“Ah,” she said, pouring me a dinky little cup of tea, “we were so concerned that you would not get back to us in time from your scientific expedition.”
I was aching to see my niece and what further refinements she had acquired over the winter, but figured I had ought to play along with Miss Elizabeth Wamsley, especially when sitting in the parlor of her Academy for Young Ladies, with a potted plant sticking its leaves into my ear and a crocheted doily under both arms and another back of my head to catch the bear grease.
“I trust,” Miss Wamsley said, “that you collected many rare fossils for deposit in our Eastern museums.”
You can see what little Amelia’s version of my buffalo hunting must have been.
“You must tell me about it,” Miss W. went on. “But first, I do think we should dispose of certain matters which, though crass, are pressing. Indeed,” she said, showing her long front teeth in a supposed smile, “aren’t they usually one and the same? … Now of course you understand, dear Mr. Crabb, that when a student withdraws after completing more than two weeks of a given term, no refund of fees is granted.”
I swallowed all my tea in one gulp, so that it wouldn’t make too much of a mess in case I dropped the cup and saucer.
“Amelia has run off,” I says, and my heart turned to bone.
Miss Elizabeth Wamsley give a high titter that sounded like somebody was ripping a silk shawl.
“Not in the least, my dear Mr. Crabb! Our dear Amelia is to be married. We had no earlier means of apprising you, no telegraph or postal address by which one could reach your far-flung desert and mesa.”
“Who to?” I asks. I reckon if I had been elsewhere than that stuffy parlor with its stink of dried flowers, I should have followed up the query with a fervent threat to kill him. I had just naturally assumed that anybody who might want to marry Amelia, or say he did, would be some low-life skunk. You see, in spite of my frequent mention of how much class she had developed, in the bottom of my mind was the memory of pulling her from the gutter, and a conviction that if left to her own devices she would return there.
Miss Wamsley says: “Modest as we habitually are here, Mr. Crabb, I do think that in this case we might be permitted to suggest our satisfaction at Amelia’s engagement. Wamsley Academy alumnae are mistresses of some of the finest houses in our Nation, and
“Who to?” I asks again, for I didn’t realize she was delaying so as to build up the effect, rather than soften the blow.
I swear to you she then mentions the name of a state senator, and says it was his son, a young lawyer in K.C., who Miss Wamsley had hired to represent the Academy in a matter of nonpayment of tuition—here she give me a meaningful look—in the course of which business he come to the school, saw Amelia, and “his heart was pierced by Cupid’s bolt,” according to my informant. The courtship took place over the winter, and the marriage was set for May. That was why Miss Wamsley was a-worried about the fees: her semester run to June. The money I had laid down the last fall covered only the first term. So far in ’72 Miss W. had carried Amelia on credit, though of course she knowed a celebrated explorer like myself was good for it.
I paid her forthwith a handsome sum. I was ashamed of my quick and erroneous judgment on Amelia, but the rapid rise of that little gal made me dizzy. A respectable marriage was what I had dreamed of for her, but coming this soon had caught me unawares.
The old crow cleared out soon as she got her cash, and sent for Amelia, who was taking her needlework class or some such. My niece give me a kiss upon the cheek and I was sure relieved I had had it shaved just prior. For if anybody come close to the gentility of Mrs. Pendrake, it was her. And mind you, Miss Wamsley had them Academy girls dress right severe in dark-colored clothing and covered from chin to ankle, without paint or powder or jewelry, and most of the students I seen didn’t have no more distinction than a flock of sparrows. They was drab. Not Amelia. In the same circumstances, she looked exactly supreme.
She set beside me on the sofa, with her hands in her lap and her chin at a graceful angle, and said: “I trust your trip was gratifying.”
“Miss Wamsley,” said I, “has told me you was getting married.” A little spark come into her eye, and I quick added: “I don’t have no objection.” Then I said: “I reckon you are in love.”
Amelia first looks proudly down her nose, and then she suddenly goes into a knowing expression: not tough or cynical, but simply realistic.
Putting aside her formerly lofty tone, she says: “You never really believed I was your niece by blood? Because if you did, I would honestly feel awful.”
