Chapter IV--What Mary Elinor told Me
Thenext morning I got up quite early, and Mrs. Crane, who did too, helped me to assemble my things. She loaned me a suitcase for the bridge jackets and my pin-cushions (which wouldnotgo in the trunk!), and then, taking a few of the best flowers from each bouquet, made them into a small one, which she pinned on me with a lovely little gold-headed pin, which she called a “violet pin.” And all the time we worked together she talked most comfortingly.
“If everything seems right different at first, dear,” she said, as she folded up my nightie and bath-robe, “don’t worry. . . . Things have a way of smoothing out, you know. And you’ll accommodate yourself. I suppose you’re used to being outdoors?”
I responded that I was.
“Then,” she said, and very cheerfully, “think of the walks you can take in New York! The things you can see! The most beautiful buildings, and parks, and dear knows what all, honey! Why, you’ll have a beautiful time!”
“I sort of hope,” I confided, “that I can get to one of the big league games.” It was hard for me to speak of it, because I did so want to go, and I was afraid it wouldn’t be suitable or something. For, almost invariably, things that are pleasant are not proper to do. I’ve always noticed it.
But Mrs. Crane thought my uncle would take me if I told him how much I cared about going.
“Doyou?” I said, and ever so earnestly, for it meant a great deal to me.
“I don’t see how he could help it,” she answered; and then, after kissing me, she told me to hurry on with my dressing and come down to breakfast. And I did. As I did my hair (which was, at that time, a very simple operation, and involved three licks of the comb and one rubber strap), I thought of Mrs. Crane, and I did wish I could stay with her, for I began to see that my clothes did look strange, and I knew that she would help me to fix them without laughing at me or them. Bradly-dear had had them made so that I was too aware of them, and so that no one else could overlook them. It is hard to explain, but the trimmings and the dresses didn’tmix, and the braid drew attention to the dresses, and the dresses drew attention to the braid, which was not all moored on the level. I anchored a good deal of it myself, and I can tell you that it is far easier to pitch against a left-handed batter than to put on a yard of serpentine braid, beside being a great deal more interesting.
Just as I had got my dress on and was trying to hook it under the arm, someone tapped, and after my “Come in,” I found it was Mary Elinor. “Bill’s home,” she said first. “He just got in. He’s glad he’s going to meet you. He likes baseball too. I have something to tell you, but I don’t just know how. It is a delicate thing to say and requires womanly tact, of which I have not much, since father whips us if we tell fibs. That kind of an upbringing is an awful handicap.”
She sat down after this, and began to plait her handkerchief.
“If you feel as if you ought to say it,” I said, “go to it. I won’t mind.” And she did.
“It’s about the bracelet,” she said. “Mother doesn’t believe in such things, but Aunt Eliza (she’s our cook) knowsallabout them, andshesays that probably the ghost of the first owner has put a ‘hant’ on it. . . .”
“I don’t believe in such stuff,” I answered. “You know how niggers are.”
“I know,” Mary Elinor answered, “but--well, look here, your ownmotherthought so.”
“Thought what?” I asked, and quickly. I was getting excited, and I wanted her to come to the point.
“Thought Madam Jumel didn’t want anyone to wear her bracelet, and made them unhappy--in some queer way--if they did.Everyone who wears that bracelet has awful things happen to ’em!”
“What?” I asked. I sat down on the foot of the bed.
“Well, mother said your mother said that because she wore it the first time your father kissed her, he died with pneumonia before he’d ever seen you. She saidthatmade it.”
“I don’t believe it,” I asserted. I was annoyed. It didn’t sound like Mrs. Crane. Mary Elinor bridled, and her eyes snapped.
“Thendon’t,” she said. “I only thought someoneoughtto tell you, before something frightful happened toyou. And I don’t lie, Miss Natalie Page. You can ask my father, because he taught me not to and----”
“I know you don’t,” I answered, “and I’m sorry I said that.” And then I decided I’d better hear the story. Beside, I wanted to. So I told her to tell me all about what she knew of it, and she did.
It seems they have a room which they call “the winter room,” and this contains a cosy little alcove, lighted by a high window, which is remote and an ideal reading spot. And one day after Mrs. Crane got Uncle Frank’s letter, the letter about my coming, Mary Elinor happened to be there, reading. It was a book she had read before, and of course she knew what happened next, and so she wasn’t especially interested, and what her mother and father said sort of floated in her consciousness and rooted, she said, before she realized that she was listening. Then, since they hadn’t known she was there, she decided not to enlighten them. She knew that they would be shocked by her presence, and she assured me that she always tried to be considerate. And, she reasoned further, that since she had heard so much, almost involuntarily, there was no use stuffing up her ears, and beside, she was interested.
Itwasinteresting, but I didn’t believe it--then.
“Ted,” Mrs. Crane had said (Doctor Crane’s first name is Theodore), “I want to give Natalie Page that bracelet, but--you know poor Nelly’s foolish fear of it bothers me.”
“Nonsense!” Doctor Crane answered, and Mary Elinor said she knew he was smoking, by the tight way he spoke.
“I suppose it is,” Mrs. Crane said, “isn’t it?”
“Why, of course it is. . . . Nothing the matter with that bracelet. My dear, how could it affect anything? . . . And as for poor Carter Page’s pneumonia” (Carter Page was my father, and he was an Admiral in the Navy), “he went off with that because of a severe climatic change, a bad sailing, and a weak heart. And of course Nelly was upset both physically and mentally by that.”
“But before,” said Mrs. Crane. “You know her little sister--the one who was killed in that Carrol County Hunt--thrown from a horse--well, she’dborrowed this bracelet and wore it that day.”
“My dear,” said Doctor Crane, “that’s simply coincidence. And it certainly proves nothing. . . . I think Nelly’s daughter ought to have it, because of its historic value, and I wouldn’t be bothered for a second by those imaginings.”
Then Mary Elinor heard him scratch a match and relight his pipe. She said that it was really interesting the way she could tell what was going on without seeing it. It was like movies for the blind.
“Suppose,” said Mrs. Crane, “there is something in that sort of thing (although, of course, there isn’t) and I did give this child something that would----”
Then Doctor Crane asked if she needed a tonic, which is his way of saying that people are cross, or crazy, or nervous.
Mrs. Crane laughed.
“Ted,” she said, “I know Iamcrazy, but when I remember it----” And then Mary Elinor said her voice became soft as she told this story. . . . I had heard it, but never told this way. And here it is:
I was born while my father was cruising the Pacific. Each day he had hoped to be able to come home, but orders were against him and, like all sailors, he had to abide by those and not by the dictates of his heart. And so--I grew for three months, and then one day my mother heard that father was to come home and would probably be in port within three or four weeks. Mrs. Crane’s description of that was lovely. And she could describe it, for my mother then lived in the Green Spring Valley with grandpapa, and Mrs. Crane went there often, taking Alix, Barbara, and William. Mary Elinorwasn’t, at that time.
“Excitement, Ted!” said Mrs. Crane. “I wish you might have seen it. . . . But you remember how I told of it----”
“A little.”
“Well, Nelly was the happiest little person I’ve ever seen, and simply delighted over the beautiful baby she had waiting to show her husband. Each day little Natalie (who really was a sweet child) was dressed in her best and ready for display. For Nelly couldn’t realize that three weeks at least must elapse before her big husband could come home to her. And she herself, pretty as ever, would wail: ‘Dear,doyou think I’m as pretty as I was? Carter always thought me pretty, you know. . . .Doyou?’ And then, quickly: ‘But if he doesn’t there’s the baby--and sheisa beauty!’ . . .”
“Always was a coquette,” said Doctor Crane.
“Yes,” admitted Mrs. Crane. “Nelly knew her husband was wild about her. They really loved each other too much--the other would have been easier if they had been a bit closer to normal caring----”
And then came what I have always known, and been saddened by. For my poor little mother, after getting me all ready for my daddy, and herself all ready for him, too--both of us in our prettiest things--had a wire. And in this she heard that he was dead. And when she heard that she took off the bracelet (I did not know this part of the story) and flung it far from her. And then she fainted. And she never cried at all. Which I can understand.
Well, a few months went on, and, although they said I cared a great deal for her, she didn’t seem to care for anything--even me. And quite naturally, she began to be ill. I suppose that there was nothing left for which life was worth the living. . . . A big mammy took care of me, and my grandpapa loved me a lot, but I am sure, even then, that I wanted my mother most. . . . One day, perhaps six or eight months after my father’s death, my mother asked for the Jumel bracelet. And when they brought it to her (with a dent in the side, which had come from her throwing it) she smiled. . . . “I’m going to take it to its jealous owner, Chloe,” she said to my mammy. . . . “Or at least--I will take it where no one else can wear it--and where Madam Jumel will not mind its being worn.” And then again she smiled.
And when she died she had it on her arm, and of course she had meant that she was to be buried in it. But Chloe, my mammy, would not have that. She did not believe in carrying unhappiness to the other world, and, like a great many of her race, believed that you could take things with you--if they went in your coffin. Which is, of course, silly. For all you really take is love, and the whitest part of your soul. I am sure all jealousies, and hurts and little things stay here, and I like to believe so. . . . But to get on, old Chloe told my grandfather, and he, a broken-hearted old man, took it off. And then he kissed my mother’s arm, at the spot where the bracelet had made a mark, and he said: “It’s all right now, my little girl,isn’tit? It’s all right now!” For he hoped she was very happy. And then he went off and sat down on the porch, his head sagging down on his chest and in his hands the Jumel bracelet. . . .
There were three years which followed, three years in which nothing happened. And then, my grandfather began to lose money. I remember that time, although I was only three and a half. I remember his holding me very tight and pressing his face against my chest; and I remember that I always hugged him and said, “Granddad--dear,” for Chloe, who taught me everything, had said: “Your granddaddy done gotta have a lotta love, honey chile. He done gotta, for he’s lost a lotta love--a powerful lot! . . . .” For two of his daughters and his wife had all gone--within eight years.
And I did love him.
I remember also how, when they brought him in, bleeding, and with his eyes wide open but sightless, how I felt, how I screamed, and how even Chloe could not stop me. . . . Little by little he had lost money. And the small sums had worried him, and he had tried to catch them back with the big ones. And somehow, after a little time of this--there were no big ones. And then--one day in hunting season they found my dear grandfather by a stile, where they thought he had fallen and accidentally discharged his gun, which is, of course, possible. Anyway--he had evidently lain there for a good many hours, and he had bled to death.
And they found the Jumel bracelet in his pocket--flattened and bent. Looking as if someone had stepped on it, ground it into the earth, and--believed the story!
Chloe took charge of it, and Mrs. Crane saw it when she came out to take charge of me until I should go to Uncle Frank’s. And Mrs. Crane took the bracelet, because she thought no one of our family would want to see it, since even Uncle Frank seemed to believe in the ill omens it carried. She had it straightened and made whole again, and sometimes wore it; but not often, since she cared deeply for my mother, and the memories it gave her hurt. And so the bracelet was kept until I got it.
Doctor Crane asked about Aunt Penelope, and how she would feel about it, but Mrs. Crane said she had never believed a word of the tale. She was my mother’s much older half-sister--my grandfather first married a Northern woman, and after she died my mother’s mother.
“It won’t bother Penelope,” said Mrs. Crane. And she laughed. And then, Mary Elinor said, she added: “I wonder how Natalie will get on there, Ted? I imagine that there is a good deal of worldliness and thought of form. I do hope it will be all right, for if she is like her mother she is a dear!”
Chapter V--New York and My New Home
I hada very happy time with the Cranes, and, although Mary Elinor’s story upset me a little (in spite of my then not believing it), I was cheered by the time I left, and entirely myself.
Mrs. Crane told me to go play ball with William, after breakfast. She said I was foolish to drop it entirely and that she knew Mrs. Bradly would want me to play if she realized what good exercise it was. And Doctor Crane said he would write her. So I played, and after William let go of two hot ones and said “Ouch!” before he could suppress it, I felt better.
Doctor Crane rooted--for me, and it was all very happy. And Ididso want to stay! He and Mary Elinor sat on grapefruit crates and yelled; Mrs. Crane came to the door now and again; Lucky, the awfully black little nigger, climbed up on the laundry roof, and every once in a while old Aunt Eliza would look out the window and laugh so that she shook all over.
“Doan that beatall?” she’d say. “An’ Mistah William droppin’ them balls!” And then she’d laugh again, and William did too, although he couldn’t have enjoyed having me come out on top. But they are all that way. They really don’t mind discomfort, if other people are happy, they are so kind!
We scored by making each other drop and miss balls, but of course the aim had to be square. The method was the thing. And just as Doctor Crane was yelling, “Goodgrounder, Nat! Now sock him with a warm baby!” Mrs. Crane opened the door and said: “Ted, you’ve got to start. . . . It’s almost half-past. . . .” And I had to put on my hat. I hated to. I just wish I could have stayed there and had my education applied!
They all went to the station with me except Mrs. Crane, and Mary Elinor bought me a little box of mints, and William gave me a glass baseball bat filled with tiny candies, for a joke. Then Doctor Crane bought me several magazines, some of which werefullof baseball stories, talked to the porter about me (Doctor Crane somehow got through the gates), and I was off.
And all the way to New York I was cheered by the way the Cranes had said good-bye to me. Mrs. Crane was lovely and, with Mary Elinor, made me promise to come again; and Doctor Crane wrote down just what I was to do if I wasn’t met, beside being awfully good to me, and William said Icouldplay ball.
I thought about them a lot; about my new bracelet, and about New York.
I had dinner on the train, which in the North they call lunch, and got on very well. It wasn’t difficult, because you wrote down what you wanted, and I knew exactly what that was. I ordered lobster, which I had never tasted, ice-cream, cake, a cream puff, and chocolate with whipped cream on top of it. A gentleman who sat opposite me gasped and said: “Oh,my!” Then he asked me if I was tired of life. He seemed impressed with my order, but I don’t know why. He got zwiebach (he told me what it was) and soft-boiled eggs and milk. And after he finished lunch he offered me some pepsin tablets. He took several, but I refused. And he said perhaps I was wise, for, he said, he didn’t know what one little tablet could do against that line-up. Then he asked me if there were any ostriches among my ancestors. He was selling automobile tyres, and called the waiter George, and seemed to know him very well. And he told me all about his indigestion, as his eyes roved over my order. “As for eating a mess likethat----” he said, and then ended with, “Oh, my----” but I cannot quote him entirely, for it was terrible. It is that word which goes in church, but which becomes swearing when a man says it in talking to the umpire. I suppose this man was in pain. . . . After that we talked of baseball, and he knew Hans Wagner and had known him since the beginning of his career, when he played in the Oil League in Western Pennsylvania.
Of course I was interested. I lingered over my cream puff, ice-cream, and cake, and he lingered over his milk. He said he’d look me up in New York, and I was awfully grateful, and I said I was sure my aunt would love to have him come to supper. To which he replied, “Me for it, kid,” which sounded a little queer to me, even then. I did not know, at that time, that you are not supposed to talk to people to whom you have not been presented, or who have not been presented to you. I learned that later. But that belongs in another part of this story.
We reached New York when it was just growing dark, and never in all my life will I forget the look of it, the dazzling lit-Christmas-trees look of the tall, bright buildings, and the hurrying, bright-faced crowds. Everyone seemed in a hurry, and some people actually ran, and especially as they crossed Fifth Avenue, where we drove for some distance.
My uncle’s chauffeur met me, and he did not seem very sociable (I had not learned that you mustn’t talk to them, at that time), and after I asked him how he was and whether my aunt and uncle were well and whether they had had summer colds or hay fever, which is the way we start acquaintance in Queensburg, I stopped talking and looked. And I never saw so much to see before. It is wonderful. It took all my dreams of fairyland and made them look like a miffed ball. I looked up, and began to see why they picture the Reuben type with their mouths ajar. It is natural to let your chin droop from surprise.
“Are we almost there?” I asked, after we’d gone about a million blocks.
Jackson replied, “Not yet, miss,” and stared straight ahead.
And I said: “Well,isn’tthis a long way!”
And he said: “Yes, miss.”
After that I did some more looking. . . . The dusk had fallen, and it made a lovely haze around the tops of the buildings, and looking down the side streets one could see only millions of motor head-lights, and nothing but those. And the women were so beautifully dressed! Some of them, in the passing motors, leaned way back and looked tired, but beautifully so. . . . Not as the women do around Queensburg. When they are tired they wear calico wrappers, and their backs get stooped, and usually there is a baby clinging to their skirts. . . . But here it is different. I can’t say why. The women’s eyes are narrowed as if theywantedto look tired. And they are so pretty. “Jackson,” I said, “I never saw such beautiful complexions”--no, I said, “Mr. Jackson,” then. And he said: “Yes, miss.”
Well, after a great way of this we reached a quieter section, and here, in front of a very tall, brownstone building, Jackson alighted, and I followed. A girl, whom I knew to be Evelyn, came out of a doorway, and said, “Why, what made you ride up with Jackson?” and then she turned her cheek for my kiss. And I can’t yet understand what there was about that which made me feel so hollow and cold inside.
Then she said: “Come in, and we’ll go up. I don’t think mother’s in, but she will be soon. . . . I hope your trip was pleasant?”
I replied that it was. But I don’t think she heard what I said, for we had stepped in an elevator and she was busy smiling at a man who leaned on a heavy cane.
“Charming day, Mr. Kempwood,” she said. “You’ve been motoring?”
He said he had.
“I have too, a bit,” said Evelyn, “but I was kept in most of this afternoon by a wild bout of auction. And--I took the prize!” She showed it to him. It was a beautiful thing, a little enamelled box on a gold chain, and in it was a powder-puff, pink powder, and a place for coins. Even I was impressed with it, and at that time I knew little beside what the proper balance of a bat should be. I began to feel worse and to swallow hard. The man looked at me in a quizzical way, his eyes narrowed, and little wrinkles showing at the corners of them. Then he said good-night and got off.
“Mr. Samuel Kempwood,” said Evelyn, as we went on (she said this in a low tone so that the elevator man shouldn’t hear), “has the apartment on the third floor.Wonderfulcollection of ivories, and is the mostthrillinglyromantic person. . . . Ah, here we are!” And then we stepped out.
Well, I don’t know what I had expected, but I know I had not expected a flat, I mean apartment, like this. It is wonderful. In the first place, it takes up the whole floor of that great big building, and doesn’t seem at all crowded. I had expected folding beds and having to put your hat on the piano and eat off a card-table, but it isn’t that way.
When we got off we stepped into a little outer hall, and Evelyn rang. Then a maid opened the door, and we went in without speaking to her. After she took Evelyn’s furs, Evelyn said: “Is my mother in, Jane?”
And the maid answered with: “Not yet, Miss Evelyn.”
After that Evelyn said, “You had your dinner on the train?” and I said I had. She didn’t say anything about supper, and of course I didn’t understand at that time. But I began to feel frightfully hollow under my belt. I stood this a little while, and at last I said: “Could I have a cup of tea? I don’t like to make any trouble--but----”
“Tea?” she echoed, and raised her eyebrows as if she were ever so surprised, and then added: “Of course.”
And she rang a bell. “I didn’t get any supper,” I explained, “because I thought you’d be waiting it here for me.”
“I thought you meant you’d had your evening meal,” she said quickly. “It is called dinner here. You will avoid confusion if you remember that. Jane, please see that some dinner is put on for Miss Natalie. She has not dined.” Jane bowed and left, and I began to feel even more hollow, and this time it was my heart that felt that way too. Evelyn moved around humming. She had been reading a great deal of mail and casually commenting on it as she read, like this: “Tuesday. . . . Um, I don’t--know. . . . And does Mrs. Stanwood think I would acceptherinvitation? . . .” And then she would hum something else. She shakes her voice a great deal when she sings. She forgot me even more than she had, and I did feel so alone.
When Jane at last came back, Evelyn looked up and spoke. “Really,” she said, “you must excuse me. . . . I didn’t mean to neglect you, but I had to get through my mail; you know how it is, of course. . . . Do you want to brush up before you eat? Frightful of me to forget to ask you.”
I said all I wanted was to eat, and then Jane said, “This way, please,” and I followed, sort of tiptoeing because everything seemed so very grand, and it all made me seem even shabbier than I was.
The dining-room is all panelled in some sort of dark wood, and has beautifully upholstered dark furniture in it. Silver gleamed from a long sideboard, which hasn’t one mirror in it (they all have mirrors on them in Queensburg), and a Jap served things. I liked him; he smiled at me.
There were roses and lilies of the valley in a great silver bowl which stood in the centre of the table, and I liked those better than anything. And when I looked at them my eyes filled. And I guess the Jap man saw it, for he took out a rose and several sprays of lilies of the valley and laid them by my place and said, “Like flowers. . . . Always pretty,” and I said: “CanI really have them?” And he smiled at me again.
And then he got food, and gave me the right fork, after I had used up the wrong one on the wrong thing to eat it with, which is mixed, but as I said, gym. work is where I do well.
After I had got through, and the Jap had given me a bowl of water with a flower floating in it (it confused me then) and was asking me whether I wanted coffee here or in the drawing-room, Amy, my cousin who is nearest my age, came in.
“Mydear,” she said, “I simply hated not being here to receive you, but it was my dancing-class afternoon, and afterward I went to dinner with a friend. I couldn’t in decency refuse her. I hope your trip was pleasant? . . . Do let us go in where we can talk comfortably. . . . (Ito, coffee in the drawing-room, please.) Mother isn’t in, is she? . . . Poor mother, so rushed! . . . But everyone is. We love having you, Natalie!” And then she slid her arm through mine and squeezed my hand. And I loved her from that minute on. For--although we are very different, and she sometimes seems affected to me, she is kind. And you can overlook anything if people are that.
Evelyn is not. When you humiliate her, she hurts you to pay it back. I know that. . . . After the first half-hour of Evelyn, I learned my first big lesson from New York. And that wasn’t calling dinner supper; it was that kindness and making other people feel happy is the most important thing in life, and the thing that counts most truly and deeply. I try hard not to err in this now, for I know how it feels to have people do it.
When we reached the drawing-room, we found Evelyn had left. She is twenty-one and “out,” and she goes to parties a great deal. Amy sat talking about her and her beaux (she didn’t call them that), and her engagements, and I sat trying to look as if I cared a great deal about what Amy said, but thinking of Uncle Frank, Bradly-dear, and of Willy Jepson. That night I was quite sure that Willy Jepson would have a wife before he was eighteen! But he didn’t. However, that comes later.
At about ten Amy asked whether I’d like to go to bed, and I admitted that I was tired, and so she showed me to the most beautiful little room near hers, with a bathroom which she and Evelyn and I were to use.
“Absurd little room we had to give you, dear,” she said, “but I suppose you can make out. If you need anything, the button is by the door, and the electrics turn on here. Anything I can get you?”
I thanked her and said no, and then she wished me happy dreams and left.
Alone--I looked around. It was the most beautiful bedroom I had ever seen, but that did not help me. There was a dressing-table with three mirrors to it, and long mirrors in all the doors. There was a table by the bed, with a telephone on it, under a little lady’s fluffy skirts. And there was a light on this table too, with a pink shade from which roses artistically drooped. There were books by this, and a flashlight. . . . I never dreamed then that I would use that flashlight as I did later. . . . The walls were of brocade, in a rose shade, and the furniture was gray, with baskets of roses painted on it. And there was a sort of a lounge on which you could sit up, but lie down, if you understand, and deep, cretonne-covered chairs. When you opened the cupboard door the cupboard lit up, and there were hangers inside, and it was scented. I went around touching things very timidly and looking. And, as I said before, it was the most beautiful bedroom I ever saw, and at that time frankly awed me; but--it showed how littlethingscount. For I wanted my own, bare-floored little bedroom with no decoration except two fish-nets and a mounted eagle, and which held nothing but a straight-backed chair, a bed, and a bureau with a wavery mirror. . . . I wanted it terribly. . . . I wanted to hear Uncle Frank “Ho hum” and to have Mrs. Bradly scold me, when all the time she was loving me--inside. I wanted to hear Willy Jepson whistle and yell: “Come on, Nat! Let’s go fishing!” I wantedhome!
But I swallowed hard and began to unpack. When I found the china cat I held him awfully close between my hands, and then--when I found the bug that stays in the ground three years, I stood up.
“I’ve got to,” I said unsteadily, “for Uncle Frank and my mother. I’ve got to--and--I will!”
And then I set those things on the bureau and began to undress. I looked at them a lot as I did. And after I was ready for bed I said my prayers awfully hard, the way you do when things go wrong and it is nice to remember that there is someone who will do His best to right fouls, if you need it. And then I turned off the lights and got in bed. I couldn’t sleep. So after quite a while I got up and fumbled around to find the Jumel bracelet, Bradly-dear’s cat, and the bug. And I put them all on the table by my bed, and then, after I’d touched them now and again, I slipped into dreams.
And I dreamed that Uncle Frank said: “Ho hum, ho hum! She’s a pretty nice little bug!”
Chapter VI--The Second Bracelet
Thewhole mystery really began the next afternoon. But I must begin by telling of what happened in the morning. I got up and met my aunt. She sent for me, and I went to her room, where she, dressed in a beautiful négligé, was eating her breakfast.
She looked a little tired and white, but she didn’t let herself seem so when she talked.
“My dear child,” she said, “we are so happy to have you here. Sit down--not there, dear; that’s a frock I’ve had sent up on approval, and one doesn’t like to crush them more than so much. . . . I was so sorry I couldn’t meet you last night, but I was persuaded to stay down-town and go to see something light with a group of friends. . . . So seldom have an evening free. . . . Notthatblouse, Jane! . . . Now let me see you, Natalie. Stand up.”
I did so, and she said, “Hum----” in a lingering, speculative way. I didn’t feel very comfortable.
“Well, we must go shopping,” she said with a sigh. “Jane, go ask Miss Evelyn to be kind enough to come here a moment----”
Jane vanished, and my aunt went on looking me over.
“Some gray mixture for your day frocks, I think,” she said at length. “With your gray eyes--yes, gray. And we’ll look at something soft in rose and in pink for evening. . . . Lovely hair you have, dear. Like your mother’s. But it looks more like New Orleans than Virginia. I wonder whether therewasCreole blood in your mother’s mother’s family?”
I said I didn’t know, and then Evelyn came in. She spoke to me pleasantly, although carelessly, and then to her mother. The way she spoke to her was not pleasant. “What is it?” she almost whined. “I was right in the middle of notes, mother!”
“I wanted you to telephone Mrs. Lethridge-Guth; tell her I’m indisposed--can’t play this morning. . . . This child willhaveto have some clothes. . . .”
Evelyn looked at me.
“She most certainlywill!” she admitted. “I should think some of that braid could come off before you go out----”
Aunt Penelope nodded, got a scissors, and I slipped from my frock. Then I sat down and began to rip off the braid which I had so painfully attached.
“My dearchild,” Evelyn broke out, after a look at my arm, “where did you get that? Have you been in my things?”
I hated that last, and I suppose I showed it, for I know my head went up, and I answered coldly.
“That,” I said, “is the Jumel bracelet, and it is mine. It belonged to my mother.”
“Almost forgotten it,” said Aunt Penelope; “let’s see the thing. . . .” I slipped it off and handed it to her.
“Evelyn’s father had one like this made for her,” said Aunt Penelope. “He had Tiffany send a man up to the Jumel Mansion and make drawings of the mate of this, which is in a case by the painting. I think Eve is a little annoyed at your having the real one while hers is a copy.” And Aunt Penelope looked shrewdly at Evelyn and laughed a little.
“Howsillyof you, mother!” said Evelyn hotly. “I’m nothing of the sort!” And then she spoke of the dent in mine, and handed it back to me. You could see she thought mine was very unimportant. After that, she asked some fretful questions about what she should say at the telephone and left.
“A little out of sorts,” said my aunt, as Jane came back with her street things; “late hours, you know. . . . We’ll have to get you something that you can put on immediately, for there is a friend of your mother’s coming in to tea, whom you must see--dear old soul. Notthatone, Jane. . . . Mercy, my girl, can I never teach you--no, thegray----”
After my aunt had dressed for forty-five minutes, she was at last ready to start, and we did. But we didn’t go down to the shopping district by motor, for aunt said that took too long, so we walked a little way and then went in the subway, which was hot, and that made everyone look sleepy and yawn. Aunt Penelope bought me a great many things, and enough underclothes to change every day! They were very pretty. And I must say I did enjoy trying on the soft things I was to wear in the house at night. There was a white crêpe de chine, with a broad yellow sash and hand-embroidered scallops done in yellow around the collar. The woman who sold us things, who had a beautiful voice, and who was very politeandcomplimentary, said: “Beautiful with her hair and skin. The two are a rare combination.”
And my aunt said: “Yes, let me see that gray, with the rose girdle----”
And she bought that too. And then she bought a rose-coloured dress which was untrimmed except for broad collars and cuffs of scrim, and a plain heavy white dress, untrimmed except for buttons and stitching. And she bought stockings to match all these. She selected shoes for me, skirts for me, morning frocks, as she called them, a motor-coat, a suit, and several hats, all of which were very plain, and a squashy black tam made of lovely soft velvet. I could only gasp. Oh, yes--I almost forgot. She bought brushes and combs for me too, and a little tiny brush to brush my eyebrows with! I almost fainted. And all that took us quite a while, of course. We had lunch in the store, but I didn’t enjoy it much, because my aunt selected it, and naturally it was nourishing, which always detracts from the interest of food.
And then we went home.
As we walked down a side street I saw the loveliest white house on a hill and realized it stood only a few blocks from aunt’s. I asked what it was, and found it was the Jumel Mansion.
Some of the things had reached home before we had--those that we bought first--and it was while I was standing and gazing rapturously at that pink dress that I saw the note.
It was scrawled on my telephone pad, and it said: “Do not wear the Jumel bracelet to-day. It is my wish that you do not.--E.J.” I read it two or three times and then I went to the drawing-room. Jane was dusting, and I asked her what I wanted to know.
“Jane,” I said, “what was Madam Jumel’s first name?”
“I can’t say, miss,” she replied, “but if she is important, you’ll find her in the New York Guide, perhaps.”
I thanked her and went to look it up. And I found that Madam Jumel’s name was Eliza. . . . Well, I’d heard of spirits writing, but I hadn’t believed it before; and I really didn’t believe it then; I thought it was a joke. But I decided I would go over to the Jumel Mansion for a few moments if my aunt would let me. I felt as if I must. So I asked her, and she said I might--for “just a little while.” . . . I put on my new suit and the tam (which I had worn home), defiantly clasped that bracelet around my arm, and started.
And when I got there I found that it was open and that anyone might go in, so I did, and I did enjoy it! . . . In the first place, it is a lovely old house, and it has in it everything in the way of interesting relics that you can imagine. It was Washington’s headquarters for more than a month during the Revolution, and the room where he slept especially interested me. It proved to me that good deeds don’t die. For Washington, who did lots of them, is remembered because he always did his best and was upright and fine and true. And now--every little thing that he even touched is kept and treasured. I stood looking at the Washington relics for a long time, and then one of the curators asked me whether I would like to see the door through which the Indian braves came to pledge allegiance to Washington, and I said I would. So he showed it to me.
“Through this,” he said, “they trooped in; soft-footed, I suppose they were, since they all wore moccasins; and they carried laurel branches as an outward sign of the tune of their spirits.”
And then he told me that the British occupied the house later--they captured it November 16, 1776, to be exact--but he said there was no soft-footed approach with them. He said they were a noisy crowd who liked their ale.
I said: “Perhaps they were homesick and had to do something to cheer themselves up.” I could understandthat.
“Why,” he said, “perhaps they were!” and he smiled at me. Then he asked me if I was from the South. He said he rather noticed it in my voice, and he smiled again. I told him yes, and then I thought perhaps he would be interested in my bracelet, and so I showed it to him, and my! the confusion that ensued! . . . He called everyone else who took care of the house, and they all came, and I had to tell my story at least six separate times, and quite an interested crowd of visitors listened and looked at it too. . . . I simply told them how it came to me, and not about the tragic happenings that it made, for at that time I had made up my mind I would not believe in that tale!
Well, we stood around talking and then we went over to the painting of Madam Jumel, and near that I saw the bracelet she had kept. It was in a little case.
“A great many people admire that,” said one of the women who stayed there, “especially the women. There was a little Spanish woman in here the other day who was simply mad about it. All she could say was, ‘Es incomparable lindo y yo lo deseo!’ ” which the man said meant: “Incomparably beautiful! How greatly do I desire it! . . .” She said that men liked the Washington things best, but that women almost always liked the bracelet.
Then, because it was growing late, I knew I must go, although I hated to. The people who took care of the house all asked me to come soon again, and I said I would, for I liked them and the house. And, after good-byes and a promise to return and show them the bracelet again, I hurried off.
And outside it began. . . . I don’t know how you know that you are being followed, but I did then. And suddenly--I heard soft, scuddy footsteps drawing closer to me at every second. . . . I ran, and then--I stopped, for I meant to be brave and face it, and I give you my word, although not a second before I had heard those hurrying feet, when I turned there was no one in sight except an old man, who was sitting on the kerb and holding out a tin cup. He wore dark glasses, so I knew he was blind. . . . I went back to him.
“Did you,” I asked, and foolishly, I realized afterward, “see anyone pass?”
“I am blind,” he replied.
And then I said that I knew that was silly to say and that I was sorry. And I gave him fifteen cents, which was all I had with me. . . . I went on, and I began to hear those footsteps again, coming closer and closer--and then ahead of me I saw the man that Evelyn said was “romantically thrilling,” and I ran for him.
“Someone,” I gasped, “is following me.”
He stopped and looked down, and I saw that he didn’t recognize me, and then he looked back, as I had, and saw nothing.
“There’s no one in sight,” he said soothingly, “and I’m sure there’s nothing to be frightened about.”
“Perhaps not,” I answered, “but if you are going home, I’ll go with you.” And then I told him that I was Evelyn’s cousin, and when he said he hadn’t recognized me I told him my aunt had bought me a lot of new clothes. And I told him quite a little about them, because he was sympathetic and easy to talk to. He is a little lame and has to use a cane all the time, and somehow his being not just like other people makes you want to be kind to him; and that--or something else--has made him very kind.
As we turned in the apartment-house I saw the blind man going along the other side of the street, his cane doing the feeling for him, and his movements awkward and stiff. There are a great many things that are sad in New York, which seems strange, for so many people are so wealthy. Now, in Queensburg no one has much money, but no one could go in want, for the people who have just a little more than they have wouldn’t let them.
I told Mr. Kempwood a little about Queensburg too, and he was really interested. And that helped me, for not even Amy will listen to that. He rode up to our floor with me, and stepped off to wait until I got in. Then he shook hands and said good-bye. As he rang for the elevator he said: “If that hat is one of the new ones, you did well. It’s a corker!”
I thanked him and admitted it had some sense, for you could keep it on if you wanted to make a home run. He said I seemed to be doing that when we met, and then the elevator came and he went down. And I went in, remembering his smile so hard that I almost forgot about being followed.
My mother’s friend was there, and I liked her, and I enjoyed the tea, although Aunt Penelope suppressed my natural tendency to engulf cakes and indicated thin bread and butter sandwiches. Then Amy came in, and I went with her to dress. Aunt told me to bathe and put on one of my soft frocks, and to do that each evening at the same hour; but not to wear one frock continually, simply because I liked it. I said I wouldn’t, and decided to wear the pink one everyotherevening.
I slipped off the bracelet and laid it on my bureau. When I was bathing I heard a little noise, but I didn’t pay much attention to it. I thought that Amy had come in my room to get a pin, or to borrow some hairpins. She uses invisible ones to make her hair look curlier around her face. But when I got out and was doing my hair I saw another note. It lay where my bracelet had been. On it was written:
“I told you not to wear this. My warnings are not given without reason. When I deem it wise this will be returned.--E. J.”