“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’m late now! Where ever can 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 he seems to 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 of them?”
“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 of Vogue and pretended to look at it, and I turned the pages of the London 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.