Chapter XIV--Evelyn Blames Me
“Shedid it,” said Evelyn shrilly, as I stepped through the door. “I saw her carrying them. She even had the assurance to smile at me and wave! And as to this”--she waved the note--“that is only what I would expect from a prying, thieving chit who has had no upbringing, and who is suddenly thrown among people of cultivation. I----” She stopped, looked at the empty box, and choked.
Aunt Penelope, who was looking awfully baffled, stooped to pick up one of the stockings that had fallen from the box. “What is this?” she asked in a sort of vacant tone, and the question, and all that tangled in its answer, evidently enraged Evelyn, for she almost exploded with rage.
“What is it?” she echoed. “What is it!Askher!” She pointed at me. “Ever since she came,” she went on, “I have been bothered. Amy never thought of doing a thing until she appeared. Amy was always----”
But she stopped, for at that moment Amy came in and diverted the talk.
“Do you know anything about this, Amy?” asked Aunt Penelope.
Amy looked at the box and then at me. “No,” she answered.
“Why should she?” asked Evelyn. “I told you I saw the violets. I suppose she took them to Mr. Kempwood; she’s insane about him. . . . Silly little thing! . . . I hope you will make it understood, mother, that if another thing like this happens she will be shipped to her backwoods town--to stay.”
“I didn’t do it,” I said, but my voice shook, and even to myself it did not sound convincing.
“Didn’t do it!” said Evelyn, and she laughed unpleasantly.
“Where did you get the violets?” asked Aunt Penelope.
I told her, and I looked at Amy, but her face was hard, and she answered none of the appeal I sent her for help. And at that moment I began to hate her for a cheat.
“She has helped herself to my bracelet too,” Evelyn accused. “For two days it was gone, and when it came back there was a dent in it.”
“I didn’t,” I whispered. “I honestly didn’t.” But no one believed me.
“Have you any ideas about who made off with the violets?” asked aunt. “Who took the bracelet?”
I said I had. And she asked who it was, and I said I’d rather not tell. Then there was a deep, unpleasant silence, and during this everyone looked at me.
“We will have to have a very serious talk,” Aunt Penelope said to me. “I think, Natalie, you have allowed yourself to forget what you owe us, the debt our hospitality has laid on you.”
I contested, as politely as I knew how, that I had not. And I added that I had had nothing to do with the violet theft, whatever else I was mixed up in.
“Do you mean to tell me,” demanded Evelyn, waving the note we wrote, “that Amy had a thing to do with this? I can’t believe it. You didn’t, did you, Amy?”
And again Amy said “No.”
“It is too childish for her,” Evelyn continued triumphantly. “She plays as good a game of bridge as I do, mother, and she wouldn’t stoop to this sort of action. That we leave to people who accept everything and give nothing but trouble.”
“In some way,” I said, “I am going to pay you for everything”--and I could feel myself growing steadily more white, for I was furiously angry--“and I am going home,” I added, “home where truth is believed and I am trusted.” Then I looked at Amy.
“I will take some blame about the paste,” I said.
“Indeed?” said Evelyn coolly, her eyebrows raised. “Why accept any, since lying doesn’t seem to trouble you?”
I didn’t answer, and Aunt Penelope ran her hand over her forehead and said, “Dear, dear!” in a tried, worried way. Then the door-bell rang, and Aunt Penelope, Evelyn, and Amy all became quite everyday and tried to look usual. I stood silent and ignored as Jane admitted Mr. Herbert Apthorpe.
He said “Evelyn!” quite sharply and held out his hands. You could see he cared for her and was glad things were fixed, as I suspect they were, and I think Evelyn was glad too, although she didn’t show it so plainly. She only said: “Oh, Herbert! Nice of you to come to see us. . . . Let’s go in the living-room. I believe there’s a fire there. . . .”
At that moment Jane summoned Aunt Penelope to the telephone, and Amy, quite naturally, disappeared. I went down to see Mr. Kempwood, for I was going to borrow the fares to go home. But he persuaded me not to go, and in this way, after I had told him as much as I dared, without squealing on Amy.
“My dear,” he said, “if Washington had not fought out the battle of Harlem Heights, New York might be a British Possession to-day. But courage and staying there saved the country and won a battle. Just in that way a man has to fight his battles through; he owes that to his soul. After he has won--or tried to--going is another matter. But you are not guilty; your battle has just begun, and I think you ought to stay here until you can leave without the shadow of suspicion hurting you. Hoist your flag, wave it hard, and stick!”
I drew a deep breath. “If you think so, I will,” I said.
Then he cheered me a great deal by saying, “This is simplyrotten!” and, “What’s the matter with them?” I shook my head. After that I stood up.
“I must go,” I said, “and change my clothes for dinner. Aunt Penelope cannot excuse lateness.”
But I need not have hurried, for I had my dinner in my room. It was part of my punishment, and everything was cold, but I didn’t mind. I wasn’t very hungry. After I finished eating I wrote Uncle Frank, but it wasn’t a good letter. I told him about school starting the next week, spoke about the weather, and a little, but not much, about missing him (I didn’t dare tell him how much I really did, for I knew it would make him unhappy), and then I told him I looked at the bug quite a good deal, which was true; and after I finished the letter I got the little bug, put it on my desk and studied it, and what it meant, for quite a long while. And I think it helped me. I didn’t feel any happier from this, but I felt more courage. For if a mere bug could stand being entombed for three years so that it might finally blossom out with wings and a song, I thought I could.
Just as I got up to put it on my bureau, I heard a noise at the window. I drew a very deep breath and then stopped breathing entirely for a minute, after which I decided I would go to see what was happening. For what Mr. Kempwood had said about battles made me want to fight mine very bravely. And I did laugh when I got there, for on top of a broom and a floor-mop which had been lashed together to make height, was a package. It was tied there, and down below, poking this up, was Mr. Kempwood.
He did a stage whisper, which I heard clearly.
“Your room?” he said. “I never dreamed it!” But he had known, for I told him I slept over the little room which he used for an office. “Unlash the ballast, Juliet!” he commanded, and I did. Then I said: “IwishI could come down!” He said he wished so too, smiled and waved at me, and I said I’d send him a note a little later on a string. Then I went inside and undid the package. It held a wonderful box of candy with enough pink ribbon on it for two chemises, a copy of “Little Women,” and a dear little box with an ivory kitten perched on top. Inside of this he had a rhyme. It said:
“This Thomas Cat, the mop-post brings,Is well bred, calm, and never singsUpon a fence at night.The box he guards is for Nat’s rings,Cuff buttons, studs, and other things(Keeps them from dust and sight).And if, my dear, life cruel stings,Remember S. K.’s friendship clingsTo you, all right!”
“This Thomas Cat, the mop-post brings,Is well bred, calm, and never singsUpon a fence at night.The box he guards is for Nat’s rings,Cuff buttons, studs, and other things(Keeps them from dust and sight).And if, my dear, life cruel stings,Remember S. K.’s friendship clingsTo you, all right!”
“This Thomas Cat, the mop-post brings,Is well bred, calm, and never singsUpon a fence at night.The box he guards is for Nat’s rings,Cuff buttons, studs, and other things(Keeps them from dust and sight).And if, my dear, life cruel stings,Remember S. K.’s friendship clingsTo you, all right!”
“This Thomas Cat, the mop-post brings,
Is well bred, calm, and never sings
Upon a fence at night.
The box he guards is for Nat’s rings,
Cuff buttons, studs, and other things
(Keeps them from dust and sight).
And if, my dear, life cruel stings,
Remember S. K.’s friendship clings
To you, all right!”
Well, I liked that, and it cheered me up. And below that I found a little wad of paper which was twisted about a silver ring; it was a lovely ring! The silver was so prettily fashioned and held the amethyst so beautifully, and on this paper was a line which said: “There’s a wish on this. Put it on and see if it won’t come true. I hope it will fit.” And it did. I was excited and really happy! It was just like Christmas! Then I sat down and wrote Mr. Kempwood and ate candy as I did it. Life looked so much brighter! I told him so, and how happy he’d made me. Then I lowered this by a corset lace, which was the only convenient lowering device that I could find, and waited. He answered my note promptly, and he said:
“Dear Nat,“Your note made me very happy. I’d give my entire apartment and its contents, any day, to get a thank you note like yours! I know things will smooth out soon; they can’t help it. And meanwhile, if ‘a feller needs a friend’ she has it, can’t help having it, in the apartment below.“Please sleep well to-night, small girl, for we are going to the Hippodrome to-morrow afternoon at 2.0. Now aren’t we?“Until then,“S. K.”
“Dear Nat,
“Your note made me very happy. I’d give my entire apartment and its contents, any day, to get a thank you note like yours! I know things will smooth out soon; they can’t help it. And meanwhile, if ‘a feller needs a friend’ she has it, can’t help having it, in the apartment below.
“Please sleep well to-night, small girl, for we are going to the Hippodrome to-morrow afternoon at 2.0. Now aren’t we?
“Until then,
“S. K.”
I sent down one more note before I went to bed. And because he had signed himself “S. K.” I called him that. Mr. Kempwood seemed too cold for the way I liked him. So I wrote: “I would love to go, dear S. K.” And I added: “Thank you for everything!”
And then I went to bed, wearing my new ring and thinking a great deal about Mr. Kempwood and the Hippodrome. And I almost forgot the happenings of that afternoon, which at the time had hurt fearfully.
Chapter XV--What Occurred
Christmas-timein New York is simply gorgeous, and I loved it. And it was then that all the intense excitement started and that people began to understand what had made me nervous; but I must tell what happened before the holidays came. For a good many things occurred which proved to be notes in the chord of the big mystery.
Once more my bracelet disappeared and reappeared, as it had before--at night. And this time the scratching woke me from a sound sleep, and, as before, I saw a tiny point of light caught in the gold, and in this way watched it creep about a foot inside of the room by my bed and then stop. And this time, after it had rested for a moment, it moved again with a jerk, for about two inches. Then, very quietly, the door at the head of my bed closed, and I heard the click of the door-knob, after which the key fell from the lock and clattered loudly on the floor. . . .
I lay there shaking and gasping, and wishing that even Amy were with me. But Amy and I were not good friends at that time. . . . Well, that night I got up, switched on my lights, and picked up the bracelet. I tried to be a sport, and so I said, “Hello; glad to see you back!” but my voice wasn’t the sort that should have gone with those words. Then I put the bracelet up and was just about to turn off the lights when I heard my door open perhaps an inch and close quickly. And I turned in time to see a hand reach in to get the flashlight which lay on the table by my bed.
Shakily I said, “Who is that?” but no one answered.
And I went to the door and looked out, but no one was in sight. . . . From down the hall I could hear Uncle Archie snoring, and then Amy coughed. Nothing was the matter with them. I closed my door and locked it, although I did not see what good locks would be against a force of the sort I was meeting. But--it seemed safer.
Every sound from the street rose to bother me and make me think that there was something outside the door. Every creak in the furniture made me jump. I sat huddled up in a big chair, warmly wrapped in a blanket, but shaking as if I had two hundred and nine chills all at once. And every once in a while I would think I heard a footstep in the hall.
“If this goes on,” I thought, “I do not see how I canstandit.” And at that time I decided to give up the bracelet and have peace. For everything looks blacker at night, and in those dark hours it is easy to give up and let yourself be beaten.
A half an hour after that, perhaps, I heard the beginning of day in the whir of motors, and nothing ever sounded so good to me. I wanted light, most terribly.
And as all things that seem as far away as graduation, or your first low-necked dress, or your first train, it eventually came, and then I lay down, and slept.
When I got up the next morning Aunt Penelope was nice to me for the first time since she thought I’d stolen Evelyn’s violets. That is, I mean she felt like being kind. Before, she had been elaborately polite, and as just as she could possibly be, but I felt that this was because she would be uncomfortable if she weren’t, not because her instincts pointed my way with gentleness. And I was so glad that I had to swallow a great many times as fast as possible, and couldn’t say good-morning to Uncle Archie, who got in with his greeting first and “Huh-ed” at me twice before I could respond.
“My dear child,” said Aunt Penelope, “are you ill?”
I said I was all right, I guessed, but that I hadn’t slept very well.
“Come here,” she said.
I did.
She took my hands in hers and then laid a hand on my cheek. “Hot,” she said. “Suppose we stay home from school to-day?”
I nodded.
“And do a little petting of ourselves?” she went on.
I said I thought that would be nice.
“Amy will take a note to Miss Gardner,” Aunt Penelope continued, “and we’ll be cosily fixed at home and have Doctor Vance come in.” And then she looked at me searchingly, patted my hand and sent me to my place. I didn’t eat much, I didn’t feel like it and I was too busy thinking, for I had decided, with daylight, that I would not give up. Uncle Archie got up, before we had finished, as he always does, and as he went by my place laid five dollars by it. I did think that was dear of him.
I asked if I might be excused, and followed him to the hall and here I thanked him. He grunted and looked over my head, and you can imagine my surprise when he said, “Guess you haven’t been very happy, lately, have you?”
I replied that I supposed it was my fault if I had not been, and then (I don’t know what made me, for I had become used to having people think wrong of me) I added, “I did not take those violets.”
“Huh----” he grunted.
“I don’t care enough for them,” I went on. “I prefer daisies to orchids, just as I prefer fishing tothé dansants.”
“Fishing,” said Uncle Archie, and he stared down at the surface of the hall table, which shines highly where it isn’t covered with a lovely piece of brocade. “I used to fish,” he said, “but my soul--that was a long time ago!” and he sighed. I got the impression that he had liked it lots, and I think it seemed to him as if it had happened a long time past in his life and that he had grown away from it in spirit too, and somehow couldn’t go back. I felt very sorry for him.
When I went back to the dining-room I found Evelyn just trailing in, wearing a négligé and looking pretty, but tired. She was fretful about a frock that had not come when she expected it and sat toying with her breakfast and complaining about everything. And as always, when she began this, Amy started to say thatshehad nothing to wear, and that her clothes were the worst looking in school and that she was ashamed to go. And then she began to cry.
I was disgusted, and I thought Evelyn ought to be ashamed to start it, for bad temper is just as catching as measles or mumps, and anyone who gives it to the public should be punished in some way.
Aunt looked tried.
“Whatisthe matter with you?” she asked. “I never sit down that you and Amy don’t ask for something, and I’m sure I don’t see where you got that habit----”
(I almost smiled at that.) Then she looked at a little tiny diamond-trimmed wrist-watch she wears, spoke sharply to Amy of the time, added a word about her own engagements, and both she and Amy left. Evelyn and I, who had not finished eating, were alone.
And I did an awful thing, but it was a satisfaction. I told Evelyn just what I thought of her. She started it.
“What is the matter withpeople?” she said. “Sometimes they’re simply on edge. . . . Here I come in, make a calm statement about needing frocks, and Amy begins to cry. . . . Anyone can see that I need more than a child of her age does. . . .”
“People are all pigs,” I said, “and want more than they have and more and more and more, and that is the reason you’re so unhappy. You started the bad temper,” I continued (it really was interesting, for she had let her mouth open in astonishment, and astonishment evidently relaxed the spring, for it stayed so), “and then--you wonder what made it. Any girl like Amy looks up to an older sister, and when the older sister complains the entire time, why--she does too! And that’s the reason,” I stated with entire frankness, “that you’re going to miss happiness. You think frocks and having things makes it--well, things and frocks don’t. Responsibility and love and giving make a return, and they only. . . . Look here,” I paused for a moment, and then went on, “Amy adores you, she patterns herself over you; therefore she is beginning to be cross to aunt and never to say a decent thing at home and to complainall the time. That’s what she sees inyou----”
Evelyn stood up.
“And,” I hurried on before she could break in, “she will miss real love, as you will, because real love hasn’t enough money for motors and frocks and all she wants. And I think real love is lucky, for all he would get would be a request for more money, complaints and no consideration. Look at Uncle Archie,” I added, and I went on at length about his caring for fishing and never doing it and how he never sat down to a meal without a request of some sort, from one of them, for money.
“That whole business has soured this family,” I said, “and I am glad you are not going to let it sour another--since money is evidently most important to you.”
Then I left. Evelyn had plenty of time to speak, but she didn’t; and what is more she didn’t speak about it later, or tell Aunt Penelope of what I had done. I know it was frightful of me, but, as I said, it was a satisfaction, for I had come in the library one afternoon hunting a book and found Evelyn and Mr. Apthorpe sitting there before a fire. The heavy rugs muffled my footsteps and before I could speak and let them know I was there, I heard, “Four thousand--oh, Herbert, I don’t see howwecould. I love you, but howcouldwe manage on that!” And he hadn’t come to call since, so I knew how it ended.
That was what made me so mad--to see her throw away that chance (for it was a big one if she did care) because of greed.
Several weeks went by after that and everyone but Evelyn was nicer to me. She wasn’t unpleasant, but she didn’t notice me. The Doctor said I was a little nervously upset, and that commanded Amy’s respect and made the girls in school splendid to me. Hardly a day went by that I didn’t get gum-drops or a French pastry or have someone offer to let me wear their violets for a half-hour. I liked that. And more for the spirit than for the benefits which I received from it.
Mr. Kempwood was splendid to me all that time and took me for lots of nice drives and to the theatre several times. We became better and better friends, and he began to seem less old and more “S. K.,” a chum.
One night he sent a new servant up to ask if I cared to go walking with him before dinner. I was in the dining-room helping Ito serve aunt’s friends who had been playing auction and were ready to be tea-ed up. When I hunted the man to give him my answer I couldn’t find him, until, looking down the long hall which leads toward the sleeping-rooms, I saw him step from my room.
“I beg pardon,” he said, as he reached me, “but I heard a window go up in that room, and then a heavy tool drop. It sounded like a sneak thief and I went to see. . . . The window was open, miss, and there is a bit of wood broken from the sill. I beg pardon if I did wrong, but there seemed to be no one about but the party of ladies and I thought immediate action necessary.”
I said it was all right and thanked him. And I found something he had not seen--and that was that the lock of the window was broken.
Someone had been there, and with intent fixed that window so it could be opened. It was the one which led out on the little iron grilled balcony. That was the night I set the trap. If I recall correctly, it was the night before Thanksgiving. But that doesn’t matter. What does matter was that five people wore bandages on their right hands the next day--so--how could I tell who had found the trap?
Nothing seemed to work out as I hoped it would, everything only made more confusion; and I felt--Madam Jumel smile!
Chapter XVI--All Sorts of Bruises
S. K. suggestedthe trap and I think he did not really believe that my bracelet was ever stolen, but thought that I imagined it was, because I was at that time half sick from nervous upset, which was not extraordinary, considering everything.
“Put a mouse-trap in the box,” he suggested, “and then, when you hear it shoot, you can get up and chase Madam Jumel’s ghost with a hair brush or a shoe tree.”
I said he was a silly thing and ignored the chase suggestion. But, on the way home I stopped at a small grocery and bought a mouse-trap, and S. K., laughing quite a little, paid for it. Then he asked me how he was to settle with the landlord that month, muttered a good deal about extravagant women, and went on to say that we could easily locate the thief, by the mouse-trap which would be clamped on his first finger.
“And,” he said, “if the thief is sufficiently prominent, he will start a style and everyone will be wearing them. Your aunt will be saying, ‘My dear, I’ve mislaid my mouse-trap and I’mlatenow! Whereevercan it be!’ ” And we both laughed for half a block. It sounds silly, but S. K. imitates beautifully and I could just see Aunt Penelope running all over, hunting her mouse-trap, while Jane stood around holding her furs; and Ito and Amy helped hunt, and everyone got excited and hot; for that’s the way she does lose things and find them.
S. K. and I had been walking in the first snow-fall, which was a feathery, dry affair that clung and didn’t melt. It was really too cold to snow at all, and the gray sky that was full of it had a hard time letting it down to earth through the intense dry cold that made a wall. Your cheeks stung and grew pink and the flakes caught in your hair and on your clothes. S. K. said that snow was becoming to me and that I should always wear it and I replied that I would be charmed to in July.
Then he said, “My dear, you’re growing up. Your answers are becoming too quick and clever for a sixteen-year-old chit. I won’t have it.”
“Seventeen,” I responded.
He asked when and I told him that morning at four or thereabouts, for that was the hour at which I was presented to society, according to Mrs. Bradly, who has often told me what Chloe told her of the event. My mother was very pleased with me then and happy that my father had a daughter. When someone said, “Your eyes, Nelly, and your beautiful shade of hair!” she whispered, “That’ll please Carter, for heseemsto like that sort!”
“You’re a mean girl,” said S. K., and he meant it. I apologized.
“Would have had a party for you,” he went on. “The mention in the social column would have read: ‘Mr. Samuel Kempwood entertained for Miss Natalie Page at his apartment--and so on.’ Then, ‘Among those present were Miss Natalie Page and Mr. Kempwood. The refreshments were charming, and Mr. Kempwood almost managed to save one slice of the cake for his consumption, but the onslaught of----’ ”
I said he was unkind. Then we walked in haughty silence for another half-block.
“Look here,” he said, after a side look at me, “pretty soon, in two or three years, you’ll be coming out. Then--think of the young idiots with down on their upper lips who will fall for you. Nat, I predict it, and--suppose you fell for one ofthem?”
“Well, what of it?” I asked. I enjoyed it because I thought he was thinking how he’d miss our friendship. It gave me a new, queer feeling, which I suppose was power.
“Won’t have it,” said S. K. irritably.
“Really?” I said.
“Well, I won’t,” he said again. And he frowned and didn’t look at me. I melted. I care for him awfully and I can’t tease him long. For the sentence that always goes with the slipper and spanks is awfully true when I hurt S. K.
I slipped my arm through his and squeezed it tight against me. “Don’t you know,” I said, “that I’ll never like anyone as well as I do you, S. K. dear?” And I went on to tell him of all he’d done for me, how he’d saved me from running away from the firing-line, and made the firing-line a very pleasant place--in spots, and how much his teaching me history and helping me with my studies had helped, and how greatly his different interests had developed me. And I ended with: “If I ever do marry, you can pick out my husband.”
He fumbled for my hand, closed his around it hard, shook it, and said, with a funny little tight laugh: “It’s a go!” And then he was most awfully jolly, in a sort of excited way. I didn’t understand it then, but I liked him even more than usual, and so enjoyed the afternoon.
We had come from the Jumel Mansion, where we had seen General Washington. That is, we pretended we did. I often went to the Jumel Mansion, and S. K. sometimes went with me. I was glad, for he helped to make it, and the people who had lived in it, real to me. I had a paper to write about New York at the time of the fire, its life, development, and so on, and of course Washington came in it, and S. K.’s imagination made it get the Freshman prize. I felt mean about taking it, although he said what I had put in was original and not from him.
When I told our English teacher that Mr. Kempwood had helped me by talking facts to me, Amy was in the room, and that night she said: “You always try to be truthful, don’t you?”
I said, “Yes,” without looking at her.
Then she looked at the ring S. K. had given me, which I wear all the time. (Aunt Penelope said I could keep it because he was so much older.) “Do you think men like truthful girls?” Amy asked next. Her voice was small. I said I thought they did.
“How do they know you’re not truthful?” she asked next.
“How do you know there’s a drop of ink in a glass of water?” I counter-questioned.
“Do you think it shows?” she asked slowly.
I said I felt sure that it did.
“How?” she asked.
“By the loss of faith in those to whom you have lied,” I answered. I hated to hurt her, but I thought she deserved it, and it was the truth. I had lost faith in her, and after that occurrence about the violets I could not trust her.
“It isn’t the first little lie,” I said, “that counts so much; by that you only hurt yourself. But it’s the ripples from it that make the cruelness. You see, you take the trust out of the hearts of your friends, and for a substitute you give four words.”
“What are those?” asked Amy, fingering the fringe that hung from her overskirt.
“You Can’t Trust Her,” I said. Then Amy picked up a copy ofVogueand pretended to look at it, and I turned the pages of theLondon Sporting and Dramatic News, which is not so entirely given to lingerie and portraits of Lady Something. I like pictures of dogs because I know their points, and I found a double page of setters, which I studied with interest.
I think Amy tried to say that she was sorry about her lies, but I think she couldn’t. And I’m glad she didn’t, for I would have had to tell her that the only way to right a wrong is to try to undo it, and she wasn’t ready to do that at that time. That took a long thinking to accomplish, and a place in the centre of the stage.
But, to go back to the afternoon of mouse-traps and General Washington study, as I said, we visited the Mansion; and “Washington’s Headquarters” it was, most truly, that day.
“Do you smell something good?” asked S. K., as we stood in the hall. I shook my head.
“Stupid-nosed girl!” he said. “A huge cut of beef is roasting before the basement fireplace. It is on a spit, and it is being turned now and again by a fat, hot cook. There’s chatter below stairs. For this night President Washington is to give a large dinner party, and the house which was once Roger Morris’, and is now but a farmhouse, is to hold American celebrities. . . . Listen to the clatter on the stairs; it is a waiter in a blue satin coat and white satin breeches. He is carrying wine-glasses, because those were the good old days before anybody thought Loganberry was good for anything but painting the barn.
“Listen,” said S. K. I did, and then, in a loud voice, he said: “By King George’s beaten rascals, I’ve forgot the serviettes!”
And I seemed to see the waiter say this and hear him clatter toward a high dresser which held the linens. . . . S. K. told me about how they set the table, and he told me the date of this dinner, which was July 10, 1790. And then I had a list of the guests, who were President Washington’s Cabinet “and Ladies”: John and Abigail Adams, the Vice-President and his wife; Thomas Jefferson, the Secretary of State; Henry Knox, Secretary of War, and his wife; and Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury, and his wife.
“I am glad to see Alexander Hamilton,” said S. K., squinting in the room (we pretended, of course, that their ghosts were back a-dining), “for he has done so much for America. He it was who saw that the United States must have a central power and central Government. (My, how the individual States did disagree after the war, how their trade restrictions did hamper and hurt the bigger trades and the good of the country!) He it was who got up the Constitution; and Mr. Jefferson, who sits across the table, the Declaration of Independence. Pretty nice things both of them, you know!”
I agreed.
“President Washington is speaking,” said S. K. “He has just told the servant to be lighter on his heavy-soled shoes (this in an aside), and then, as a good host, quickly diverts attention by mentioning a recollection. . . . ‘To think,’ he says, ‘that in September, 1776, I watched from this point the burning of the city of New York. It was an awesome and most fearful sight!’ (He pauses; I think he gives thanks that all the horrors of war are past.)
“ ‘And how many houses were burned, if it pleases you to make reply to a foolish woman’s question?’ This from Mrs. Knox. President Washington says that it pleases him ‘most mightily’ to answer whatsoever question Mrs. Knox may ask him, and replies that one thousand houses went in that terrible affair, and that that number was a fourth of the city’s mansions.
“ ‘So vast a place,’ says Mrs. Hamilton. ‘I am wellnigh distracted when I wander the crowded streets, thinking I may never return from whence I started!’ ‘We are growing,’ says Thomas Jefferson. ‘Our United States population is nearing three million nine hundred thousand, and New York now boasts high of its last census, which states that thirty-three thousand live within its confines.’ ”
I laughed, and S. K. smiled.
“To think of it,” I said, and then asked what New York’s population is now, and S. K. told me that in 1910 it was four million seven hundred and sixty-six thousand, and that New York State held over nine million souls.
Then S. K. told me that Hamilton was buried in Trinity Churchyard, and that Trinity Church was caught in the big fire, and rebuilt twice since, but that St. Paul’s had been saved. He told me he’d take me to both places some day.
Then we started home, and I set my trap and got into riding things, for I had begun in the latter part of September to ride each day. I wondered about wearing my bracelet and decided not to. I remember I put it in the bottom drawer of my bureau under a clean petticoat and a crêpe de chine chemise. Then I started out.
A crowd from school ride together, and with us is a man who cares for us. I don’t like going their pace, and so I was almost relieved when my mount bolted and got ahead of them. The day was lowering and, although the sort I liked, not, I imagine, a general favourite, for the drive was almost empty. My horse did not throw me, but a man who pretended to stop him pulled him cruelly, made him dance, and the mock-hero, while pretending to help me, pulled me off my saddle. I was thrown on the ground until I was dizzy, and then I felt hands on my arms, and heard someone whisper: “Where’s the bracelet?” The crowd drew near at that moment, the man accepted thanks, and before I could speak or detain him was gone.
“Stop him!” I shouted. “Stop him!”
But the policeman who had drawn near soothed me with “He don’t want no thanks, little lady. He just wanted to do you a good turn, and Lord knows what would of happened if he hadn’t stepped out!”
“Has he gone?” I asked miserably.
“Sure!” said the officer, smiling. I suppose he thought I was a sentimental young person and wanted to call him “my hero!” I didn’t; I wanted to have him gaoled!
Shaking a good deal, I remounted and rode on. I decided I would finish my ride, although I was bruised and frightened. It was no ghost that had pulled me from that horse. I felt the impression of his fingers for hours afterward, and they were strong and real.
I went to bed soon after dinner that night, and at about nine Jane brought me in a huge box, all covered with white tissue and wide pink ribbons. It looked very festive, and I could hardly wait to get it open and when I did--well, it was just like S. K. That is all I can say about it and--enough!
It was a birthday cake with tiny pink candles all over it, and even a box of matches lying by the side, ready to do the work. Under this was a card, and it held S. K.’s wishes, written in a dear way, which made me very happy.
I couldn’t cut that birthday cake alone and eat a piece; I wouldn’t have enjoyed it. And so, in spite of Evelyn’s coolness to me, I went to her room, where she was confined with a cold.
“Evelyn,” I said, “it’s my birthday, and S. K. sent me a cake. I would love bringing it over here and eating it with you--if you wouldn’t mind?” She didn’t speak. I felt sorry for her, for since Mr. Apthorpe stopped coming she has not looked happy, although she has not been so sharp or complained so much.
Suddenly I heard myself say: “I am sorry I said all that; I had no business to. You are all being very kind to me and giving me so much that I should never think of your lacks.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” she said. And then--in a lower voice: “You know it was true.”
I shook my head. “Not lately,” I added to the shake. And then I again asked if I might bring over the cake, and she said yes. So I went back, got into a heavier bath-robe, lit all the candles, and triumphantly carried it to Evelyn’s room.
Then I thought of Uncle Archie, found he was home, and we sent an invitation to him. He came sauntering in after several moments, looked at the cake, grunted “Huh! Where’d you get it?” and sat down. And I never, up to that time, had such a good time in that apartment. That began them.
We laughed, and Uncle Archie talked, and it was all as jolly and cosy as could be. I curled up on a window seat near the radiator, Uncle Archie sat down before Evelyn’s dressing-table and actually pretended to do his hair (he hasn’t any), and Evelyn sat up in bed and laughed--between blowing her nose. And we laughed and talked and ate cake and looked at the flickering pink tapers a-top my cake.
After a half-hour of this Uncle Archie stood up. “Father,” Evelyn said, with a little hesitation and some embarrassment, “I wish you’d come again--like this. I promise never to ask you for a thing in this room!”
He put his big hand on her head and said, “When I can, I like you to ask me. It’s only when I can’t that it hurts.” And before me I saw those two people run up the curtains that hid their souls, and begin to understand each other. Evelyn looked up at him, and suddenly she held the back of his fat, pudgy hand against her cheek.
“Father,” she said, “I hope that perhaps we can come to be pretty good friends.”
He grunted and left. But I knew he felt a lot and didn’t dare to do more than grunt, and after he went Evelyn blew her nose very hard. Then she lay back and silently we watched the little flames of the candles.
“People are such fools,” she whispered. I nodded, still staring at the points of light. I had looked at them so long that they almost hypnotized me. It was really difficult to look away.
She spoke abruptly next, and loud. “You were right,” she said, “in what you said that day. I have been fretful and cross and my standards have been wrong. And--all the wrongness of them is hurting me now. . . .” Then, with gaps and funny interludes of the old, critical, little part of Evelyn, she told me that Herbert Apthorpe didn’t like her any more, that he had been hurt by her not being willing to marry him because she considered him poor, and that he hadn’t answered a note in which she said she was sorry.
“I saw him,” she ended, “last week with Charlotte Brush, I suppose----” Then her voice trailed off as she stared up at the ceiling. Her arms were above her head and her hair spread all over the pillow in heavy chestnut waves.
“He must care,” I said, getting up and coming over to sit on the bed.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because you are so beautiful,” I answered, “and your spirit would be too, if you’d let it. You are dear when you want to be.”
“Do you think so?” she asked with interest, as she turned her eyes on me. I was afraid she would be annoyed, but she wasn’t.
“Why lately,” I said, “no one could have been more lovely----”
“Not to you,” she answered.
I said I didn’t blame her, that I had been presuming and I knew it. For I had.
“You helped me,” she said, and then she began to cry. “I am going to do my best,” she whimpered, between really big sobs, “and be nice at home anyway--but I wish--I wish I had had sense enough to measure when----” She didn’t finish, but I knew what she meant. I put my arms around her and she sat up and let her head rest on my shoulder.
“You’ll get this cold,” she whispered, after her sobs had a little quieted. I said I didn’t care. And then she kissed me. And I knew we were friends for always; the sort of friends that are tight enough to scrap and stand it, disagree and love.
After a little while more I left, because we both began to be embarrassed from the manner in which we had revealed what was way inside. . . . I went to bed thinking of families and of how often they neglect opportunities to know and love each other. I thought of Uncle Archie and Evelyn and then I thought how lucky I had been, for ever since I was three Uncle Frank had loved me, ever so hard; sometimes very absently, to be sure, but I always knew he cared and I think he knew I did. Before I slept, he always came in to sit on the edge of my bed and once and again he’d forget why and then he’d say, “Ho hum, what am I here for?”
And I’d say, “Good-night, Uncle Frank.”
Then he’d say, “Ho hum! To be sure!” and add “Good-night.” Then from the doorway he would say, “Ho hum, I love you,” and I would whisper, most always very sleepily, “I love you----” and I drifted away on that.
When I was tiny, Chloe began to send me to sleep with the remembrance that I loved someone and someone loved me, and I did it to Uncle Frank when I came, and that started it. . . . Perhaps some people might have thought it funny to hear a bent-shouldered man with a long beard say, “Ho hum. . . . I love you,” but it was never funny to me.
I will always see him outlined against the light from the hall--and silhouetted in that way in my door, and when I do, I hear his voice telling a sleepy little child that she was loved. And I know it was not funny. It was beautiful.