Little Women
disappointment which he could not explain. His look and silence, as
well as a certain inward self-disapproval, ruffled Amy, and made her
resolve to deliver her lecture without delay.
“I wish you’d do me the favor to rouse yourself a little,” she said
sharply.
“Do it for me, there’s a dear girl.”
“I could, if I tried.” and she looked as if she would like doing it in
the most summary style.
“Try, then. I give you leave,” returned Laurie, who enjoyed having
someone to tease, after his long abstinence from his favorite pastime.
“You’d be angry in five minutes.”
“I’m never angry with you. It takes two flints to make a fire. You are
as cool and soft as snow.”
“You don’t know what I can do. Snow produces a glow and a tingle, if
applied rightly. Your indifference is half affectation, and a good
stirring up would prove it.”
“Stir away, it won’t hurt me and it may amuse you, as the big man said
when his little wife beat him. Regard me in the light of a husband or a
carpet, and beat till you are tired, if that sort of exercise agrees
with you.”
Being decidedly nettled herself, and longing to see him shake off the
apathy that so altered him, Amy sharpened both tongue and pencil, and
began.
“Flo and I have got a new name for you. It’s Lazy Laurence. How do you
like it?”
She thought it would annoy him, but he only folded his arms under his
head, with an imperturbable, “That’s not bad. Thank you, ladies.”
“Do you want to know what I honestly think of you?”
“Pining to be told.”
“Well, I despise you.”
If she had even said ‘I hate you’ in a petulant or coquettish tone, he
would have laughed and rather liked it, but the grave, almost sad,
accent in her voice made him open his eyes, and ask quickly...
“Why, if you please?”
“Because, with every chance for being good, useful, and happy, you are
faulty, lazy, and miserable.”
“Strong language, mademoiselle.”
“If you like it, I’ll go on.”
“Pray do, it’s quite interesting.”
“I thought you’d find it so. Selfish people always like to talk about
themselves.”
“Am I selfish?” the question slipped out involuntarily and in a tone of
surprise, for the one virtue on which he prided himself was generosity.
“Yes, very selfish,” continued Amy, in a calm, cool voice, twice as
effective just then as an angry one. “I’ll show you how, for I’ve
studied you while we were frolicking, and I’m not at all satisfied with
you. Here you have been abroad nearly six months, and done nothing but
waste time and money and disappoint your friends.”
“Isn’t a fellow to have any pleasure after a four-year grind?”
“You don’t look as if you’d had much. At any rate, you are none the
better for it, as far as I can see. I said when we first met that you
had improved. Now I take it all back, for I don’t think you half so
nice as when I left you at home. You have grown abominably lazy, you
like gossip, and waste time on frivolous things, you are contented to
be petted and admired by silly people, instead of being loved and
respected by wise ones. With money, talent, position, health, and
beauty, ah you like that old Vanity! But it’s the truth, so I can’t
help saying it, with all these splendid things to use and enjoy, you
can find nothing to do but dawdle, and instead of being the man you
ought to be, you are only...” there she stopped, with a look that had
both pain and pity in it.
“Saint Laurence on a gridiron,” added Laurie, blandly finishing the
sentence. But the lecture began to take effect, for there was a
wide-awake sparkle in his eyes now and a half-angry, half-injured
expression replaced the former indifference.
“I supposed you’d take it so. You men tell us we are angels, and say we
can make you what we will, but the instant we honestly try to do you
good, you laugh at us and won’t listen, which proves how much your
flattery is worth.” Amy spoke bitterly, and turned her back on the
exasperating martyr at her feet.
In a minute a hand came down over the page, so that she could not draw,
and Laurie’s voice said, with a droll imitation of a penitent child, “I
will be good, oh, I will be good!”
But Amy did not laugh, for she was in earnest, and tapping on the
outspread hand with her pencil, said soberly, “Aren’t you ashamed of a
hand like that? It’s as soft and white as a woman’s, and looks as if it
never did anything but wear Jouvin’s best gloves and pick flowers for
ladies. You are not a dandy, thank Heaven, so I’m glad to see there are
no diamonds or big seal rings on it, only the little old one Jo gave
you so long ago. Dear soul, I wish she was here to help me!”
“So do I!”
The hand vanished as suddenly as it came, and there was energy enough
in the echo of her wish to suit even Amy. She glanced down at him with
a new thought in her mind, but he was lying with his hat half over his
face, as if for shade, and his mustache hid his mouth. She only saw his
chest rise and fall, with a long breath that might have been a sigh,
and the hand that wore the ring nestled down into the grass, as if to
hide something too precious or too tender to be spoken of. All in a
minute various hints and trifles assumed shape and significance in
Amy’s mind, and told her what her sister never had confided to her. She
remembered that Laurie never spoke voluntarily of Jo, she recalled the
shadow on his face just now, the change in his character, and the
wearing of the little old ring which was no ornament to a handsome
hand. Girls are quick to read such signs and feel their eloquence. Amy
had fancied that perhaps a love trouble was at the bottom of the
alteration, and now she was sure of it. Her keen eyes filled, and when
she spoke again, it was in a voice that could be beautifully soft and
kind when she chose to make it so.
“I know I have no right to talk so to you, Laurie, and if you weren’t
the sweetest-tempered fellow in the world, you’d be very angry with me.
But we are all so fond and proud of you, I couldn’t bear to think they
should be disappointed in you at home as I have been, though, perhaps
they would understand the change better than I do.”
“I think they would,” came from under the hat, in a grim tone, quite as
touching as a broken one.
“They ought to have told me, and not let me go blundering and scolding,
when I should have been more kind and patient than ever. I never did
like that Miss Randal and now I hate her!” said artful Amy, wishing to
be sure of her facts this time.
“Hang Miss Randal!” and Laurie knocked the hat off his face with a look
that left no doubt of his sentiments toward that young lady.
“I beg pardon, I thought...” and there she paused diplomatically.
“No, you didn’t, you knew perfectly well I never cared for anyone but
Jo,” Laurie said that in his old, impetuous tone, and turned his face
away as he spoke.
“I did think so, but as they never said anything about it, and you came
away, I supposed I was mistaken. And Jo wouldn’t be kind to you? Why, I
was sure she loved you dearly.”
“She was kind, but not in the right way, and it’s lucky for her she
didn’t love me, if I’m the good-for-nothing fellow you think me. It’s
her fault though, and you may tell her so.”
The hard, bitter look came back again as he said that, and it troubled
Amy, for she did not know what balm to apply.
“I was wrong, I didn’t know. I’m very sorry I was so cross, but I can’t
help wishing you’d bear it better, Teddy, dear.”
“Don’t, that’s her name for me!” and Laurie put up his hand with a
quick gesture to stop the words spoken in Jo’s half-kind,
half-reproachful tone. “Wait till you’ve tried it yourself,” he added
in a low voice, as he pulled up the grass by the handful.
“I’d take it manfully, and be respected if I couldn’t be loved,” said
Amy, with the decision of one who knew nothing about it.
Now, Laurie flattered himself that he had borne it remarkably well,
making no moan, asking no sympathy, and taking his trouble away to live
it down alone. Amy’s lecture put the matter in a new light, and for the
first time it did look weak and selfish to lose heart at the first
failure, and shut himself up in moody indifference. He felt as if
suddenly shaken out of a pensive dream and found it impossible to go to
sleep again. Presently he sat up and asked slowly, “Do you think Jo
would despise me as you do?”
“Yes, if she saw you now. She hates lazy people. Why don’t you do
something splendid, and make her love you?”
“I did my best, but it was no use.”
“Graduating well, you mean? That was no more than you ought to have
done, for your grandfather’s sake. It would have been shameful to fail
after spending so much time and money, when everyone knew that you
could do well.”
“I did fail, say what you will, for Jo wouldn’t love me,” began Laurie,
leaning his head on his hand in a despondent attitude.
“No, you didn’t, and you’ll say so in the end, for it did you good, and
proved that you could do something if you tried. If you’d only set
about another task of some sort, you’d soon be your hearty, happy self
again, and forget your trouble.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Try it and see. You needn’t shrug your shoulders, and think, ‘Much she
knows about such things’. I don’t pretend to be wise, but I am
observing, and I see a great deal more than you’d imagine. I’m
interested in other people’s experiences and inconsistencies, and
though I can’t explain, I remember and use them for my own benefit.
Love Jo all your days, if you choose, but don’t let it spoil you, for
it’s wicked to throw away so many good gifts because you can’t have the
one you want. There, I won’t lecture any more, for I know you’ll wake
up and be a man in spite of that hardhearted girl.”
Neither spoke for several minutes. Laurie sat turning the little ring
on his finger, and Amy put the last touches to the hasty sketch she had
been working at while she talked. Presently she put it on his knee,
merely saying, “How do you like that?”
He looked and then he smiled, as he could not well help doing, for it
was capitally done, the long, lazy figure on the grass, with listless
face, half-shut eyes, and one hand holding a cigar, from which came the
little wreath of smoke that encircled the dreamer’s head.
“How well you draw!” he said, with a genuine surprise and pleasure at
her skill, adding, with a half-laugh, “Yes, that’s me.”
“As you are. This is as you were.” and Amy laid another sketch beside
the one he held.
It was not nearly so well done, but there was a life and spirit in it
which atoned for many faults, and it recalled the past so vividly that
a sudden change swept over the young man’s face as he looked. Only a
rough sketch of Laurie taming a horse. Hat and coat were off, and every
line of the active figure, resolute face, and commanding attitude was
full of energy and meaning. The handsome brute, just subdued, stood
arching his neck under the tightly drawn rein, with one foot
impatiently pawing the ground, and ears pricked up as if listening for
the voice that had mastered him. In the ruffled mane, the rider’s
breezy hair and erect attitude, there was a suggestion of suddenly
arrested motion, of strength, courage, and youthful buoyancy that
contrasted sharply with the supine grace of the ‘_Dolce far Niente_’
sketch. Laurie said nothing but as his eye went from one to the other,
Amy saw him flush up and fold his lips together as if he read and
accepted the little lesson she had given him. That satisfied her, and
without waiting for him to speak, she said, in her sprightly way...
“Don’t you remember the day you played Rarey with Puck, and we all
looked on? Meg and Beth were frightened, but Jo clapped and pranced,
and I sat on the fence and drew you. I found that sketch in my
portfolio the other day, touched it up, and kept it to show you.”