Mrs. Hallam’s Companion. AND THE SPRING FARM, AND OTHER TALES.

CHAPTER I. THE HALLAMS.

Mrs. Carter Hallam was going to Europe,—going to Aix-les Bains,—partly for the baths, which she hoped “would lessen her fast-increasing avoirdupois, and partly to join her intimate friend, Mrs. Walker Haynes, who had urged her coming and had promised to introduce her to some of the best people, both English and American. This attracted Mrs. Hallam more than the baths. She was anxious to know the best people, and she did know a good many, although her name was not in the list of the four hundred. But she meant it should be there in the near future, nor did it seem unlikely that it might be. There was not so great a distance between the four hundred and herself, as she was now, as there had been between Mrs. Carter Hallam and little Lucy Brown, who used to live with her grandmother in an old yellow house in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, and pick berries to buy herself a pair of morocco boots. Later on, when the grandmother was dead and the yellow house sold, Lucy had worked first in a shoe-shop and then in 10a dry-goods store in Worcester, where, attracted by her

handsome face, Carter Hallam, a thriving grocer, had made her his wife and mistress of a pretty little house on the west side of the city. As a clerk she had often waited upon the West Side ladies, whom she admired greatly, fancying she could readily distinguish them from the ladies of the East Side. To marry a Hallam was a great honor, but to be a West-Sider was a greater, and when both came to her she nearly lost her balance, although her home was far removed from the aristocratic quarters where the old families, the real West-Siders, lived. In a way she was one of them, she thought, or at least she was no longer a clerk, and she began to cut her old acquaintances, while her husband laughed at and ridiculed her, wondering what difference it made whether one lived on the east or west side of a town. He did not care whether people took him for a nabob, or a fresh importation from the wild and woolly West; he was just Carter Hallam, a jolly, easy-going fellow whom everybody knew and everybody liked. He was born on a farm in Leicester, where the Hallams,

although comparatively poor, were held in high esteem as one of the best and oldest families. At twenty-one he came into the possession of a few thousand dollars left him by an uncle for whom he was named, and then he went to the Far West, roughing it with cowboys and ranchmen, and investing his money in a gold-mine in Montana and in lands still farther west. Then he returned to Worcester, bought a small grocery, married Lucy Brown, and lived quietly for a few years, when suddenly one day there flashed across the wires the news that his mine had proved one of the richest in Montana, and his lands were worth many times what he 11gave for them. He was a millionaire, with property constantly rising in value, and Worcester could no longer hold his ambitious wife.

It was too small a place for her, she said, for everybody knew everybody else’s business and history, and, no matter how much she was worth, somebody was sure to taunt her with having worked in a shoe-shop, if, indeed, she did not hear that she had once picked berries to buy herself some shoes. They must go away from the old life, if they wanted to be anybody. They must travel and see the world, and get cultivated, and know what to talk about with their equals.

So they sold the house and the grocery and traveled east and west, north and south, and finally went to Europe, where they stayed two or three years, seeing nearly everything there was to be seen, and learning a great deal about ruins and statuary and pictures, in which Mrs. Hallam thought herself a connoisseur, although she occasionally got the Sistine Chapel and the Sistine Madonna badly mixed, and talked of the Paul Belvedere, a copy of which she bought at an enormous price. When they returned to America Mr. Hallam was a three times millionaire, for all his speculations had been successful and his mine was still yielding its annual harvest of gold. A handsome house on Fifth Avenue in New York was bought and furnished in the most approved style, and then Mrs. Hallam began to consider the best means of getting into society. She already knew a good many New York people whom she had met abroad, and whose acquaintance it was desirable to continue. But she soon found that acquaintances made in Paris or Rome or on the Nile were not as cordial

when met at home, and she was beginning to feel discouraged, 12when chance threw in her way Mrs. Walker Haynes, who, with the bluest of blood and the smallest of purses, knew nearly every one worth knowing, and, it was hinted, would for a quid pro quo open many fashionable doors to aspiring applicants who, without her aid, would probably stay outside forever.

The daughter and grand-daughter and cousin of governors and senators and judges, with a quiet assumption of superiority which was seldom offensive to those whom she wished to conciliate, she was a power in society, and more quoted and courted than any woman in her set. To be noticed by Mrs. Walker Haynes was usually a guarantee of success, and Mrs. Hallam was greatly surprised when one morning a handsome coupé stopped before her door and a moment after her maid brought her Mrs. Walker Haynes’s card. She knew all about Mrs. Walker Haynes and what she was capable of doing, and in a flutter of excitement she went down to meet her. Mrs. Walker Haynes, who never took people up if there was anything doubtful in their antecedents, knew all about Mrs. Hallam, even to the shoe-shop and the clerkship. But she knew, too, that she was perfectly respectable, with no taint whatever upon her character, and that she was anxious to get into society. As it chanced, Mrs. Haynes’s funds were low, for business was dull, as there were fewer human moths

than usual hovering around the social candle, and when the ladies of the church which both she and Mrs. Hallam attended met to devise ways and means for raising money for some new charity, she spoke of Mrs. Hallam and offered to call upon her for a subscription, if the ladies wished it. They did wish it, and the next day found Mrs. Haynes waiting in Mrs. Hallam’s drawing-room 13for the appearance of its mistress, her quick-seeing eyes taking in every detail in its furnishing, and deciding on the whole that it was very good.

“Some one has taste,—the upholsterer and decorator, probably,” she thought, as Mrs. Hallam came in, nervous and flurried, but at once put at ease by her visitor’s gracious and friendly manner.

After a few general topics and the mention of a mutual friend whom Mrs. Hallam had met in Cairo, Mrs. Haynes came directly to the object of her visit, apologizing first for the liberty she was taking, and adding:

“But now that you are one of us in the church, I thought you might like to help us, and we need it so much.”

Mrs. Hallam was not naturally generous where nothing was to be gained, but Mrs. Haynes’s manner, and her “now you are one of us,” made her so in this instance, and taking the paper she wrote her name for two hundred dollars, which was nearly one-fourth of the desired sum. There was a gleam of humor as well as of surprise in Mrs. Haynes’s eyes as she read the amount, but she was profuse in her thanks and expressions of gratitude, and, promising to call very soon socially, she took her leave with a feeling that it would pay to take up Mrs. Hallam, who was really more lady-like and better educated than many whom she had launched upon the sea of fashion. With Mrs. Walker Haynes and several millions behind her, progress was easy for Mrs. Hallam, and within a year she was “quite in the swim,” she said to her husband, who laughed at her as he had done in Worcester, and called Mrs. Haynes a fraud who knew what she was about. But he gave her 14all the money she wanted, and rather enjoyed seeing her “hob-a-nob with the big bugs,” as he expressed it.

Nothing, however, could change him, and he remained the same unostentatious, popular man he had always been up to the day of his death, which occurred about three years before our story opens.

At that time there was living with him his nephew, the son of his only brother, Jack. Reginald,—or Rex as he was familiarly called,—was a young man of twenty-six, with exceptionally good habits, and a few days before his uncle died he said to him:

“I can trust you, Rex. You have lived with me since you were fourteen, and have never once failed me. The Hallams are all honest people, and you are half Hallam. I have made you independent by my will, and I want you to stay with your aunt and look after her affairs. She is as good a woman as ever lived, but a little off on fashion and fol-de-rol. Keep her as level as you can.”

This Rex had tried to do, rather successfully, too, except when Mrs. Walker Haynes’s influence was in the ascendant, when he usually succumbed to circumstances and allowed his aunt to do as she pleased. Mrs. Haynes, who had profited greatly in a pecuniary way from her acquaintance with Mrs. Hallam, was now in Europe, and had written her friend to join her at Aix-les-Bains, which she said was a charming place, full of titled people both English and French, and she had the entrée to the very best circles. She further added that it was desirable for a lady traveling without a male escort to have a companion besides a maid and courier. The companion was to be found in America, the courier in London, and the maid in Paris; “after which,” she wrote, “you will travel tout-à-fait en princesse. The en 15princesse appealed to Mrs. Hallam at once as something altogether applicable to Mrs. Carter Hallam of New York. She was a great lady now; Sturbridge and the old yellow house and the berries and the shoe-shop were more than thirty years in the past, and so covered

over with gold that it seemed impossible to uncover them; nor had any one tried, so far as she knew. The Hallams as a family had been highly respected both in Worcester and in Leicester, and she often spoke of them, but never of the Browns, or of the old grandmother, and she was glad she had no near relatives to intrude themselves upon her and make her ashamed. She was very fond and very proud of Reginald, who was to her like a son, and who with the integrity and common sense of the Hallams had also inherited the innate refinement and kindly courtesy of his mother, a Bostonian and the daughter of a clergyman. As a rule she consulted him about everything, and after she received Mrs. Haynes’s letter she showed it to him and asked his advice in the matter of a companion.

“I think she would be a nuisance and frightfully in your way at times, but if Mrs. Haynes says you must have one, it’s all right, so go ahead,” Rex replied, and his aunt continued:

“But how am I to find what I want? I am so easily imposed upon, and I will not have one from the city. She would expect too much and make herself too familiar. I must have one from the country.”

“Advertise, then, and they’ll come round you like bees around honey,” Rex said, and to this suggestion his aunt at once acceded, asking him to write the advertisement, which she dictated, with so many conditions and requirements that Rex exclaimed, “Hold on there. 16You will insist next that they subscribe to the Thirty-Nine Articles, besides believing in foreordination and everything in the Westminster Catechism. You are demanding impossibilities and giving too little in return. Three hundred dollars for perfection! I should say offer five hundred. ‘The higher-priced the better’ is Mrs. Walker Haynes’s motto, and I am sure she will think it far more tony to have an expensive appendage than a cheap one. The girl will earn her money, too, or I’m mistaken; for Mrs. Haynes is sure to share her services with you, as she does everything else.”

He spoke laughingly, but sarcastically, for he perfectly understood Mrs. Walker Haynes, whom his outspoken uncle had called “a sponge and a schemer, who knew how to feather her nest.” Privately Rex thought the same, but he did not often express these views to his aunt, who at last consented to the five hundred dollars, and Rex wrote the advertisement, which was as follows:

“A companion for a lady who is going abroad. One from the country, between twenty and twenty-five, preferred. She must be a good accountant, a good reader, and a good seamstress. She must also have a sufficient knowledge of French to understand the language and make herself understood. To such a young lady five hundred dollars a year will be given, and all expenses paid. Address,

When Rex read this to his aunt, she said:

“Yes, that will do; but don’t you think it just as well to say young person instead of young lady?”

17“No, I don’t,” Rex answered, promptly. “You want a lady, and not a person, as you understand the word, and I wouldn’t begin by insulting her.”

So the “lady” was allowed to stand, and then, without his aunt’s knowledge, Rex added:

“Those applying will please send their photographs.”

“I should like to see the look of astonishment on aunt’s face when the pictures come pouring in. There will be scores of them, the offer is so good,” Rex thought, as he folded the advertisement and left the house.

That night, when dinner was over, he said to his aunt: “I have a project in mind which I wish to tell you about.”

Mrs. Hallam gave a little shrug of annoyance. Her husband had been full of projects, most of which she had disapproved, as she probably should this of Rex, who continued:

“I am thinking of buying a place in the country,—the real country, I mean,—where the houses are old-fashioned and far apart, and there are woods and ponds and brooks and things.”

“And pray what would you do with such a place?” Mrs. Hallam asked.

Rex replied, “I’d make it into a fancy farm and fill it with blooded stock, hunting-horses, and dogs. I’d keep the old house intact so far as architecture is concerned, and fit it up as a kind of bachelor’s hall, where I can have a lot of fellows in the summer and fall, and hunt and fish and have a glorious time. Ladies will not be excluded, of course, and when you are fagged out with Saratoga and Newport I shall invite you, and possibly Mrs. Haynes and Grace, down to see the fox-hunts I 18mean to have, just as they do in the Genesee Valley. Won’t it be fun?”

Rex was eloquent on the subject of his fancy farm. He was very fond of the country, although he really knew but little about it, as he was born in New York, and had lived there all his life with the exception of two years spent at the South with his mother’s brother and four years at Yale. His aunt, on the contrary, detested the country, with its woods, and ponds, and brooks, and old-fashioned houses, and she felt very little interest in Rex’s fancy farm and fox-hunts, which she looked upon as wholly visionary. She asked him, however, where the farm was, and he replied:

“You see, Marks, who is in the office with me, has a client who owns a mortgage on some old homestead among the hills in Massachusetts. This mortgage, which has changed hands two or three times and been renewed once or twice, comes due in October, and Marks says there is not much probability that the old man,—I believe he is quite old,—can pay it, and the place will be sold at auction. I can, of course, wait and bid it off cheap, as farms are not in great demand in that vicinity; but I don’t like to do that. I’d rather buy it outright, giving the old fellow more than it is worth rather than less. Marks says it is a rambling old house, with three or four gables, and stands on a hillside with a fine view of the surrounding country. The woods are full of pleasant drives, and ponds where the white lilies grow and where I can fish and have some small boats.”

“But where is it? In what town, I mean?” Mrs. Hallam asked, with a slight tremor in her voice, which, however, Rex did not notice as he answered:

19“I don’t remember where Marks’s client said it was, but I have his letter. Let me see.” And, taking the letter from his pocket, he glanced at it a moment, and then said, “It is in Leicester, and not more than five or six miles from the city of Worcester and Lake Quinsigamond, where I mean to have a yacht and call it the Lucy Hallam for you. Why, auntie, it has just occurred to me that you once lived in Worcester, and Uncle Hallam, too, and that he and father were born in Leicester. Were you ever there,—at the house where father was born, I mean? But of course you have been.”

Rex had risen to his feet and stood leaning on the mantel and looking at his aunt with an eager, expectant expression on his face. She was pale to her lips as she replied:

“Yes, I was there just after I was married. Your uncle drove me out one afternoon to see the place. Strangers were living there then, for his father and mother were dead. He was as country mad as you are, and actually went down upon his knees before the old well-sweep and bucket.”

“I don’t blame him. I believe I’d do the same,” Rex replied, and then went on questioning her rapidly. “What was the house like? Had it a big chimney in the centre?”

Mrs. Hallam said it had.

“Wide fireplaces?”

“Rather wide,—yes.”

“Kitchen fireplace, with a crane?”

“I don’t know, but most likely.”

“Little window-panes, and deep window-seats?”

“I think so.”

“Big iron door-latches instead of knobs?”

20“Yes, and a brass knocker.”

“Slanting roof, or high?”

“It was a high gabled roof,—three or four gables, and must have been rather pretentious when it was new.

“Rex,”—and Mrs. Hallam’s voice trembled perceptibly,—“the gables and the situation overlooking the valley make me think that the place you have in view is possibly your father’s old home.”

“By Jove,” Rex exclaimed, “wouldn’t that be jolly! I believe I’d give a thousand dollars extra for the sake of having the old homestead for my own. I wonder who the old chap is who lives there. I mean to go down and see for myself as soon as I return from Chicago and we get the lawsuit off our hands which is taking all Marks’s time and mine.”

Mrs. Hallam did not say what she thought, for she knew there was not much use in opposing Rex, but in her heart she did not approve of bringing the long-buried past up to the present, which was so different. The Homestead was well enough, and Leicester was well enough, for Hallam had been an honored name in the neighborhood, and Rex would be honored, too, as a scion of the family; but it was too near Worcester and the shoe-shop and the store and the people who had known her as a working-girl, and who would be sure to renew the acquaintance if she were to go there. She had no relatives to trouble her, unless it were a certain Phineas Jones, who was so far removed that she could scarcely call him a relative. But if he were living he would certainly find her if she ventured near him, and cousin her, as he used to do in Worcester, where he was continually calling upon her after her marriage and reminding her of spelling-schools and singing-schools and 21circuses which he said he had attended with her. How distasteful it all was, and how she shrank from everything

pertaining to her early life, which seemed so far away that she sometimes half persuaded herself it had never been!