Chapter VII--Real Excitement
Ifthe bracelet had not been gone I would have thought I imagined everything of the afternoon before, but when morning light and a real search revealed no trace of it, I believed I had been followed and had heard those footsteps drawing closer and closer to me as I ran. And it did not make me comfortable. I wondered what to do all morning, and after reflection decided not to speak of it to my cousins, aunt, or uncle (my uncle I had met the night before; he had just come in from a business trip), for somehow I knew they would not believe it, and I didn’t want them to laugh.
My Uncle Archie has a great big stomach and says “Huh?” if anyone speaks to him, which they don’t often. He eats a great deal, and tells Ito to “hurry up.” He said something about bills to Aunt Penelope. They don’t seem to be very congenial. But he can talk, for I heard him at the telephone. “Sold itto-day!” he simply yelled; then, “Fools! I’ll teach ’em! I’ll--the----” and he simply spluttered. It was becoming interesting when Aunt Penelope said, “Ito, close the door,” and, of course, when Ito did, the rest was lost.
I was sorry, but Amy only looked bored. Evelyn, after having tea with us, had gone out to a dinner dance. Aunt Penelope at tea told the other women what a great treat it was to have Evelyn at home. She did it a great many times, and it almost seemed as if she wanted them to know that Evelyn went out a great deal, although why she didn’t say it outright, if she did want them to know, I don’t see. But that’s the way a great many people in New York act. They sort of sidle around back of the truth and shout around it--about the weather. Which I think is silly. Well, to get on. After dinner Amy and I sat. I never have done so much sitting as I have done since coming to New York. The chairs and davenports are so luxurious they just must be sat on or curled up in. Amy and I each have our pet arm-chair and way of sitting in it. But this is beside the subject.
I found that Amy had never done any hazing. And she was much interested in my accounts of it. I told her how we had had a secret society called “The Ancient and Effervescent Order of Yellow Pups,” and how we made the new members get down on all fours and chew at a ham-bone, and she honestly giggled. And then I told her how Willy Jepson had filled his aunt’s bedroom slippers full of tar, and she was interested in that and a description of how his aunt acted when she slipped her feet in the slippers. You see, she was still half asleep and sort of blinky, the way you are in the morning.
“Who would we haze?” she asked. I suggested Evelyn. And not alone because I wanted to, but because I thought she honestly needed it. I decided it would do wonders for her character.
“How would we do it?” Amy next asked, and I suggested the “cold bottle trick,” which is simple, but satisfactory.
You take a bottle and fill it with cold water, the colder the better. And if you can get ice in it, that adds a great deal. Then you tie a ribbon around the cork, awfully tight, and pin the other end of the ribbon to the bottom of the mattress, and the bottle, then in place and at the foot of some dear friend’s bed, awaits. When their feet hit it, they naturally reach down and pull, and when they do it uncorks and the puller wades. And I can tell you, it is one thing to wade in the babbling brook, and another to wade in an Ostermoor! Willy Jepson put green paint in the bottle he put in his brother’s bed, and his brother looked like the first note of spring for weeks, but we decided that wouldn’t do for Evelyn, because the sort of stockings she wears show the colour of her skin.
Amy said people would comment on it if her ankles were green, and I believed it. “We could blame it on Jane,” said Amy. I didn’t think that was fair, until she explained. It seems Jane is exceptional because she is willing to be a parlourmaid and help Aunt Penelope dress too, which combination is not often found. “Mother wouldn’t think of dismissing her,” said Amy, “so that would be all right.”
I agreed. Then Amy told me that they were bitterly poor and lived like paupers, and my chin did drop! And she went on to say that her mother encouraged her father to make moneyallthe time, but that he didn’t make nearly all that they really needed, now that Evelyn was out and had to have about sixty costumes to the minute.
I just listened. It was the only thing to do. But I thought too! And I decided that it isbadto wantthingsso much. And that it is especially easy for a girl to do, and so it is well to guard against it. Here was my cousin Evelyn with this lovely home, and simply beautiful clothes--wanting more and fretting because she can’t have them. And my aunt hurrying my uncle so that he hasn’t time or energy left to do anything but eat and say “Huh?” when he’s at home, and Amy--being sorry for herself because she hasn’t all the pretty things that her wealthiest friend has. And I saw that wanting was just a habit, and a bad one.
I said: “I think it would be a fine thing for you to take account of stock, Amy, and count all the lovely things youhave. Maybe you’d feel better.” But she said: “I haven’t time; I’m too busy thinking of the things Ihaven’t----” And the whole trouble lay right there.
Well, as I said, we talked a lot, played the victrola a little, and then we got a long-necked mint-sauce bottle from the cook and fixed Evelyn’s bed. And then we turned in, or, as Miss Hooker would say, “retired.”
And I thought, as I always do, about Uncle Frank and Bradly-dear, and the Cranes, Willy Jepson, and baseball. But I went to sleep feeling less badly than I had the night before, for I felt confident that the bracelet would come back to me, and somehow Mr. Kempwood had made me less afraid, and home seemed nearer.
Evelyn found that bottle. I never heard such a noise. She said someone was trying to murder her! And everyone got up except Amy and me. We giggled until Aunt Penelope came in and said, “Does either ofyouknow anything about this?” (Amy had come over in my bed), and then Amy said, “Maybe Jane did it,” but her mother didn’t seem convinced. She only said, “I will attend toyoutwo in the morning!” and she said it sternly. When she went out we giggled some more. It was impossible to help, for Evelyn’s room is near ours, and we could hear her gasp and threaten to sit up all night, and then sort of hiccup and say she thought she was getting hysterics and that she hoped her mother would beatme. . . . And we could hear Aunt Penelope and Jane flop around and bells ring and hot drinks ordered, and all because Evelyn’s feet were a little wet, which was irrational, since she puts them in the tub at least once every day.
But as Uncle Archie said to me much later, “There is no reasoning with a woman,” and there is a lot in that statement. We giggled until Aunt Penelope returned, when we pretended to be asleep. I hoped the way we looked in sleep would soften her, but it didn’t.
I was in disgrace until about seven the next evening, but that comes later.
The next morning I will pass over hurriedly, as it was not pleasant. Aunt talked to us frankly, and Amy put the blame on me, where it belonged. But I would have liked her better if she’d let me step forward andtakeit, as I intended to. “You know itwasyour fault,” she said, after we went out of her mother’s room.
I said I knew it was.
“Well,” she said, “you needn’t be annoyed because Isaidso.”
I wasn’t annoyed. I was sorry that she was so poor a sport, but I wasn’t angry. I pitied her. I think you always feel sorry for a person when they don’t play the best game they can.
Because Amy had failed to stick to fair rules, I didn’t care so much for her that day, and I suppose because she dimly felt that she’d failed, she avoided me; so, after lunch, I asked aunt if I might go walking. She said yes, if I was careful not to get lost, adding that she would rather not have me leave the immediate neighbourhood. I said I wouldn’t, and then I started out. I put on the tam again because it sticks and doesn’t have to have pins. And then Mr. Kempwood said it was becoming. I will acknowledge that that influenced me a little.
After I’d walked around several blocks and seen nothing but the same sort of houses and pavements and babies, all with nurses, I turned toward the Jumel Mansion. And again the people who take care of it were kind to me, and I enjoyed my visit.
And I learned some more about the place. It seemed the French merchant, Stephen Jumel, did not build it, but Roger Morris, then loyal servant of the King, built it for his wife, seven years after they were married. Before she became Mrs. Morris she was Mary Philipse, nicknamed “The Charming Polly.” He built it well and strongly, which was fortunate, since it was to have so many inmates and so much wear. When you think of it, a house that was put up in 1765 and 1766 would have to be splendidly made to stand the years.
“The Charming Polly” must have been indeed charming, for her descendants say that Washington, who was, just before her marriage, a man of twenty-five, offered her his hand and name, but from the look of things it would not seem so. For a friend of Washington’s, Joseph Chew, wrote him that Captain Roger Morris, who was a “lady’s man, always something to say,” was breakfasting often with Mistress Philipse, and that the “town talk’t of it as a sure & settled affair,” and he added an urgent appeal for Washington to return, as he was sure Charming Mistress Polly must prefer Washington to all others. . . . But perhaps Washington had found another “Charming” somebody, for the letter of July brought no visit from Washington until late one winter’s eve, when, the descendants of Mary Philipse say, he “arrived post haste, and demanded an interview immediate, notwithstanding that the hour was late. . . .”
However, whether or not it was more than a flirtation or a light admiration, it does seem strange, does it not, that Washington should direct his army from the house that his rival built for the much-admired and talked-of Mistress Polly Philipse?
Mary Philipse and Captain Morris were married in 1758. They had four children, two boys and two girls, if I recall correctly what I was told; and when General Washington took command at Cambridge, they had been married for seventeen years.
Now, to me there is something unsatisfactory about a man who doesn’t take sides, and Captain Morris didn’t. In fact, the builder of that lovely house evaded siding with either the British or the United States, at the time of the Revolution, and one day while the mails were being taken aboardThe Harriet Packethe quietly slipped aboard with John Watts, who, with Roger Morris, was a member of His Majesty’s Council for this province. Together they sailed for England, and Captain Morris remained abroad for almost two years. And unhappy years they were too, for he was homesick for the big white house, his lovely wife and children. (And I can understand the first, although no one who hadn’t lived in it would think that Uncle Frank’s house was lovely.)
Rumour states that Captain Roger Morris took rooms in “London Town,” so to be nearer the mails of the ships, that his wife’s letters would come to him without delay. . . . And can you see him waiting for those, wanting them, and looking for the crosses that his girls and boys wrote at the bottom of the letter? . . . I am sure they were there. . . . Perhaps his littlest girl wrote, “For my dearest father, whom I do so greatly love. . . . Dear kisses,” and, of course, one of every doubledswas written like anf, for that is the way they did it in that time.
Can you see it? The little girl in quaint, long frock, painfully writing out a message, while her mother looked on and wondered whether the “dearest father” would ever reach home? . . . The letters he wrote her were lovely, but I didn’t see those that day. Mr. Kempwood showed me those after he began to teach me toSEEhistory. For history, he says, is not a dead thing although it is about dead people. . . . All you have to do is to remember that theyLIVED, just as we do, and to shut your eyes, not to think datesmostimportant, and to remember those people asliving. And he taught me to do that. But that comes later.
Well, after I’d learned quite a little bit about the Morrises and had felt ever so glad that he did get back, the man who had so kindly told me these things had to leave me, and I was alone. I wandered over to stand before Madam Jumel’s portrait. . . . And here, I leaned forward and whispered to her, and I said: “Won’t youpleasereturn it? . . . My mother wore it. Won’t you,please?”
And then I went out and turned toward home. I saw the blind man again, but no one followed me. I went up in the elevator with Mr. Kempwood, and I was so glad.
“Any more home runs?” he asked. I shook my head.
“And how does New York please you?” he asked further.
And to that I replied that it was all right, but made an involved living, since my aunt insisted on my changing my clothes all the way through every day, and eating in a different dress at night. I said it was simpler at home, where you dressed for dinner when you got up. I told him it left you more time for fishing and baseball and the more serious things of life. He laughed, and then looked suspicious.
“Young woman,” he said, “that country bloom doesn’t hide a brain-picker, does it?”
And I didn’t understand him then, but he explained. It seemed that Robert Louis Stevenson had lived on an island in the Pacific, and when someone had asked whether they dressed for dinner, he had said just as I did: “No, we dress when we get up.”
I said I hadn’t quoted, and that I hadn’t read Stevenson, liking Alger best of anyone, but Mr. Kempwood said that “Treasure Island” couldn’t be beaten and that he’d loan it to me, and then I found out what he meant by brain-picker. He meant someone who pikes. Evelyn reads book covers and reviews and then talks of the books as if she’d read them. I told Mr. Kempwood so. He said she wouldn’t thank me for doing so, and then--it was our floor, and again he stepped out, waited until Jane opened the door, and then said good-night. And I remembered his smile, as I had the night before.
On a long hall table I found a letter from Bradly-dear, and I wassoglad to see it! And it made me laugh, but felt ever so tight in my throat too. Here is what she wrote, or some of it:
“Dear Natalie,“We miss you fierce. Willy Jepson run a nail in his foot and fell offa the back ruf. Don’t you climb no fences at your aunt’s or ride a cow if they keep one. Your uncle is deep in bugs and has a mess of them in my tubs, with netting over the top. And the Lord knows when I will get the wash to soak. We miss you.”
“Dear Natalie,
“We miss you fierce. Willy Jepson run a nail in his foot and fell offa the back ruf. Don’t you climb no fences at your aunt’s or ride a cow if they keep one. Your uncle is deep in bugs and has a mess of them in my tubs, with netting over the top. And the Lord knows when I will get the wash to soak. We miss you.”
There was a lot more. Bradly-dear had been fine about writing the news. I went to my room with it, sat down, and then got up and went over to Amy’s, for my radiator had cooled off and I didn’t know how to turn it on. It was not easy for me to ask servants to do things then; I had not learned how. . . . Well, I read that letter a great many times, and there was no one to interrupt me, and I was glad. Everyone but Evelyn was out, and she was lying down.
Somewhere I heard a clock strike seven and realized they would soon be in and that I must begin to change my clothes for dinner. I heard a little noise in my room, a little, scratching noise, and I got up and looked in, but no one was there. Then I heard a noise in Amy’s room, but, going back there, I found that empty. I turned on all the lights and read Bradly-dear’s letter again. . . . I felt curiously nervous and oppressed. Quite as if I were breathing something poisonous. . . . And my heart began to pump. I thought I was simply letting myself be silly from nervousness. . . . “You silly thing!” I said scornfully. And I read the end of Mrs. Bradly’s letter. It said: “Now, dearie, I must stop. I love you and I pray God for your safety and happiness.” And then: “Yours sincerely, Mrs. G. N. Bradly.” . . . It helped me a lot, that about loving and praying. I looked at it, and then Ididhear something; there was a step behind me and a voice, a high-pitched voice, said very slowly: “Do not turn. You will be sorry if you turn. Donot turn. . . .” I didn’t. I couldn’t. I was absolutely frozen. I felt something drop over my face, and then things began to swim and grow black. . . . I think I struggled a little and tried to scream, but I am not sure of anything but horror--and the horror I felt at that moment will live in my soul until I am an old, old woman, and am allowed to forget all the things that hurt me and to have another start.
Chapter VIII--Again Awake
WhenI was again aware of living I heard things hazily, quite as if there were a thick wall between me and the voices of the people who stood so anxiously bending over me.
“I tell you, Archie, the child wasstrangled,” I heard Aunt Penelope say. “And Heaven only knows what may happen next, with all the Bolsheviki around--can’t you do something (Amy, put down that revolver, you are driving me crazy!)--and Evelyn, right in the next room, hearing nothing. . . . And said she wasn’t asleep. . . . Amy, if you don’t sit down I will scream! And Ito, right in the pantry, by the fire-escape, on which he must have climbed (if it was a he), and how he got up I don’t know. . . . And you say there’s no danger, doctor? . . . The only child of mydeardead sister, and what will happen next? . . . The only thing, of course, is to remaincalm(Amy, can’t you stop wiggling? Therearelimits.), and I suppose to maintain calm is the only sensible proceeding----What was that?” She screamed the last, and I sat up.
The doctor was almost rude about telling her to be quiet. And then he ordered them all out and sat down on the edge of my bed.
“Anyone you especially want to see?” he asked.
I said I didn’t think so.
“Sure?” he asked.
“You’d better not sit with your back to the window,” I advised. Then he took hold of my hand. “There is no danger in windows,” he said in a level, awfully sure voice. “What hurt you won’t hurt you again. . .” And he said it so that I believed him at the time.
“Now about someone to sit with you to-night. The ladies, it seems, all have engagements, and I’ve urged them to keep them. Thought the normal might give them a balance.”
“Oh, I’ll be all right,” I answered. “Jane can look in once in a while.” But without meaning to I looked at the window. The doctor frowned, and I was ashamed. I told him about how I had been chased and that that had upset me a little. And that I was usually brave. He said he thought I was splendid, and that he wasn’t angry with me.
“Sam Kempwood who helped you out of that scrape?” he questioned.
I nodded.
“Bully chap,” he said. “I know him.”
I said I thought he was one of the nicest men that I’d ever met. That you could tell it.
“Suppose he comes up and plays nurse?” the doctor suggested.
I smiled. “That would be lovely,” I admitted after a long breath, for even then I really loved Mr. Kempwood, “but I am sure it will bore him. You see, I don’t know how to entertain people the way my cousin Evelyn does.”
But the doctor said thatIwas to be entertained, and that he’d stop at Mr. Kempwood’s on the way down. And then he wrapped me up in a pink comforter and carried me out to the living-room, where he put me on a wide lounge which stands before the fire.
“Now Hannah, or Molly, or whatever your name is,” he said to Jane, “you stay with this child until I come back.” And Jane did, but she wasn’t much help. She was so awfully frightened and kept jumping and looking around. . . . In just a few moments the bell rang, and I heard the men in the hall. . . . “Just a little while will change the trend and help her,” the doctor said. “The rest have cleared out and good riddance! Weren’t any good. . . . Awfully decent of you, Kempwood.”
“Not a bit of it,” said Mr. Kempwood; “hadn’t anything to do.”
“Well, don’t make a long business of it,” said the doctor; “just a few moments will help. The child’s evident admiration for you led me to think that you could help her most.” And then they stopped talking and tiptoed in. I smiled at Mr. Kempwood and tried to tell him how grateful I was to him for coming up, but it was not easy to talk.
“Never mind about that,” he said gently. And then he sat down by me, and showed me some pictures which I couldn’t see very well, because my sight was so blurred.
“Suppose,” he said, “we’re quiet----” And I nodded. And then he took hold of my hand and patted it, and it helped a great deal. And I don’t know how it happened, but, somehow, I was telling him how I had hated coming to New York, how I missed Uncle Frank and Bradly-dear, and about the cricket that stays in the earth for three years. Then my eyes filled--I could feel them--and I whispered: “It’s only beenthree days.”
“Mydearchild!” he answered, and I could see he was awfully sorry for me. He patted terribly hard. That helped too, but it made me smile. After that one tear slipped over the edge, and, because I hadn’t a handkerchief, he wiped it off with his. I thanked him very much, and then I said: “I don’t ever cry.”
“So I see,” he answered, and he smiled, but so gently that I didn’t mind.
I said: “I don’t really. That is, not when I’m well. I hadn’t before to-night for ages.”
“You didn’t to-night,” he answered, and so cheerfully. “ ‘One swallow doesn’t make a summer,’ so certainly one tear doesn’t make a cry!” And I was so glad he thought I hadn’t.
“When you want to cry hard,” I confided further, “swallowing very quickly again and again will stall it. It’s a great help----”
And he said: “You littlesport!” And I began to feel happier. He looked at me so nicely, it warmed me up, and my throat began to feel better. I asked him when he had to go, and he said not until I was so sick of him that I would have Jane throw him out. Then again we were quiet.
“Look here,” he said after a few moments, “don’t you like baseball?”
I nodded as hard as my stiff throat would let me.
“Well,” he went on, “don’t you think your aunt would let you go to the big games with me next year?”
I sat up. “Oh,” I said, “if sheonlywould!”
“We’ll see that she will. But that’s a long way off. We’ll have to have good times beforethat. Ever been to the Hippodrome?” I said I hadn’t, and he described it. I became very interested, for it sounded like a sort of glorified circus. I had to lie down again, for I began to feel dizzy and sick, but he went right on talking of it as he arranged the pillows for me and made me comfortable.
Then I thought of the bracelet and asked for Jane. Mr. Kempwood rang, and she came. I told her I wanted a white satin box that stood on my bureau, and asked her please to get it. When she brought it back I held it for several minutes without opening it, and then I shut my eyes and felt. The bracelet was there.
I put it on, and then after a little interval I told Mr. Kempwood the whole story. I couldn’t talk loudly, but he leaned over and got it all.
“Dear child,” he said, “that’s utter nonsense.”
I looked at it and shook my head.
“Give it to me,” he said; “I have a wall safe, and I’ll take charge of it for you.”
I shook my head. “You said you’d take me to the league games,” I answered. “I’m not going to run any risks!” And then we both laughed. He did some more urgings, but I did not give in, for I knew that it was my battle, and I meant to fight it out. I didn’t think I could ever hold up my head if I evaded it, and then--I couldn’t bear the idea of its hurting Mr. Kempwood. I told him so. “And not entirely because of those games,” I admitted honestly, “but because I like you, a great deal.”
He answered me quickly. “Natalie,” he said (I had told him my name as I related the story of the bracelet), “let’s be friends. For I like you too, and,” he added after a pause, “a great deal.”
That began my friendship with Mr. Kempwood, which helped me in so many ways and came to mean so much.
Chapter IX--A Strange Happening
A weekwent by and not much happened. And, while I was not actively unhappy, I was never once happy. Amy had lots to do, and I didn’t see her often, and of course Evelyn was hardly in at all, and, when she rarely was, she was too cross to talk to. I wondered about her, as I had about Uncle Archie--whether the return paid for what they both gave up? For Evelyn was tired and strained and losing all her sweetness, and Uncle Archie had lost all his talk. I came to feel that it wasn’t worth while in either case.
I thought a great deal those days. Thought is almost forced upon you, if you aren’t a social success, or can’t play baseball. You see, in such case, there is nothing to divert you and keep you from reflection. So, I thought. I also wrote home often and sent Willy Jepson post-cards, because he sent me one of the gaol, on which he had written: “My room is marked with a cross.” (There was a cross over the only window that is barred.) And he also sent me a picture of Miss Hooker, taken, I imagine, in 1892, on which he had written: “She has consented to be mine! Sweet love has bloomed within my heart at last!” But I knew he got that out of a book, because it didn’t sound like Willy. Those, with a letter from Uncle Frank, which contained much information about the larvæ of the bee, cheered me greatly. The letter sounded so like Uncle Frank that all I had to do was to shut my eyes, and then I could hear him “Ho hum.” And I did that quite a good deal as I re-read his letter.
That week was, I found afterward, a normal week for my aunt and cousins and uncle, but it seemed frightfully hurried to me. Everyone had decided that I had been choked and chloroformed by a sneak thief, and after uncle muttered about speaking to the building’s owner about the fire-escapes, and aunt’s warning Ito and Jane about the pantry window, and one of mine (which opens on an iron balcony, as does one of Amy’s), everyone forgot the episode. It seemed Evelyn once lost a fur coat that way, and that upstairs thieving was not uncommon. But I knew they were wrong. However, nothing strengthened my belief until the event which came in the first part of the following week. But that comes later.
As I said, the week dragged by. I lived through it very slowly (it is strange how time is affected by the wayYOUfeel, isn’t it?), and at last it was Friday.
My aunt was going out to a luncheon, and because I had been alone all morning and wanted company, I followed her to the hall, and there we found Mr. Kempwood’s letter.
“My dear,” said Aunt Penelope, “what a stunning hand, and what a charming shade for letter paper. . . . For you. Do let’s see whom it’s from.”
I opened it, feeling excited. It was from Mr. Kempwood, and he asked if I would come down and have tea with him at four o’clock on Saturday, and he said that if I liked we would afterward take a drive. My aunt said I most certainly could, and then she kissed me with unusual interest, and left. And I took the letter and read it three more times, especially the end, where he had written: “And it is with genuine pleasure and great pride, my dear Miss Natalie, that I sign myself your friend, Samuel Kempwood.” I did like that!
Well, I went in my room, and thought about all the things I would wear, and I hoped so much that my aunt would let me wear my pink dress, but she didn’t. However, I had such a good time that my disappointment was soon forgotten. I decided I would wear my jewellery, which consists of the Jumel bracelet and a ring with a silver skull on it which Willy Jepson gave me.
I thought my tam would be best for motoring, because it sticks on and Mr. Kempwood likes it. And I meant to accept that part of the invitation very hard, because I love it, and there never seems to be enough room in aunt’s motor. Everyone is always sorry, but someone else always has to go. Amy has so many friends that it is difficult to pay them all sufficient attention. This week she took them motoring each morning--different sets--and deeply regretted she couldn’t take me. But I understood how it was, and said so. I tried to make her just as comfortable as I could about it. They are all being very kind to me.
That night Evelyn had dinner at home; Uncle Archie was there too, and it might have been nice if they’d acted so. But aunt sighed a great deal and said Evelynneededa new fur coat and that there was a beauty on Fifth Avenue for only twenty-two hundred (and she made a long lecture about getting good things when you bought, because they lasted and it really was aneconomy), and then Amy began to whine and say that if Evelyn had a new coat she didn’t see why she, Amy, couldn’t have one, and that she felt like a pauper when she went to school. I felt sorry for Uncle Archie. He didn’t seem to mind, but I think it must have bothered him. After he said “Huh” a few times he turned to me and really spoke to me for the first time.
“What doyouwant?” he asked. “Mustwantsomething.”
But I said I didn’t. And I added that I was grateful for all the lovely things aunt had bought me. I told him that they were beautiful. He looked at me hard, said “Huh!” and went on eating.
Then I asked aunt if I could wear the pink dress to Mr. Kempwood’s party.
“Mr. Kempwood’s?” echoed Evelyn, and she did not seem pleased when her mother told her about it. “I think that’s verykindof him,” she said, after her mother finished.
Uncle Archie went out after dinner, and Evelyn went to a dance with some friends at about nine; and Aunt Penelope, sighing and saying thank Heaven she actually had an evening free, wrote a lot of notes, and telephoned friends, making engagements for all the evenings of the next week.
Amy and I went to bed at nine-thirty because we are supposed to at nine. Amy sleeps with me now, because she thinks I may be frightened. At least, that is what shesays, but I, privately, think she is scared to be alone. However, that is not vital. After we got in bed Amy told me that lots of men had proposed to Evelyn, but that she had “scorned them all.” However, she said that there was a man in the next house whom Evelyn really liked.
“She’s dippy about him,” Amy said. “You can see it. They both simper and act silly when they meet, and they have a basket strung between the houses on a wire (you know they’re ever so close), and they pass notes that way!”
“Honestly?” I said. It didn’t sound like Evelyn. She seems too hard for anything romantic.
“Honestly,” Amy assured me. “She doesn’t think anyone will notice the wire, and the basket is hidden under her window-box.”
“I see,” I said, and I did. There are flower-boxes on the outsides of a good many of the windows. It would be easy enough to manage to make one a garage for her basket mail-carrier, if she wanted to.
“She’d die if anyone knew it,” Amy confided. “It would fuss her. . . . I just can’t imagine Evelyn mooning around in the dark, waiting for that basket to slide across. I’m dying to get one of those notes.”
“Wouldn’t it be funny to fill that basket full of cold flour paste,” I said. “Just think how she’d jump, if she slid her hand in it--up to the wrist.”
“Wouldn’t she!” agreed Amy, and giggled. “But of course we mustn’t,” she added in a sobered tone.
“Of course not,” I said, adding: “She couldn’t tell on us, either.”
“No,” said Amy. “But we mustn’t let that influence us. Where could we get the paste?”
I suggested that we ask the cook to let us make candy Saturday night. Then we giggled a good deal. And after that Amy said “darn” awfully hard, and got out of bed growling and fussing terribly, for she’d forgotten to say her prayers.
The next morning when I got up I found my bracelet was gone, and I was upset by it, and disappointed, because I had wanted to wear it down to Mr. Kempwood’s. I decided to ask Madam Jumel to return it again, although the recollection of the way it came back before made me so frightened that my palms grew damp, even though my hands were cold. But I did want it. Even at that time I had made up my mind I would win. For Madam Jumel had given it to us; it was ours, and she had no right to make everyone miserable.
So--at about three-thirty I went over to the Jumel Mansion. I asked which room Madam Jumel slept in, this time, and they told me. I went up to stand at the door. Some visitors went past me talking of the room where Lafayette had slept and of Washington’s bedroom, but neither Washington nor Lafayette interested me that day.
“You know,” I whispered, “it isn’tfair. You gave it to her, and since youdid----” And then I stopped, for one of the curators came by and heard me.
“Absorbing the habit from one of the old mistresses?” he asked. I didn’t know what he meant, and he explained. It seemed Madam Jumel’s mind had wavered as she grew older, and she did strange things, among them--talking to herself of the great people she had entertained and the power she had been.
“Absolutely mad,” said the gentleman, whom I had come to know well in those few visits. “Why, she employed a lot of French refugees who were out of work and would take any--starving, I suppose--brought them up here, and drilled them as her army. Boys who were fishing on the other side of the river would look up to see the old woman heading a little crowd of ragged men, who carried sticks for guns. She always rode a horse, sitting erect, and now and again they said she would turn proudly to survey her troops. . . . She was a queer one. . . . They say”--he paused and looked in the room--“that she haunts this room. I don’t believe in such things, but her relatives who lived here afterward (three families, they were) swore that she came back to rap so hard that the walls shook. . . . They all quarrelled, and none spoke to each other; but having no money, while they waited for the will to be settled, they lived here; the Nelson Chase family, the Will Chase family, and the Pérys. The Chases were her nephews, Mrs. Péry her niece. Mademoiselle Nitschke, the governess of small Mathilde Péry, did not believe in ghosts, but--one night even she was convinced. . . . You’ll find all that story in a book called ‘The Jumel Mansion,’ which Mr. William Henry Shelton, whom you have seen here, wrote.”
I hunted Mr. Shelton, and he showed me this. I won’t quote it entire, but only in part. It is in his book, as Mademoiselle Nitschke told it.
“I came to live at the Mansion three years after Madam Jumel died, or about 1868. My room was on the third floor. . . . After a little time I was moved down to the Lafayette Room, to be nearer Mrs. Péry, who was in nightly terror of the ghost of Madam Jumel, which, she claimed, came with terrible rappings between twelve and one o’clock, or about midnight.
“Mrs. Péry would come to my room in the night in great excitement to escape the ghost. . . . One night she insisted on my coming to their bedroom and awaiting the ghost. I had always told them there was no such thing as a ghost.
“On that particular night the trouble began as early as seven o’clock in the evening. They had just come up from supper when Mrs. Péry rushed into the hall, trembling with fright and calling: ‘Mademoiselle!’ . . . At about that same time, probably hearing cries, Mr. Péry came up the stairs from the kitchen where he had been toasting cheese. He disliked to sleep in the room in question, claiming that Madam Jumel had come to the side of his bed in white. . . .”
And she described it quite a while. Mademoiselle Nitschke said it was a very quiet September night and hardly a leaf stirred. . . . She said they all sat in absolute silence, and things seemed to grow even more still as midnight approached. . . . And when it came, a loud rap, such as a wooden mallet might make, came directly under Mr. Péry’s chair--“From which,” she said, “he leaped as if he had been shot. . . .” And I, for one, don’t blame him. . . . Well, then Mademoiselle, who must have been very brave, asked if Madam Jumel desired prayers said for her, and Madam replied with three knocks, which is knock-language for yes.
Mr. Shelton told me more. And I enjoyed it so much. But--I could not understand it, and it made me feel creepy. I think it is pleasanter not to believe in ghosts.
After this, since it was getting late, I went downstairs and stood before the portrait. And here I again asked for my bracelet. It seemed to me the portrait smiled--unpleasantly, but I suppose that was only my imagination. For when you are nervous, you cannot tell what you see, or what you don’t. And the real becomes hazy and the unreal real. I was glad to go to Mr. Kempwood’s. But I will tell about that later.
That night the bracelet came back.
Amy slept with me, and we were ready to sleep, having worked very hard to make flour paste of the right consistency. It had to be sloppy, and so that it wouldn’t harden when cold. We also had to arrange an inner holder for it, since the basket was not built to hold juice. We didn’t get started undressing until ten, and Jane, who is supposed to remind us of bedtime, became very disagreeable. But we ignored her and didn’t let her irritate us. We fixed a heavy paper inside to the basket and then poured the stuff in, and then Amy pulled it halfway out on the line, so that Evelyn would think he’d started something. We put ice in it, and it began to feel far from pleasant. We both tried it. “Sort of like cold frogs--mashed,” said Amy, which was an admirable description.
Then after this we went to bed. We decided we needn’t stay awake, for we felt sure that Evelyn would yell. And she did, but that comes later.
I didn’t go to sleep early. I have not since the bracelet was first returned. And the consciousness that it might come back again, in the same way, made me lie awake and feel gaspy. So--when I heard a little noise I was not surprised. . . . Our door was open a little way, and there was a noise at this. . . . Then a scratching noise by my bedside (the bed head is by the door). . . . In the tiniest light something glittered and made a bright pointSLOWLY MOVING ACROSS THE FLOOR. . . . I struggled up, and somehow found my searchlight. . . . Swallowing hard and feeling sick, I pressed it. The Jumel bracelet lay one yard inside the door on the floor. . . . It was the glitter on the gold that had let me see it, as it moved.
It had come back again.
Chapter X--What Mr. Kempwood Told Me
Mr. Kempwood’s“rooms,” as he called them, were lovely. And I had a fine time going around and looking at things. His furniture is more than pretty; it has a reason. Everything is either very comfortable, or very interesting. And it all makes you want to linger.
For instance, he opened a cabinette which honestly held interesting things, not like Aunt Penelope’s, which has only six fancy fans and a lot of ancient scent-bottles and an autographed book of poems and such truck. His has really fascinating things in it, and it is, therefore, worth the dusting trouble. There were all sorts of books in it, written in different ways. I mean scrolls--simply yards of those, and an East Indian one written on reeds all strung together, and even one on a brick. We agreed that it would be frightful to have to scratch out a best seller with a chisel. He said, “Think how your wrist would feel by the time your hero gets his best girl!” and I agreed. That brick was Assyrian. Then he had little tiny gods that the Egyptians buried with people. And he even had the toilet things of an ancient queen, and it had a tweezers in it, which led me to believe that even then they pulled out the extra eyebrows and made them skinny and beautiful, as women do to-day.
Evelyn has a woman come to do it each week, if she can’t get down to Elizabeth Varden’s. And she squawls--there are no other words for this--while it is being done. But her eyebrows are arched and beautifully shaped. I told Mr. Kempwood how she yelled, as I suggested the eyebrow theory. He laughed a good deal and said maybe I was right. Then he said I really oughtn’t to tell him things like that, and, although I didn’t see why I shouldn’t, I said I would not.
Then he asked me to sit down, and I did (and even I wanted to stay sitting, for his chairs are wonderfully sittable), after which he rang and we had tea, and since there were no plain bread and butter sandwiches I felt no obligation to eat any. I thanked Mr. Kempwood for omitting them, and I ate a good deal and enjoyed myself more than I have since reaching New York.
I told him a lot about Uncle Frank and Bradly-dear and even about Willy Jepson. And he asked me whether I thought I would marry Willy, and I said not if anyone else asked me. And then I had some more tea.
He asked me how old I was, at that point, and when I said sixteen, he was surprised. I don’t seem it. I know that. . . . That is one reason Amy never has room in the motor for me. I know I humiliate her by my lack of polish. Baseball doesn’t develop much beside muscle and quickness and a certain sort of flash judgment, I have realized lately. But I shall acquire those other things in the three years, of which over a week has passed.
“Where’s the bracelet to-day, Natalie?” Mr. Kempwood asked, after looking at my arms. . . . I wore a gray silk which has short sleeves. It has broad white cuffs and a big flaring white collar, and is pretty. . . . I replied that I thought I wouldn’t wear it, for I knew no one would believe my story.
“I suppose you’re interested in the Mansion?” he questioned further.
I said I was, decidedly.
“Know its history?” he asked.
“In a way,” I answered. “But not as well as I shall. . . . History has never interested me. I didn’t think things that happened to dead people vital, but lately----”
“Well,” he said, “they may not be vital; nothing but food and sleep really is, you know. But the things that have happened are interesting, because they make youthink. Beside making you realize what helped to form the great country in which you live. Perhaps you haven’tseenHistory. Perhaps you’ve just said, ‘In 1776 Washington occupied the Jumel Mansion for some time’; or, ‘On Wednesday, July 3, 1833, Reverend Doctor Bogart married the celebrated Col. Burr and Madam Jumel, widow of the late Stephen Jumel,’ instead ofseeingWashington step out of that door and stand on that porch. . . . Probably he watched the burning of New York from there. (A great many people think Nathan Hale started it. New York was then in the hands of the British, and many thought burning it was the thing to do. There are a good many things about Nathan Hale’s story that are still misty. . . .) You repeat dates about a wedding instead ofseeinga queer old woman, rouged and smirking, come down the twisting stairs of the Jumel Mansion to meet her groom, who was a tired old man, poor and aware that a gay youth doesn’t leave much precipitate for a comfortable old age. . . . He gained six thousand dollars by that marriage, and she--some more experience with the law, for she divorced him.”
Mr. Kempwood stopped and asked if he might smoke. I said yes, and after he lit a long cigarette, which he put in an interesting holder, he went on with: “Can’t youseethe old lady and the old man being married? The ceremony took place in the small parlour at the left as one enters. . . . Probably some servants looked on. Perhaps the room was lit by candles, dozens of them, flickering high, then low, and casting shadows. . . . My, what a house, what memories she put in it.” Mr. Kempwood paused, knocked off his ash, and then said: “Do you know houses have souls? They have the thoughts that their owners attach to their walls. Haven’t you seen lovely houses and heard people say: ‘Horrible place; I hate going there. . . . They are all so sarcastic.’ You see--before one knows it--the house absorbs the spirit of the people who live in it, and one thinks of thehomeas horrible. Now, Madam Jumel (you won’t quite understand this, Natalie, and it’s difficult to explain) didn’t have much chance, and she wasn’t always good. In fact, she was far from it. And she came to this house, which had belonged to the Roger Morris family, who had kept it fine and splendid, and she turned it to a mad-house before she died, and left it in possession of three quarrelling sets of heirs, who dragged their claims through the courts for years and years, and whose descendants are still bickering. For those who had lost felt that they had been cheated, and so they kept on bickering.”
“Don’t you think that a man who evades fighting leaves a stain?” I asked.
“Roger Morris?” said Mr. Kempwood.
I nodded.
“Yes, but if the reasons for his not fighting were sufficient, his evading it was right. . . . You see, his wife’s family, the Philipse, and the Robinsons--I believe the Robinsons had a country place still in existence at Dobbs Ferry, that has staged some interesting history, too--they all owned property,” he went on, “and if Captain Morris had sided with the King, where his sympathies probably lay, his property and that of all his connection might have been burned by the ‘Liberty Boys.’ . . . He had a family and a wife to care for. The Beverly Robinsons and their clan were not used to poverty. He could not drag them to it. We’ll say he left for that reason.”
“Why did they burn houses?” I asked.
“Because they thought their owners sympathized with England. . . . Theymusthave had a good time!” Mr. Kempwood stopped and shook his head. “Imagine,” he said, “a mob of a hundred men, all carrying sticks and throwing stones and some of them swinging tin lanterns--from which gleamed the feeble light of candles. Probably they catcalled, sang, and whistled as they tramped along the street, and little girls in long quilted skirts ran after them, and little boys--in homespun breeches--joined the moving throng, adding their shrill voices, whistles, sticks, and stones. Then perhaps they would pause before a house and call, ‘Master Benson, we’ll greet you immedjet’--and others, ‘Come forth, yuh dog!’ while the wag of the crowd would sing a song of King George. Then perhaps a window would slide up, and a man who wore a nightcap would stick a head out and ask for mercy. . . . But I doubt whether he got it, for crowds are cruel. . . . Perhaps his wife and little girls would come out of the house, carrying what little they could, and crying. . . . And then the man, sullen and angered, would be put through a mock trial, for the benefit of the jeering crowd. . . . And back of him a house would blaze, and the things he had loved would vanish in smoke. . . . A fire looks pretty against a black night sky. The blazing red which vanishes in sullen smoke. . . . The light. . . . See it?”
I said I did.
“But they had to burn those houses, didn’t they?” I asked.
“No,” he answered; “George Washington didn’t want them to. They did more harm than good, for often they burned the houses of the innocent, and a mob spirit--uncontrolled--has no business in war. Anything is done better under direction of a man who sees things coolly and takes them quietly.”
I said I supposed this was so.
“What happened to the Jumel Mansion after the Roger Morris family left it?” I asked. “Did they come back?”
“No,” he answered. “The Philipse Manor was confiscated and sold with the Morris property, for these two families had gone back to England. . . . There was some mix-up about the income from the properties--war makes that, you know--and the heirs, I suppose, were glad to dispose of the place, for John Jacob Astor, seeing what is to-day called a ‘good buy,’ purchased the right of the heirs, with legal power to transfer, for twenty thousand pounds. . . . Later, the State of New York bought it from him for half a million dollars.
“From the close of the Revolution until Stephen Jumel bought the property, a period of nearly thirty years, the old house was, in turn, a humble farmhouse or an inn. . . . Stages began to go from Albany to New York in 1787, and of course they stopped at the inn. Changed horses, you know. . . . Can’t you see them dashing up in style, the whips cracking, the horses sweating, then the stop, and the ladies, all flounced and hooped of skirt, getting out to walk about and shake the stiffness from their bones? . . . Perhaps a gentleman would say, ‘Will madam do me the proud honour to sup with me?’ and perhaps they had fried chicken and mashed potato and pie--all on the table at once. And I’m sure the innkeeper’s wife frankly listened to their talk, for talk in those days took the place of newspapers, which even our country people get to-day. . . . Then after they’d ‘supped’ I think they’d go out and get in, the ladies most ‘genteel’ settling their skirts, and the gentlemen putting cushions back of them and murmuring something about the ‘glories of all blue skies paling beside the colour of their orbs.’ . . . They did it that way, in those days, Natalie,” Mr. Kempwood ended.
I said I knew it, but that I’d rather have a man say right out if he liked me, that I preferred sensible frankness. Mr. Kempwood said he knew it and that he thought a man would try to be awfully square with me.
Then I said, “What next?” and he smiled and said:
“And--with a crack of a whip, they dashed off to New York, a large town, which lay some ten miles distant from the hamlet of Harlem Heights!”
“Did they go up to see the view, I wonder?”
Mr. Kempwood thought they did. . . . You can seemilesfrom the little balcony at the top of the Jumel Mansion, and then, of course, further, for nothing was built up.
“Yes,” he said, “probably the beau bowed very low and said, ‘Will madam’--or mistress--‘honour me by going up the stairs to see the view from the top balcony, which is rumoured to be the most beauteous, and is of great renown?’ ”
And then we stood up and I put on my things. For we were going driving. We were through with history for that day. . . . But Mr. Kempwood had made me see it. . . . I could actually hear the creak of the old inn sign as it swung in the wind. . . . I could see the tired horses, and the little daughters of the innkeeper peeping around the big white posts. . . . For I am sure that they were bashful country children (quite like me) with no way to say what they felt. . . . Probably they were afraid of the grand ladies who travelled so “elegant” and who minced so daintily as they walked. And perhaps, as they sat around the fireplace at night, one would say: “Mother, I was in the room turning the loom and I heard the grand lady with the purple ostrich plumes talk. She was a-viewing the view. She said: ‘Laws, you bold man, I cannot believe one word you say!’ He said: ‘No rose in all of Heaven’s garden wears the bloom of your sweet cheek!’ What do you think of that, mother?” And then perhaps she would look in the fire and dream. . . . For even little country girls do that--if they can’t play baseball!
We had a lovely, lovely drive.
Mr. Kempwood was so kind to me, and he said he was going to take me every week. I could hardly believe it.
“I think you areverygood to me,” I whispered. For I felt it so deeply that it was hard to say.
“I’m not,” he said. “I am being very good to myself. . . . I can’t tell you how much I enjoy this, Natalie. . . .”
I slipped my hand in his and squeezed it.
“Little person,” he said, “youarea dear!” And he smiled down at me, but he let go of my hand after two pats. Then, before I knew it, it was really late and time to get ready for dinner.
“I hate leaving you!” I said, as we stood in our small outer hall. He thanked me and said he felt that way about me. “But,” he said, “we’ll have another ride soon, and I’ll see you within a few days.”
But I couldn’t believe this; it seemed too good. However, I saw him the next evening, or, as they say in the North, afternoon. It was at the Jumel Mansion. . . . And I was the direct cause of it all, which makes me feel dreadfully. But how could I tell that that would happen and that I would make him get hurt?
It was terrible, but I am so thankful that it was no worse. I think of that all the time--for, if Mr. Kempwoodhadbeen killed, there is a spot in my heart that would never have healed. But--he wasn’t!