear; but I do mean that you must be with them enough so that it is a matter of supreme indifference to you whether you are with them or not. Do you understand? You must learn to be at ease with—anybody. See?”
Helen sighed and nodded her head slowly.
“Yes, I think I do, Mrs. Thayer; and I will try—so hard!” She hesitated, then asked abruptly, “Who is Mr. Donald Estey, please?”
There was an odd something in Mrs. Thayer’s laugh as she answered.
“And why, pray, do you single him out?”
“Because of something—different in your voice, when you said his name.”
Mrs. Thayer laughed again.
“That’s more cleverly put than you know, child,” she shrugged. “I never thought of it before, but I fancy we all do say Mr. Donald Estey’s name—with a difference.”
“Is he so very important, then?”
“In his own estimation—yes! There! I was wrong to say that, Helen, and you must forget it. Mr. Donald Estey is a very wealthy, very capable, very delightful and brilliant young bachelor. He is a little spoiled, perhaps; but that’s our fault and not his, I suspect, for he’s petted and made of enough to turn any man’s head. He’s very entertaining. He knows something about everything. He can talk Egyptian scarabs with my brother, and Irish crochet with me, and then turn around and discuss politics with my husband, and quote poetry to Phillis Drew in the next breath. All this, of course, makes him a very popular man.”
“But he’s a—a real gentleman, the kind that my husband would like?”
“Why, of—of course!” Mrs. Thayer frowned slightly; then, suddenly, she laughed. “To tell the truth he’s very like your husband, in some ways, I’ve heard my brother say—tastes, temperament, and so forth.”
An odd something leaped to Helen Denby’s eyes.
“You mean, what he likes, Burke likes?” she questioned.
“Why, y-yes; you might put it that way, I suppose. But never mind. You’ll see for yourself when you see him.”
“Yes, I’ll see—when I see him.” Helen Denby nodded and relaxed in her seat. The odd something was still smouldering in her eyes.
“Then it’s all settled, remember,” smiled Mrs. Thayer. “You’re not to run and hide now when somebody comes. You’re to learn to meet people. That’s your next lesson.”
“My next lesson—my next lesson,” repeated Helen Denby, half under her breath. “Oh, I hope I’ll learn so much—in this next lesson! I won’t run and hide now, indeed, I won’t, Mrs. Thayer!”
And at the glorified earnestness of her face, Mrs. Thayer, watching, felt suddenly her own throat tighten convulsively.
In spite of her valiant promise, Helen Denby, a week later, did almost run and hide when the Gillespies, the first of Mrs. Thayer’s guests, arrived. Held, however, by a stern something within her, she bravely stood her ground and forced herself to meet Mr. and Mrs. Gillespie and their daughters, Miss Alice and Miss Maud. It was not so difficult the next week when Mrs. Reynolds came, perhaps because of the pretty little Gladys, so near her own Betty’s age.
Fully alive to her own shortcomings, however, embarrassed, and distrustful of herself, Helen was careful never to push herself forward, never to take the initiative. And because she was so quiet and unobtrusive, her intense watchfulness, and slavish imitation of what she saw, passed unnoticed. Gradually, as the days came and went, the tenseness of her concentration relaxed, and she began to move and speak with less studied caution. It was at this juncture that Mr. Donald Estey arrived. Instantly into her bearing sprang an entirely new, alert eagerness. But this, too, passed unnoticed, for the change was not in herself alone. The entire household had made instant response to the presence of Mr. Donald Estey. The men sharpened their wits, and the women freshened their furbelows. Breakfast was served on the minute with never a vacant chair; and even the steps of the maids in the kitchen quickened.
Because Mr. Donald Estey was always surrounded by an admiring group, the fact that “that quiet little Mrs. Darling” was almost invariably one of the group did not attract attention. It was Mr. Donald Estey himself, in fact, who first noticed it; and the reason that he noticed it was because once, when she was not there, he found himself looking for her eager face. He realized then that for some time he had been in the habit of finding his chief inspiration in a certain pair of wondrously beautiful blue eyes bent full upon himself.
Not that the encountering of admiring feminine eyes bent full upon him was a new experience to Mr. Donald Estey; but that these eyes were different. There was something strangely fascinating and compelling in their earnest gaze. It was on the day that he first missed them that he suddenly decided to cultivate their owner.
He began by asking casual questions of his fellow guests, but he could find out very little concerning the lady. She was a Mrs. Darling, a friend of their hostess (which he knew already). She was a widow, they believed, though they had never heard her husband mentioned. She was pleasant enough—but so shy and retiring! Charming face she had, though, and beautiful eyes. But did he not think she was—well, a little peculiar?
Mr. Donald Estey did not answer this, directly. He became, indeed, always very evasive when his fellow guests turned about and began to question him. Very soon, too, he ceased his own questioning. But that he had not lost his interest in Mrs. Darling was most unmistakably shown at once, for openly and systematically he began to seek her society—to the varying opinions (but unvarying interest) of the rest of the house party.
If Mr. Donald Estey had expected Mrs. Darling to be shy and coy at his advances, he found himself entirely mistaken. She welcomed him with a frank delight that was most flattering, at the same time most puzzling, owing to a certain elusive quality that he could not name.
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