Pride and Principle CHAPTER 2.
Back to Pride and Principle
"I'm really afraid this walk will be too much for you," the mother of Lizzy Malcolm said, looking into her daughter's pale face, as the latter came down from her chamber, dressed to go out, and accompanied by her sister Jane.
"Oh no, Mother. I feel quite strong this morning and the day is so fine. We will walk slowly, and then sit a good while at Mrs. Pimlico's. I promised Helen Pimlico that I would see her today."
"Well, go along, child but take care of yourself. Over-fatigue may throw you back again, and keep you confined to the house all this fall and winter."
"Don't be uneasy, Mother. I'll take good care of myself," Lizzy said, smiling, as she turned away.
The day, though bright, was cool for the season. Lizzy Malcolm had not walked many squares, before she felt a good deal fatigued, as well as chilled by the cold, penetrating atmosphere. She had miscalculated her strength. By the time they reached Mrs. Pimlico's, she was so faint that she had to lean against the door for support, while her sister rang the bell.
"I cannot stand a minute longer, sister," she said, after they had rang twice and waited for a good while. "I shall faint if they don't open the door soon."
Jane listened intently for a moment or two for the sound of someone approaching from within, then drawing her arm around Lizzy, and supporting her, she said, in a half-vexed tone,
"Come! The footman is probably asleep. And no one else dare open the door!"
As Lizzy descended the steps, and commenced walking, the change from a perfectly quiet, standing position, produced, temporarily, a healthier action of the vital functions, and threw the sluggish blood more quickly to the surface and extremities of the body, so that she had merely to lean heavily upon the arm of Jane, through which she had drawn her own on gaining the pavement, to be able to walk quite steadily. Still, she felt exceedingly fatigued and heavy in every limb, and, yet worse, had not gone far before a severe and blinding headache commenced, accompanied with nausea, to her, too sure a precursor of a sick day.
"How do you feel now?" Jane asked, for the tenth time, in a concerned voice, after they had walked along for several squares.
"I feel very sick," was the reply. "Every little while, a faintness comes over me. and I seem just as if I were going to fall to the ground. I'm afraid I won't be able to keep up much longer. What shall I do? I wouldn't like to faint here in the street!"
"We are not far now from Mrs. Henry's," Jane said. "Try and keep up--we will soon be there."
"Bless me! If there aren't Lizzy Malcolm and her sister!" exclaimed the lady of whom Jane had just spoken, rising from her seat at the window of a richly furnished parlor. "I didn't know she had been out since her severe illness. How pale she looks! She is no doubt fatigued with so long a walk, and mustn't be kept waiting at the door an instant."
As she said this, Mrs. Henry stepped quickly from the parlor, where she had been conversing with a visitor of some distinction in society, and went to the street-door, which she opened and held in her hand until the two young ladies had ascended the steps and entered the hall. Lizzy was too much exhausted to speak, which Mrs. Henry instantly perceiving, she drew her arm around her and assisted Jane to support her into the parlor, which she had only time to gain before she sank, fainting, upon a sofa. It was more than an hour before she recovered from this state of unconsciousness, and then she was too ill to sit up. Mrs. Henry had her removed to her chamber and bed, and Jane went home for her mother, who soon came, and, after consultation with Mrs. Henry, deemed it best to send for their family physician. The doctor found his patient with considerable fever, a strong tendency of blood to the head, and partial delirium. After prescribing as he deemed requisite, he advised the immediate removal of Lizzy to her own home, which was done. The cause of her illness, he said, arose altogether from over-fatigue, which had brought on what threatened to be a relapse into the disease from which she had so recently and but partially recovered. In this last fear, he was right. A long and painful illness was the consequence, from which she at last slowly recovered, but with, it was feared by both medical attendant and family, a shattered constitution.
During this sickness, Helen Pimlico visited the patient frequently. Her heart always smote her when she looked upon her pale face and emaciated form, and remembered that all this was in consequence of her having been permitted to go away from the door of her house, merely because it would have been, according to her mother's code, a violation of etiquette for any one to admit her, but the waiter.
"If I must obey such rules to be called a lady," she sighed to herself as she left the house of the sick girl one day, "then I do not wish to be honored by the empty title! I do not wish to be a lady--let me rather be a woman--a true woman, like my Aunt Mary."
On going home that day, she found that her mother had received a letter from her sister-in-law, informing her that she intended visiting Philadelphia in about two weeks, to spend a month or so in the city.
"Oh, I am so glad!" exclaimed Helen, clapping her hands with delight, and actually taking one or two bounds from the floor. But she stopped suddenly on seeing her mother's look of surprise, rebuke, and mortification.
"Really, Helen, I'm discouraged with you!" said Mrs. Pimlico "utterly discouraged! I did hope that my daughter would become a well-bred woman, a lady in the true sense of that term. But I am in despair. Your Aunt Goodwin has utterly ruined you!"
"What have I done?" asked Helen, with a look of blank amazement. "I am sure I meant nothing wrong."
"Who ever saw anyone in good society, enact a scene like that? Jumping up and clapping your hands like a vulgar country tomboy! Will you never learn to practice that dignified repose, which is undisturbed by any intelligence?"
"Undisturbed by any intelligence! Would you have me become as immovable as a statue?"
"Yes, as immovable as a statue--rather than as agitated and disorderly as a monkey!"
Nature forcibly asserted her right, and caused Mrs. Pimlico to show a little--a very little though still a well-defined excitement, as she uttered the last sentence, thus exhibiting a gleam of the woman, shining through a crack in the conventional crust of good-breeding. She was conscious of this, and regained, by a well-timed effort, her calm and dignified exterior.
"A true gentlewoman," she added, "never enacts a scene under any circumstances. News of the greatest misfortune that could befall her, is received with the same calmness and apparent indifference, as the intelligence of some distinguished favor, or happy event. Her business is to be composed under all circumstances. This being one of the invariable standards by which she is known, there is no difficulty in distinguishing a lady from a mere ordinary woman. You, my dear, are not sufficiently composed. Suppose anyone had seen you jump up and clap your hands as you did just now at the bare news that a woman like your Aunt Mary was going to pay us a visit--what would they have thought of you? It would have effectually destroyed your prospects in life!"
Helen could not understand how her expression of joy, at the news of her aunt's visit, even if it had been seen by others, was going to affect her prospects in life. But she did not say so--for opposition to, or questions as to the correctness of any of her mother's opinions--always grieved her. She, therefore, remained silent, while her mother gave her another of her long and tedious lectures on etiquette.
Back to Pride and Principle