Frank Stockton - Mrs. Cliff's Yacht

But although he did not gallop, the ardent gray seemed to travel faster after he entered the town, and Mrs. Cliff, who was getting very red in the face from her steady tugging at the reins, thought it wise not to attempt to go home, but to let her horse go straight to the hotel stables where he had lived.

When Mrs. Cliff had declared to Mr. Williams that that horse would never suit her, that she would not be willing to drive it, and would not even think of going into a house and leaving Willy Croup to hold him, he was very much surprised, and said that he had not a gentler horse in his stable, and he did not believe there was one in the town.

"All horses," said he, "want to go home, especially at dinner-time."

"But the old brown did not," urged Mrs. Cliff. "That is the sort of horse I want."

"Some very old beast might please you better," said he; "but really, Mrs. Cliff, that is not the sort of horse you should have. He would die or break down in a little while, and then you would have to get another. What you should do is to have a good horse and a driver. You might get a two-seated carriage, either open or closed, and go anywhere and everywhere, and never think of the horse."

That was not the thing she longed for; that would not bring back the happy days when she drove the brown through the verdant lanes. If she must have a driver, she might as well hire a cab and be driven about. But she told Mr. Williams to get her a suitable vehicle, and she would have Andrew Marks to drive her; and she and Willy Croup walked sadly home.

As to the cow, she succeeded better. She bought a fairly good one, and Willy undertook to milk her and to make butter.

"Now, what have I done so far?" said Mrs. Cliff, on the evening of the day when the cow came home. "I have a woman to cook, I have a new kitchen door, and I have a cow! I do not count the horse and the wagon, for if I do not drive, myself, I shall not feel that they are mine in the way that I want them to be."

Mrs. Cliff now began to try very hard to live as she ought to live, without pretensions or snobbery, but in a style becoming, in some degree, her great fortune.

There was one thing she determined to do immediately, and that was, to begin a series of hospitalities, – and it made her feel proud to think that she could do this and do it handsomely, and yet do it in the old home where everybody knew she had for years been obliged to practise the strictest economy.

She gave a dinner to which she invited her most select friends. Mr. and Mrs. Perley were there, and the Misses Thorpedyke, two maiden ladies who constituted the family of the highest social pretension of Plainton. There were other people who were richer, but Miss Eleanor Thorpedyke, now a lady of nearly seventy, and her sister Barbara, some ten years younger, belonged to the very best family in that part of the country, and were truly the aristocrats of the place.

But they had always been very friendly with Mrs. Cliff, and they were glad to come to her dinner. The other guests were all good people, and a dinner-party of more distinction could not have been collected in that town.

But this dinner did not go off altogether smoothly. If the people had come merely to eat, they must have been abundantly satisfied, for everything was of the very best and well cooked, Mrs. Cliff and Willy having seen to that; but there were certain roughnesses and hitches in the management of the dinner which disturbed Mrs. Cliff. In her travels and at the hotels where she had lived she had seen a great deal of good service, and she knew what it was.

Willy, who, being a relative, should really have come to the table, had decidedly declined to do so, and had taken upon herself the principal part of the waiting, assisted by the general servant and a small girl who had been called in. But the dining-room was very small, some of the chairs were but a little distance from the wall, and it was evident that Willy had not a true appreciation of the fact that in recent years she had grown considerably rounder and plumper than she used to be; and it made Mrs. Cliff's blood run cold to see how she bumped the back of Mr. Perley's chair, as she thrust herself between it and the wall.

The small girl had to be told almost everything that she must do, and the general servant, who did not like to wait on table, only came in when she was called and left immediately when she had done what she had been called for.

When the guests had gone, Mrs. Cliff declared to Willy that that was the last large dinner she would give in that house. "It was not a dinner which a woman of my means should offer to her friends." Willy was amazed.

"I don't see how it could have been better," said she, "unless you had champagne, and I know Mr. Perley wouldn't have liked that. Everything on the table was just as good as it could be."

But Mrs. Cliff shook her head. She knew that she had attempted something for which her present resources were insufficient. After this she invited people to dinner once or twice a week, but the company was always very small and suited to the resources of the house.

"I will go on this way for a while," thought the good lady, "and after a time I will begin to spread out and do things in a different style."

Several times she drove over to Harrington, a large town some five miles away, which contained a furniture factory, and there she purchased many articles which would be suitable for the house, always securing the best things for her purposes, but frequently regretting that certain beautiful and imposing pieces of furniture were entirely unsuited to the capacity of her rooms and hallways. But when her dining-room should be finished, and the room above it, she would have better opportunity of gratifying her taste for handsome wood in imposing designs. Then it might be that Harrington would not be able to give her anything good enough.

Her daily mail was now much larger than it ever had been before. Business people sent her cards and circulars, and every now and then she received letters calling her attention to charities or pressing personal needs of the writers, but there were not very many of these; for although it was generally known that Mrs. Cliff had come into a fortune, her manner of living seemed also a matter of public knowledge. Even the begging letters were couched in very moderate terms; but all these Mrs. Cliff took to Mr. Perley, and, by his advice, she paid attention to but very few of them.

Day by day Mrs. Cliff endeavored to so shape and direct her fortunes that they might make her happy in the only ways in which she could be happy, but her efforts to do so did not always gain for her the approval of her fellow townspeople. There were some who thought that a woman who professed to have command of money should do a good many things which Mrs. Cliff did not do, and there were others who did not hesitate to assert that a woman who lived as Mrs. Cliff should not do a great many things which she did do, among which things some people included the keeping of a horse and carriage. It was conceded, of course, that all this was Mrs. Cliff's own business. She had paid the money she had borrowed to go to South America; she had been very kind to some of the poor people of the town, and it was thought by some had been foolishly munificent to old Mrs. Bradley, who, from being a very poor person threatened with the loss of her home, was now an independent householder, and enjoyed an annuity sufficient to support her.

More than that, Mrs. Cliff had been very generous in regard to the church music. It was not known exactly how much she had given towards this object, but there were those who said that she must have given her means a considerable strain when she made her contribution. That is, if the things were to be done which Mr. Perley talked about.