Various - Belford's Magazine, Volume II, No. 8, January, 1889

Of the invisible members of “the Colonel’s” household, fleecy rumors only pervaded society at intervals. The social Stanleys and Livingstons who had essayed the sources of the Wood family stream in its dark continent of brown-faced brick, on a quiet avenue, sent back vague stories of a lovely and patient invalid, and a more lovely and equally patient young girl, mother and sister to Miss Rose. There was a misty legend sometimes floating around the clubs, that “the Colonel,” after the method of Cleopatra, had dissolved his wife’s fortune in a posset, and swallowed it years before. But again the reputation of a dead shot cramped curiosity.

And a similar mist sometimes pervaded five o’clock teas and reunions chez la modiste , to the effect that the younger sister was but as a Midianite to the elder, while the mother was dying of neglect. But as neither subject of this gossip was in society, the mist never condensed into direction.

Society found Miss Rose Wood a peculiarly useful and pleasant person; and it took her – as “the Colonel” took many of his pleasures – on trust.

The ball was a crowded one; but was, perhaps, the most brilliant and select of that season, combining a Christmas-eve festivity with the début party of the acknowledged beauty and prize-heiress of the entire set.

Blanche Allmand had been finally finishing abroad for some years, after having won her blue-ribboned diploma from Mde. de Cancanière, on Murray Hill. Rumors of her perfections of face and form and character had come across the seas, in those thousand-and-one letters, for which a fostering government makes postal unions. And ever mingled with these rumors, came praises of those thousand-and-one accomplishments, which society is equally apt to admire as to envy, even while it does not appreciate.

But what most inspired with noble ambition the gilded youth of that particular coterie , was the universally accepted fact that old Jack Allmand was master of the warmest fortune that any papa thereabouts might add to the blessing he bestowed upon his son-in-law.

And, like Jeptha of old, he “had one fair daughter and no more.” A widower – not only “warm,” but very safe – he had weathered all the shoals and quicksands of “the street,” and had brought his golden argosy safe into the port of investment. Then he had retired from business, which theretofore had engrossed his whole heart and soul, and lavished both upon the fair young girl, to bring whom from final finishing at the Sacre Cœur , he had just made himself so hideously sea-sick.

It was very late in the season when the delayed return of the pair was announced, with numerous adjectives, in the society columns; but Mr. Allmand’s impatience to expose his golden fleece to the expectant Jasons would brook no delay. Blanche was allowed scarcely time to unpack her many trunks; to exhibit her goodly share of the chefs d’œuvres of Pengat and Worth to the admiring elect; and to receive gushing embraces, only measured by their envy, when the début ball was announced for Christmas-eve.

His best Christmas gift had come to the doting father; and what more fitting season to show his joy and pride in it, and to have their little world share both?

When Blanche, backed by Miss Rose Wood, had hinted that it was rather an unusual occasion, he had promptly settled that by declaring that she was a peculiarly unusual sort of girl. So the invitations went forth; the Allmand mansion was first turned inside out, and then illuminated, and flower-hidden for the début ball.

That it would be the affair of the season none doubted. Already, many a paternal pocket had twinged responsive to extra appeals from marketable daughters; and as to beaux, they had responded nem. con. , when bidden to the event promising so much in present feast, and which might possibly so tend to prevent future famine. For already the clubs had discounted the chances of one favorite or another for winning the marital prize of the year.

Foremost among those who had hastened to welcome Blanche back to her new home was Miss Rose Wood. She had the mysterious knack of “coming out” gracefully with every fresh set; of perfectly adapting herself to its fads, and especially to its beaux. Set might come and set might go, but she came out forever; and some nameless tact implied to every débutante , what Micawber forced upon Copperfield with the brutality of words, that she was the “friend of her youth.”

So, already, Miss Wood was prime favorite and prime minister at the home-court of the confiding Blanche, who, spite of brave heart and strong will of her own, fluttered not unnaturally in the unwonted buzz and glare of her new life. But most particularly had Rose Wood warned her against the flirts and “unsafe men” of their set; including, of course, Vanderbilt Morris and her present partner of the ball in the ranks of both.

That partner, Andrew Browne, was avowedly the best parti of the entire set. Handsome, fun-loving, and well-cultivated, he was that rara avis among society beaux, a thorough gentlemen by instinct; but he was lazily given to self-indulgence, and had the prime weakness of being utterly incapable of saying “no,” to man or woman. The intimate friend and room-mate of Van Morris for many years, Browne had never lost a sort of reverence for the superior force and decision of the other’s character; and, though but a few years his junior, in all serious social matters he literally sat at his feet.

And Morris had always grown restive when Miss Rose Wood made one of her “dead sets” at Andy’s face and fortune; for a far-away experience of his own, in that quarter, had taught him how small an objection to that maiden would be a fortune with the man whom she blessed with her affection.

“And that brand of the wine of the heart,” he had once cautioned Andy, “does not improve with age.”

Doubtful of that young gentleman’s confident response, that “ he was not to be caught with chaff,” Van still kept watch and ward. So, leaving the elegant book-room of the elegant avenue mansion – converted, for the nonce, into an elegant bar-room for Mr. Trotter Upton and his friends – Morris sauntered through knots of pretty women and of pretty vacuous-looking men, resting on seats half-hidden in potted plants, and approached the pair interesting him most.

Neither glowed with delight at his advent, although Andy seemed only to be rattling off common-places, in peculiarly voluble style. Morris asked for the next waltz; Miss Wood glanced shyly up at her companion, dropped her eyes demurely, and believed she would rest until the cotillon . Then, after a few more small necessaries of social life about the beauty of the girls, the heat of the rooms, and the elegance of the flowers, she permitted Andy to drift easily towards the door that opened on the dim-lit coolness of the conservatory.

As they turned away, Rose Wood sent one sharp glance of her gray eyes glinting into Morris’s; then hers fell, and even he could find only bare common-place in her words:

“So many little dangers, you know, Mr. Morris – at a ball. One cannot be too prudent.”

He did not answer; but the look that followed her graceful figure had very little of flattery in it.

“Curse that Chambertin !” he muttered in his moustache. “I warned him against the second pint at dinner. Andy couldn’t be fool enough, though,” he added, with a shrug, and moved slowly towards the dancing-room.

The critical group, still around the big punch-bowl, looked after him curiously.

“ He’s not soft on the old girl, is he?” queried Mr. de Silva Street.