THE YATES PRIDE A ROMANCE
1
THE YATES PRIDE A
ROMANCE
MARY E. WILKINS FREEMAN
THE YATES PRIDE A ROMANCE
2
PART I
THE YATES PRIDE
Opposite Miss Eudora Yates's old colonial mansion was the perky
modern Queen Anne residence of Mrs. Joseph Glynn. Mrs. Glynn had a
daughter, Ethel, and an unmarried sister, Miss Julia Esterbrook. All three
were fond of talking, and had many callers who liked to hear the feebly
effervescent news of Wellwood. This afternoon three ladies were there:
Miss Abby Simson, Mrs. John Bates, and Mrs. Edward Lee. They sat in
the Glynn sitting-room, which shrilled with treble voices as if a flock of
sparrows had settled therein.
The Glynn sitting-room was charming, mainly because of the quantity
of flowering plants. Every window was filled with them, until the room
seemed like a conservatory. Ivy, too, climbed over the pictures, and the
mantel-shelf was a cascade of wandering Jew, growing in old china vases.
"Your plants are really wonderful, Mrs. Glynn," said Mrs. Bates, "but I
don't see how you manage to get a glimpse of anything outside the house,
your windows are so full of them."
"Maybe she can see and not be seen," said Abby Simson, who had a
quick wit and a ready tongue.
Mrs. Joseph Glynn flushed a little. "I have not the slightest curiosity
about my neighbors," she said, "but it is impossible to live just across the
road from any house without knowing something of what is going on,
whether one looks or not," said she, with dignity.
"Ma and I never look out of the windows from curiosity," said Ethel
Glynn, with spirit. Ethel Glynn had a great deal of spirit, which was
evinced in her personal appearance as well as her tongue. She had an eye
to the fashions; her sleeves were never out of date, nor was the
arrangement of her hair.
"For instance," said Ethel, "we never look at the house opposite
because we are at all prying, but we do know that that old maid has been
doing a mighty queer thing lately."
"First thing you know you will be an old maid yourself, and then your
THE YATES PRIDE A ROMANCE
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stones will break your own glass house," said Abby Simson.
"Oh, I don't care," retorted Ethel. "Nowadays an old maid isn't an old
maid except from choice, and everybody knows it. But it must have been
different in Miss Eudora's time. Why, she is older than you are, Miss
Abby."
"Just five years," replied Abby, unruffled, "and she had chances, and I
know it."
"Why didn't she take them, then?"
"Maybe," said Abby, "girls had choice then as much as now, but I
never could make out why she didn't marry Harry Lawton."
Ethel gave her head a toss. "Maybe," said she, "once in a while, even
so long ago, a girl wasn't so crazy to get married as folks thought. Maybe
she didn't want him."
"She did want him," said Abby. "A girl doesn't get so pale and peaked-
looking for nothing as Eudora Yates did, after she had dismissed Harry
Lawton and he had gone away, nor haunt the post-office as she used to,
and, when she didn't get a letter, go away looking as if she would die."
"Maybe," said Ethel, "her folks were opposed."
"Nobody ever opposed Eudora Yates except her own self," replied
Abby. "Her father was dead, and Eudora's ma thought the sun rose and set
in her. She would never have opposed her if she had wanted to marry a
foreign duke or the old Harry himself."
"I remember it perfectly," said Mrs. Joseph Glynn.
"So do I," said Julia Esterbrook.
"Don't see why you shouldn't. You were plenty old enough to have
your memory in good working order if it was ever going to be," said Abby
Simson.
"Well," said Ethel, "it is the funniest thing I ever heard of. If a girl
wanted a man enough to go all to pieces over him, and he wanted her, why
on earth didn't she take him?"
"Maybe they quarreled," ventured Mrs. Edward Lee, who was a mild,
sickly-looking woman and seldom expressed an opinion.
"Well, that might have been," agreed Abby, "although Eudora always
had the name of having a beautiful disposition."
THE YATES PRIDE A ROMANCE
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"I have always found," said Mrs. Joseph Glynn, with an air of wisdom,
"that it is the beautiful dispositions which are the most set the minute they
get a start the wrong way. It is the always-flying-out people who are the
easiest to get on with in the long run."
"Well," said Abby, "maybe that is so, but folks might get worn all to a
frazzle by the flying-out ones before the long run. I'd rather take my
chances with a woman like Eudora. She always seems just so, just as calm
and sweet. When the Ames's barn, that was next to hers, burned down and
the wind was her way, she just walked in and out of her house, carrying
the things she valued most, and she looked like a picture--somehow she
had got all dressed fit to make calls--and there wasn't a muscle of her face
that seemed to move. Eudora Yates is to my mind the most beautiful
woman in this town, old or young, I don't care who she is."
"I suppose," said Julia Esterbrook, "that she has a lot of money."
"I wonder if she has," said Mrs. John Bates.
The others stared at her. "What makes you think she hasn't?" Mrs.
Glynn inquired, sharply.
"Nothing," said Mrs. Bates, and closed her thin lips. She would say no
more, but the others had suspicions, because her husband, John Bates, was
a wealthy business man.
"I can't believe she has lost her money," said Mrs. Glynn. "She
wouldn't have been such a fool as to do what she has if she hadn't money."
"What has she done?" asked Mrs. Bates, eagerly.
"What has she done?" asked Abby, and Mrs. Lee looked up
inquiringly.
The faces of Mrs. Glynn, her daughter, and her sister became
important, full of sly and triumphant knowledge.
"Haven't you heard?" asked Mrs. Glynn.
"Yes, haven't you?" asked Ethel.
"Haven't any of you heard?" asked Julia Esterbrook.
"No," admitted Abby, rather feebly. "I don't know as I have."
"Do you mean about Eudora's going so often to the Lancaster girls' to
tea?" asked Mrs. John Bates, with a slight bridle of possible knowledge.
"I heard of that," said Mrs. Lee, not to be outdone.
THE YATES PRIDE A ROMANCE
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"Land, no," replied Mrs. Glynn. "Didn't she always go there? It isn't
that. It is the most unheard-of thing she had done; but no woman, unless
she had plenty of money to bring it up, would have done it."
"To bring what up?" asked Abby, sharply. Her eyes looked as small
and bright as needles.
Julia regarded her with intense satisfaction. "What do women
generally bring up?" said she.
"I don't know of anything they bring up, whether they have it or not,
except a baby," retorted Abby, sharply.
Julia wilted a little; but her sister, Mrs. Glynn, was not perturbed. She
launched her thunderbolt of news at once, aware that the critical moment
had come, when the quarry of suspicion had left the bushes.
"She has adopted a baby," said she, and paused like a woman who had
fired a gun, half scared herself and shrinking from the report.
Ethel seconded her mother. "Yes," said she, "Miss Eudora has adopted
a baby, and she has a baby-carriage, and she wheels it out any time she
takes a notion." Ethel's speech was of the nature of an after-climax. The
baby-carriage weakened the situation.
The other women seized upon the idea of the carriage to cover their
surprise and prevent too much gloating on the part of Mrs. Glynn, Ethel,
and Julia.
"Is it a new carriage?" inquired Mrs. Lee.
"No, it looks like one that came over in the ark," retorted Mrs. Glynn.
Then she repeated: "She has adopted a baby," but this time there was no
effect of an explosion. However, the treble chorus rose high, "Where did
she get the baby? Was it a boy or a girl? Why did she adopt it? Did it cry
much?" and other queries, none of which Mrs. Glynn, Ethel, and Julia
could answer very decidedly except the last. They all announced that the
adopted baby was never heard to cry at all.
"Must be a very good child," said Abby.
"Must be a very healthy child," said Mrs. Lee, who had had experience
with crying babies.
"Well, she has it, anyhow," said Mrs. Glynn.
Right upon the announcement came proof. The beautiful door of the
THE YATES PRIDE A ROMANCE
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old colonial mansion opposite was thrown open, and clumsy and cautious
motion was evident. Presently a tall, slender woman came down the path
between the box borders, pushing a baby-carriage. It was undoubtedly a
very old carriage. It must have dated back to the fifties, if not the forties. It
was made of wood, with a leather buggy-top, and was evidently very
heavy.
Abby eyed it shrewdly. "If I am not mistaken," said she, "that is the
very carriage Eudora herself was wheeled around in when she was a baby.
I am almost sure I have seen that identical carriage before. When we were
girls I used to go to the Yates house sometimes. Of course, it was always
very formal, a little tea-party for Eudora, with her mother on hand, but I
feel sure that I saw that carriage there one of those times.
"I suppose it cost a lot of money, in the time of it. The Yateses always
got the very best for Eudora," said Julia. "And maybe Eudora goes about
so little she doesn't realize how out of date the carriage is, but I should
think it would be very heavy to wheel, especially if the baby is a good-
sized one."
"It looks like a very large baby," said Ethel. "Of course, it is so rolled
up we can't tell."
"Haven't you gone out and asked to see the baby?" said Abby.
"Would we dare unless Eudora Yates offered to show it?" said Julia,
with a surprised air; and the others nodded assent. Then they all crowded
to the front windows and watched from behind the screens of green
flowering things. It was very early in the spring. Fairly hot days alternated
with light frosts. The trees were touched with sprays of rose and gold and
gold-green, but the wind still blew cold from the northern snows, and the
occupant of Eudora's ancient carriage was presumably wrapped well to
shelter it from harm. There was, in fact, nothing to be seen in the carriage,
except a large roll of blue and white, as Eudora emerged from the yard and
closed the iron gate of the tall fence behind her.
Through this fence pricked the evergreen box, and the deep yard was
full of soft pastel tints of reluctantly budding trees and bushes. There was
one deep splash of color from a yellow bush in full bloom.
Eudora paced down the sidewalk with a magnificent, stately gait.
THE YATES PRIDE A ROMANCE
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There was something rather magnificent in her whole appearance. Her
skirts of old, but rich, black fabric swept about her long, advancing limbs;
she held her black-bonneted head high, as if crowned. She pushed the
cumbersome baby-carriage with no apparent effort. An ancient India shawl
was draped about her sloping shoulders.
Eudora, as she passed the Glynn house, turned her face slightly, so that
its pure oval was evident. She was now a beauty in late middle life. Her
hair, of an indeterminate shade, swept in soft shadows over her ears; her
features were regular; her expression was at once regal and gentle. A
charm which was neither of youth nor of age reigned in her face; her grace
had surmounted with triumphant ease the slope of every year. Eudora
passed out of sight with the baby-carriage, lifting her proud lady-head
under the soft droop of the spring boughs; and her inspectors, whom she
had not seen, moved back from the Glynn windows with exclamations of
astonishment.
"I wonder," said Abby, "whether she will have that baby call her ma or
aunty."
Meantime Eudora passed down the village street until she reached the
Lancaster house, about half a mile away on the same side. There dwelt the
Misses Amelia and Anna Lancaster, who were about Eudora's age, and a
widowed sister, Mrs. Sophia Willing, who was much older. The Lancaster
house was also a colonial mansion, much after the fashion of Eudora's, but
it showed signs of continued opulence. Eudora's, behind her trees and
leafing vines, was gray for lack of paint. Some of the colonial ornamental
details about porches and roof were sloughing off or had already
disappeared. The Lancaster house gleamed behind its grove of evergreen
trees as white and perfect as in its youth. The windows showed rich slants
of draperies behind their green glister of old glass.
A gardener, with a boy assistant, was at work in the grounds when
Eudora entered. He touched his cap. He was an old man who had lived
with the Lancasters ever since Eudora could remember. He advanced
toward her now. "Sha'n't Tommy push--the baby-carriage up to the house
for you, Miss Eudora?" he said, in his cracked old voice.
Eudora flushed slightly, and, as if in response, the old man flushed,
THE YATES PRIDE A ROMANCE
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also. "No, I thank you, Wilson," she said, and moved on.
The boy, who was raking dry leaves, stood gazing at them with a
shrewd, whimsical expression. He was the old man's grandson.
"Is that a boy or a girl kid, grandpa?" he inquired, when the gardener
returned.
"Hold your tongue!" replied the old man, irascibly. Suddenly he seized
the boy by his two thin little shoulders with knotted old hands.
"Look at here, Tommy, whatever you know, you keep your mouth shet,
and whatever you don't know, you keep your mouth shet, if you know
what's good for you," he said, in a fierce whisper.
The boy whistled and shrugged his shoulders loose. "You know I ain't
goin' to tell tales, grandpa," he said, in a curiously manly fashion.
The old man nodded. "All right, Tommy. I don't believe you be, nuther,
but you may jest as well git it through your head what's goin' to happen if
you do."
"Ain't goin' to," returned the boy. He whistled charmingly as he raked
the leaves. His whistle sounded like the carol of a bird.
Eudora pushed the carriage around to the side door, and immediately
there was a fluttering rush of a slender woman clad in lavender down the
steps. This woman first kissed Eudora with gentle fervor, then, with a sly
look around and voice raised intentionally high, she lifted the blue and
white roll from the carriage with the tenderest care. "Did the darling come
to see his aunties?" she shrilled.
The old man and the boy in the front yard heard her distinctly. The old
man's face was imperturbable. The boy grinned.
Two other women, all clad in lavender, appeared in the doorway. They
also bent over the blue and white bundle. They also said something about
the darling coming to see his aunties. Then there ensued the softest chorus
of lady-laughter, as if at some hidden joke.
"Come in, Eudora dear," said Amelia Lancaster. "Yes, come in, Eudora
dear," said Anna Lancaster. "Yes, come in, Eudora dear," said Sophia
Willing.
Sophia looked much older than her sisters, but with that exception the
resemblance between all three was startling. They always dressed exactly
THE YATES PRIDE A ROMANCE
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alike, too, in silken fabric of bluish lavender, like myrtle blossoms. Some
of the poetical souls in the village called the Lancaster sisters "The ladies
in lavender."
There was an astonishing change in the treatment of the blue and white
bundle when the sisters and Eudora were in the stately old sitting-room,
with its heavy mahogany furniture and its white-wainscoted calls. Amelia
simply tossed the bundle into a corner of the sofa; then the sisters all sat in
a loving circle around Eudora.
"Are you sure you are not utterly worn out, dear?" asked Amelia,
tenderly; and the others repeated the question in exactly the same tone.
The Lancaster sisters were not pretty, but all had charming expressions of
gentleness and a dignified good-will and loving kindness. Their blue eyes
beamed love at Eudora, and it was as if she sat encircled in a soul-ring of
affection.
She responded, and her beautiful face glowed with tenderness and
pleasure, and something besides, which was as the light of victory.
"I am not in the least tired, thank you, dears," she replied. "Why
should I be tired? I am very strong."
Amelia murmured something about such hard work.
"I never thought it would be hard work taking care of a baby," replied
Eudora, "and especially such a very light baby."
Something whimsical crept into Eudora's voice; something whimsical
crept into the love-light of the other women's eyes. Again a soft ripple of
mirth swept over them.
"Especially a baby who never cries," said Amelia.
"No, he never does cry," said Eudora, demurely.
They laughed again. Then Amelia rose and left the room to get the tea-
things. The old serving-woman who had lived with them for many years
was suffering from rheumatism, and was cared for by her daughter in the
little cottage across the road from the Lancaster house. Her husband and
grandson were the man and boy at work in the grounds. The three sisters
took care of themselves and their house with the elegant ease and lack of
fluster of gentlewomen born and bred. Miss Amelia, bringing in the tea-
tray, was an unclassed being, neither maid nor mistress, but outranking
THE YATES PRIDE A ROMANCE
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either. She had tied on a white apron. She bore the silver tray with an ease
which bespoke either nerve or muscle in her lace-draped arms.
She poured the tea, holding the silver pot high and letting the amber
fluid trickle slowly, and the pearls and diamonds on her thin hands shone
dully. Sophia passed little china plates and fringed napkins, and Anna a
silver basket with golden squares of sponge-cake.
The ladies ate and drank, and the blue and white bundle on the sofa
remained motionless. Eudora, after she had finished her tea, leaned back
gracefully in her chair, and her dark eyes gleamed with its mild stimulus.
She remained an hour or more. When she went out, Amelia slipped an
envelope into her hand and at the same time embraced and kissed her.
Sophia and Anna followed her example. Eudora opened her mouth as if to
speak, but smiled instead, a fond, proud smile. During the last fifteen
minutes of her stay Amelia had slipped out of the room with the blue and
white bundle. Now she brought it out and laid it carefully in the carriage.
"We are always so glad to see you, dearest Eudora," said she, "but you
understand --"
"Yes," said Sophia, "you understand, Eudora dear, that there is not the
slightest haste."
Eudora nodded, and her long neck seemed to grow longer.
When she was stepping regally down the path, Amelia said in a hasty
whisper to Sophia: "Did you tell her?"
Sophia shook her head. "No, sister." "I didn't know but you might have,
while I was out of the room."
"I did not," said Sophia. She looked doubtfully at Amelia, then at Anna,
and doubt flashed back and forth between the three pairs of blue eyes for a
second. Then Sophia spoke with authority, because she was the only one
of them all who had entered the estate of matrimony, and had
consequently obvious cognizance of such matters.
"I think," said she, "that Eudora should be told that Harry Lawton has
come back and is boarding at the Wellwood Inn."
"You think," faltered Amelia, "that it is possible she might meet him
unexpectedly?"
"I certainly do think so. And she might show her feelings in a way
THE YATES PRIDE A ROMANCE
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which she would ever afterward regret."
"You think, then, that she --"
Sophia gave her sister a look. Amelia fled after Eudora and the baby-
carriage. She overtook her at the gate. She laid her hand on Eudora's arm,
draped with India shawl.
"Eudora!" she gasped.
Eudora turned her serene face and regarded her questioningly.
"Eudora," said Amelia, "have you heard of anybody's coming to stay at
the inn lately?"
"No," replied Eudora, calmly. "Why, dear?"
"Nothing, only, Eudora, a dear and old friend of yours, of ours, is there,
so I hear."
Eudora did not inquire who the old friend might be. "Really?" she
remarked. Then she said, "Goodby, Amelia dear," and resumed her
progress with the baby-carriage.
THE YATES PRIDE A ROMANCE
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PART II
"She never even asked who it was," Amelia reported to her sisters,
when she had returned to the house. "Because she knew," replied Sophia,
sagely; "th
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