Kitabı oku: «We and Our Neighbors: or, The Records of an Unfashionable Street», sayfa 5
"But see here, I must be going to my club, and, now I think of it, I've brought some Paris letters from the girls for you, to pass the evening with."
"You have? Letters from Ida and Caroline? You naughty creature, why didn't you give them to me before?"
"Well, your grave face when I first came in put everything else out of my head; and then came on all this talk: but it's just as well, you'll have them to read while I'm gone."
"Don't stay late, Harry."
"No; you may be sure I've no temptation. I'd much rather be here with you watching our own back-log. But then I shall see several fellows about articles for the magazine, and get all the late news, and, in short, take an observation of our latitude and longitude; so, au revoir!"
CHAPTER VII
LETTERS AND AIR-CASTLES
After Harry went out, Eva arranged the fire, dropped the curtains over the window, drew up an easy chair into a warm corner under the gas-light, and began looking over the outside of her Parisian letters with that sort of luxurious enjoyment of delay with which one examines the post-marks and direction of letters that are valued as a great acquisition. There was one from her sister Ida and one from Harry's cousin Caroline. Ida's was opened first. It was dated from a boarding-house in the Rue de Clichy, giving a sort of journalised view of their studies, their medical instructors, their walks and duties in the hospital, all told with an evident and vigorous sense of enjoyment. Eva felt throughout what a strong, cheerful, self-sustained being her sister was, and how fit it was that a person so sufficient to herself, so equable, so healthfully balanced and poised in all her mental and physical conformation, should have undertaken the pioneer work of opening a new profession for women. "I never could do as she does, in the world," was her mental comment, "but I am thankful that she can." And then she cut the envelope of Caroline's letter.
To a certain extent there were the same details in it – Caroline was evidently associated in the same studies, the same plans, but there was missing in the letter the professional enthusiasm, the firmness, the self-poise, and calm clearness. There were more bursts of feeling on the pictures in the Louvre than on scientific discoveries; more sensibility to the various æsthetic wonders which Paris opens to an uninitiated guest than to the treasures of anatomy and surgery. With the letter were sent two or three poems, contributions to the Magazine – poems full of color and life, of a subdued fire, but with that undertone of sadness which is so common in all female poets. A portion of the letter may explain this:
"You were right, my dear Eva, in saying, in our last interview, that it did not seem to you that I had the kind of character that was adapted to the profession I have chosen. I don't think I have. I am more certain of it from comparing myself from day to day with Ida, who certainly is born and made for it, if ever a woman was. My choice of it has been simply and only for the reason that I must choose something as a means of self-support, and more than that, as a refuge from morbid distresses of mind which made the still monotony of my New England country life intolerable to me. This course presented itself to me as something feasible. I thought it, too, a good and worthy career – one in which one might do one's share of good for the world. But, Eva, I can feel that there is one essential difference between Ida and myself: she is peculiarly self-sustained and sufficient to herself, and I am just the reverse. I am full of vague unrest; I am chased by seasons of high excitement, alternating with deadly languor. Ida has hard work to know what to do with me. You were right in supposing, as you intimate in your letter, that a certain common friend has something to do with this unrest, but you cannot, unless you know my whole history, know how much. There was a time when he and I were all the world to each other – when shall I ever forget that time! I was but seventeen; a young girl, so ignorant of life! I never had seen one like him; he was a whole new revelation to me; he woke up everything there was in me, never to go to sleep again; and then to think of having all this tide and current of feeling checked – frozen. My father overwhelmed him with accusations; every baseness was laid to his charge. I was woman enough to have stood for him against the world if he had come to me. I would have left all and gone to the ends of the earth with him if he had asked me, but he did not. There was only one farewell, self-accusing letter, and even that fell into my father's hands and never came to me till after his death. For years I thought myself wantonly trifled with by a man of whose attentions I ought to be ashamed. I was indignant at myself for the love that might have been my glory, for it is my solemn belief that if we had been let alone he would have been saved all those wretched falls, those blind struggles that have marred a life whose purpose is yet so noble.
"When the fates brought us together again in New York, I saw at a glance that whatever may have been the proud, morbid conscientiousness that dictated his long silence, he loved me still; – a woman knows that by an unmistakable instinct. She can feel the reality through all disguises. I know that man loves me, and yet he does not now in word or deed make the least profession beyond the boundaries of friendship. He is my friend; with entire devotion he is willing to spend and be spent for me – but he will accept nothing from me. I, who would give my life to him willingly – I must do nothing for him!
"Well, it's no use writing. You see now that I am a very unworthy disciple of your sister. She is so calm and philosophical that I cannot tell her all this; but you, dear little Eva, you know the heart of woman, and you have a magic key which unlocks everybody's heart in confidence to you. I seem to see you, in fancy, with good Cousin Harry, sitting cosily in your chimney-corner; your ivies and nasturtiums growing round your sunny windows, and an everlasting summer in your pretty parlors, while the December winds whistle without. Such a life as you two lead, such a home as your home, is worth a thousand 'careers' that dazzle ambition. Send us more letters, journals, of all your pretty, lovely home life, and let me warm myself in the glow of your fireside.
Your Cousin,Carry."
Eva finished this letter, and then folding it up sat with it in her lap, gazing into the fire, and pondering its contents. If the truth must be told, she was revolving in her young, busy brain a scheme for restoring Caroline to her lover, and setting them up comfortably at housekeeping on a contiguous street, where she had seen a house to let. In five minutes she had gone through the whole programme – seen the bride at the altar, engaged the house, bought the furniture, and had before her a vision of parlors, of snuggeries and cosy nooks, where Caroline was to preside, and where Bolton was to lounge at his ease, while she and Caroline compared housekeeping accounts. Happy young wives develop an aptitude for match-making as naturally as flowers spring in a meadow, and Eva was losing herself in this vision of Alnaschar, when a loud, imperative, sharp bark of a dog at the front door of the house called her back to life and the world.
Now there are as many varieties to dog-barks as to man-talks. There is the common bow-wow, which means nothing, only that it is a dog speaking; there is the tumultuous angry bark, which means attack; the conversational bark, which, of a moonlight night, means gossip; and the imperative staccato bark which means immediate business. The bark at the front door was of this kind: it was loud and sharp, and with a sort of indignant imperativeness about it, as of one accustomed to be attended to immediately.
Eva flew to the front door and opened it, and there sat Jack, the spoiled darling of Miss Dorcas Vanderheyden and her sister, over the way.
"Why, Jacky! where did you come from?" said Eva. Jacky sat up on his haunches and waved his forepaws in a vigorous manner, as was his way when he desired to be specially ingratiating.
Eva seized him in her arms and carried him into the parlor, thinking that as he had accidentally been shut out for the night she would domesticate him for a while, and return him to his owners on the morrow. So she placed him on the ottoman in the corner and attempted to caress him, but evidently that was not the purpose he had in view. He sprang down, ran to the door and snuffed, and to the front windows and barked imperiously.
"Why, Jack, what do you want?"
He sprang into a chair and barked out at the Vanderheyden house.
Eva looked at the mantel clock – it wanted a few minutes of ten – without, it was a bright moonlight night.
"I'll run across with him, and see what it is," she said. She was young enough to enjoy something like an adventure. She opened the front door and Jack rushed out, and then stopped to see if she would follow; as she stood a moment he laid hold on the skirt of her dress, as if to pull her along.
"Well, Jacky, I'll go," said Eva. Thereat the creature bounded across the street and up the steps of the opposite house, where he stood waiting. She went up and rang the door-bell, which appeared to be what he wanted, as he sat down quite contented on the doorstep.
Nobody came. Eva looked up and down the street. "Jacky, we shall have to go back, they are all asleep," she said. But Jacky barked contradiction, sprang nearer to the door, and insisted on being let in.
"Well, if you say so, Jacky, I must ring again," she said, and with that she pulled the door-bell louder, and Jack barked with all his might, and the two succeeded after a few moments in causing a perceptible stir within.
Slowly the door unclosed, and a vision of Miss Dorcas in an old-fashioned broad-frilled night-cap peeped out. She was attired in a black water-proof cloak, donned hastily over her night gear.
"Oh, Jack, you naughty boy!" she exclaimed, stooping eagerly to the prodigal, who sprung tumultuously into her arms and began licking her face.
"I'm so much obliged to you, Mrs. Henderson," she said to Eva. "We went down in the omnibus this afternoon, and we suddenly missed him, the naughty fellow," she said, endeavoring to throw severity into her tones.
Eva related Jack's ruse.
"Did you ever!" said Miss Dorcas; "the creature knew that we slept in the back of the house, and he got you to ring our door-bell. Jacky, what a naughty fellow you are!"
Mrs. Betsey now appeared on the staircase in an equal state of dishabille:
"Oh dear, Mrs. Henderson, we are so shocked!"
"Dear me, never speak of it. I think it was a cunning trick of Jack. He knew you were gone to bed, and saw I was up and so got me to ring his door-bell for him. I don't doubt he rode up town in the omnibus. Well, good-night!"
And Eva closed the door and flew back to her own little nest just in time to let in Harry.
The first few moments after they were fairly by the fireside were devoted to a recital of the adventure, with dramatic representations of Jack and his mistresses.
"It's a capital move on Jack's part. It got me into the very interior of the fortress. Only think of seeing them in their night-caps! That is carrying all the out-works of ceremony at a move."
"To say nothing of their eternal gratitude," said Harry.
"Oh, that of course. They were ready to weep on my neck with joy that I had brought the dear little plague back to them, and I don't doubt are rejoicing over him at this moment. But, oh, Harry, you must hear the girls' Paris letters."
"Are they very long?" said Harry.
"Fie now, Harry; you ought to be interested in the girls."
"Why, of course I am," said Harry, pulling out his watch, "only – what time is it?"
"Only half-past ten – not a bit late," said Eva. As she began to read Ida's letter, Harry settled back in the embrace of a luxurious chair, with his feet stretched out towards the fire, and gradually the details of Paris life mingled pleasingly with a dream – a fact of which Eva was made aware as she asked him suddenly what he thought of Ida's views on a certain point.
"Now, Harry – you haven't been asleep?"
"Just a moment. The very least in the world," said Harry, looking anxiously alert and sitting up very straight.
Then Eva read Caroline's letter.
"Now, isn't it too bad?" she said, with eagerness, as she finished.
"Yes, it's one of those things that you and I can do nothing to help – it is αναγκη [Greek: anagkê]."
"What's ananke?"
"The name the old Greeks gave to that perverse Something that brought ruin and misery in spite of and out of the best human efforts."
"But I want to bring these two together."
"Be careful how you try, darling. Who knows what the results may be? It's a subject Bolton never speaks of, where he has his own purposes and conclusions; and it's the best thing for Caroline to be where she has as many allurements and distractions as she has in Paris, and such a wise, calm, strong friend as your sister.
"And now, dear, mayn't I go to bed?" he added, with pathos, "You've no idea, dear, how sleepy I am."
"Oh, certainly, you poor boy," said Eva, bustling about and putting up the chairs and books preparatory to leaving the parlor.
"You see," she said, going up stairs, "he was so imperious that I really had to go with him."
"He! Who?"
"Why, Jack, to be sure, he did all but speak," said Eva, brush in hand, and letting down her curls before the glass. "You see I was in a reverie over those letters when the barking roused me – I don't think you ever heard such a barking; and when I got him in, he wouldn't be contented – kept insisting on my going over with him – wasn't it strange?"
Harry, by this time composed for the night and half asleep, said it was.
In a few moments he was aroused by Eva's saying, suddenly,
"Harry, I really think I ought to bring them together. Now, couldn't I do something?"
"With Jack?" said Harry, drowsily.
"Jack! – oh, you sleepy-head! Well, never mind. Good night."
CHAPTER VIII
THE VANDERHEYDEN FORTRESS TAKEN
"Now, Harry, I'll tell you what I'm going to do this morning," said Eva, with the air of a little general, as she poured his morning coffee.
"And what are you going to do?" replied he, in the proper tone of inquiry.
"Well, I'm going to take the old fortress over the way by storm, this very morning. I'm going to rush through the breach that Jack has opened into the very interior and see what there is there. I'm perfectly dying to get the run of that funny old house; why, Harry, it's just like a novel, and I shouldn't wonder if I could get enough out of it for you to make an article of."
"Thank you, dear; you enter into the spirit of article-hunting like one to the manner born."
"That I do; I'm always keeping my eyes open when I go about New York for bits and hints that you can work up, and I'm sure you ought to do something with this old Vanderheyden house. I know there must be ghosts in it; I'm perfectly certain."
"But you wouldn't meet them in a morning call," said Harry, "that's contrary to all ghostly etiquette."
"Never mind, I'll get track of them. I'll become intimate with old Miss Dorcas and get her to relate her history, and if there is a ghost-chamber I'll be into it."
"Well, success to you," said Harry; "but to me it looks like a formidable undertaking. Those old ladies are so padded and wadded in buckram."
"Oh, pshaw! there's just what Jack has done for me, he has made a breach in the padding and buckram. Only think of my seeing them at midnight in their night-caps! And such funny night-caps! Why, it's an occasion long to be remembered, and I would be willing to wager anything they are talking it over at this minute; and, of course, you see, it's extremely proper and quite a part of the play that I should come in this morning to inquire after the wanderer, and to hope they didn't catch cold, and to talk over the matter generally. Now, I like that old Miss Dorcas; there seems to me to be an immense amount of character behind all her starch and stiffness, and I think she's quite worth knowing. She'll be an acquisition if one can only get at her."
"Well, as I said, success and prosperity go with you!" said Harry, as he rose and gathered his papers to go to his morning work.
"I'll go right out with you," said Eva, and she snatched from the hat-tree a shawl and a little morsel of white, fleecy worsted, which the initiated surname "a cloud," and tied it over her head. "I'm going right in upon them now," she said.
It was a brisk, frosty morning, and she went out with Harry and darted across from the door. He saw her in the distance, as he went down the street, laughing and kissing her hand to him on the door-step of the Vanderheyden house.
Just then the sound of the door-bell – unheard of in that hour in the morning – caused an excitement in the back breakfast-parlor, where Miss Dorcas and Mrs. Betsey were at a late breakfast, with old Dinah standing behind Miss Dorcas' chair to get her morning orders, giggling and disputing them inch by inch, as was her ordinary wont.
The old door-bell had a rustling, harsh, rusty sound, as if cross with a chronic rheumatism of disuse.
"Who under the sun!" said Miss Dorcas. "Jack, be still!"
But Jack wouldn't be still, but ran and snuffed at the door, and barked as if he smelt a legion of burglars.
Eva heard, within the house, the dining-room door open, and then Jack's barking came like a fire of artillery at the crack of the front door, where she was standing. It was slowly opened, and old Dinah's giggling countenance appeared. "Laws bless your soul, Mis' Henderson," she said, flinging the door wide open, "is that you? Jack, be still, sir!"
But Eva had caught Jack up in her arms, and walked with him to the door of the breakfast room.
"Do pray excuse me," she said, "but I thought I'd just run over and see that you hadn't taken any cold."
The scene within was not uninviting. There was a cheerful wood fire burning on the hearth behind a pair of gigantic old-fashioned brass fire-irons. The little breakfast-table, with its bright old silver and India china, was drawn comfortably up in front. Miss Dorcas had her chair on one side, and Miss Betsey on the other, and between them there was a chair drawn up for Jack, where he had been sitting at the time the door-bell rang.
"We are ashamed of our late hours," said Miss Dorcas, when she had made Eva sit down in an old-fashioned claw-footed arm-chair in the warmest corner; "we don't usually breakfast so late, but, the fact is, Betsey was quite done up by the adventure last night."
"Perhaps," said Eva, "I had better have tried keeping Jack till morning."
"Oh no, indeed, Mrs. Henderson," said Mrs. Betsey, with energy; "I know it's silly, but I shouldn't have slept a wink all night if Jack hadn't come home. You know he sleeps with me," she added.
Eva did not know it before, but she said "Yes" all the same, and the good lady rushed on:
"Yes; Dorcas thinks it's rather silly, but I do let Jack sleep on the foot of my bed. I spread his blanket for him every night, and I always wash his feet and wipe them clean before he goes to bed, and when you brought him back you really ought to have seen him run right up stairs to where I keep his bowl and towel; and he stood there, just as sensible, waiting for me to come and wash him. I wish you could have seen how dirty he was! I can't think where ever that dog gets his paws so greasy."
"'Cause he will eat out o' swill-pails!" interposed Dinah, with a chuckle. "Greatest dog after swill-pails I ever see. That's what he's off after."
"Well, I don't know why. It's very bad of him when we always feed him and take such pains with him," said Mrs. Betsey, in accents of lamentation.
"Dogs is allers jest so," said Dinah; "they's arter nastiness and carron. You can't make a Christian out o' a dog, no matter what you do."
Old Dinah was the very impersonation of that coarse, hard literalness which forces actual unpalatable facts upon unwilling ears. There was no disputing that she spoke most melancholy truths, that even the most infatuated dog-lovers could not always shut their eyes to. But Mrs. Betsey chose wholly to ignore her facts and treat her communication as if it had no existence, so she turned her back to Dinah and went on.
"I don't know what makes Jack have these turns of running away. Sometimes I think it's our system of dieting him. Perhaps it may be because we don't allow him all the meat he wants; but then they say if you do give these pet dogs meat they become so gross that it is quite shocking."
Miss Dorcas rapped her snuff-box, sat back in her chair, and took snuff with an air of antique dignity that seemed to call heaven and earth to witness that she only tolerated such fooleries on account of her sister, and not at all in the way of personal approbation.
The nurture and admonition of Jack was the point where the two sisters had a chronic controversy, Miss Dorcas inclining to the side of strict discipline and vigorous repression.
In fact, Miss Dorcas soothed her violated notions of dignity and propriety by always speaking of Jack as "Betsey's dog" – he was one of the permitted toys and amusements of Betsey's more juvenile years; but she felt called upon to keep some limits of discipline to prevent Jack's paw from ruling too absolutely in the family councils.
"You see," said Mrs. Betsey, going on with her reminiscences of yesterday, "we had taken Jack down town with us because we wanted to get his photographs; we'd had him taken last week, and they were not ready till yesterday."
"Dear me, do show them to me," said Eva, entering cheerfully into the humor of the thing; and Mrs. Betsey trotted up stairs to get them.
"You see how very absurd we are," said Miss Dorcas; "but the fact is, Mrs. Henderson, Betsey has had her troubles, poor child, and I'm glad to have her have anything that can be any sort of a comfort to her."
Betsey came back with her photographs, which she exhibited with the most artless innocence.
"You see," said Miss Dorcas, "just how it is. If people set out to treat a dog as a child, they have to take the consequences. That dog rules this whole family, and of course he behaves like spoiled children generally. Here, now, this morning; Betsey and I both have bad colds because we were got out of bed last night with that creature."
Here Jack, seeming to understand that he was the subject-matter of some criticism, rose up suddenly on his haunches before Miss Dorcas and waved his paws in a supplicatory manner at her. Jack understood this to be his only strong point, and brought it out as a trump card on all occasions when he felt himself to be out of favor. Miss Dorcas laughed, as she generally did, and Jack seemed delighted, and sprang into her lap and offered to kiss her with the most brazen assurance.
"Oh, well, Mrs. Henderson, I suppose you see that we are two old fools about that dog," she said. "I don't know but I am almost as silly as Betsey is, but the fact is one must have something, and a dog is not so much risk as a boy, after all. Yes, Jack," she said, tapping his shaggy head patronizingly, "after all you're no more impudent than puppies in general."
"I never quarrel with anyone for loving dogs," said Eva. "For my part I think no family is complete without one. I tell Harry we must 'set up' our dog as soon as we get a little more settled. When we get one, we'll compare notes."
"Well," said Miss Dorcas, "I always comfort myself with thinking that dear Sir Walter, with all his genius, went as far in dog-petting as any of us. You remember Washington Irving's visit to Abbotsford?"
Eva did not remember it, and Miss Dorcas said she must get it for her at once; she ought to read it. And away she went to look it up in the book-case in the next room.
"The fact is," said Mrs. Betsey, mysteriously, "though Dorcas has so much strength of mind, she is to the full as silly about Jack as I am. When I was gone to Newburg, if you'll believe me, she let Jack sleep on her bed. Dinah knows it, doesn't she?"
Dinah confirmed this fact by a loud explosing, in which there was a singular mixture of snort and giggle; and to cover her paroxysm she seized violently on the remains of the breakfast and bore them out into the kitchen, and was heard giggling and gurgling in a rill of laughter all along the way.
Mrs. Betsey began gathering up and arranging the cups, and filling a lacquered bowl of Japanese fabric with hot water, she proceeded to wash the china and silver.
"What lovely china," said Eva, with the air of a connoisseur.
"Yes," said Mrs. Betsey, "this china has been in the family for three generations, and we never suffer a servant to touch it."
"Please let me help you," said Eva, taking up the napkin sociably, "I do so love old china."
And pretty soon one might have seen a gay morning party – Mrs. Betsey washing, Eva wiping, and Miss Dorcas the while reading scraps out of Abbotsford about Maida, and Finette, and Hamlet, and Camp, and Percy, and others of Walter Scott's four-footed friends. The ice of ceremony and stiffness was not only broken by this bit of morning domesticity, but floated gaily down-stream never to be formed again.
You may go further into the hearts of your neighbors by one-half hour of undressed rehearsal behind the scenes than a century of ceremonious posing before the foot-lights.
Real people, with anything like heart and tastes and emotions, do not enjoy being shut up behind barricades, and conversing with their neighbors only through loop-holes. If any warm-hearted adventurer gets in at the back door of the heart, the stiffest and most formal are often the most thankful for the deliverance.
The advent of this pretty young creature, with her air of joy and gaiety, into the shadowed and mossy precincts of the old Vanderheyden house was an event to be dated from, as the era of a new life. She was to them a flower, a picture, a poem; and a thousand dear remembrances and new capabilities stirred in the withered old hearts to meet her.
Her sincere artlessness and naïf curiosity, her genuine interest in the old time-worn furniture, relics and belongings of the house gave them a new sense of possession. We seem to acquire our things over again when stimulated by the admiration of a new spectator.
"Dear me," said Eva, as she put down a tea-cup she was wiping, "what a pity I haven't some nice old china to begin on! but all my things are spick and span new; I don't think it's a bit interesting. I do love to see things that look as if they had a history."
"Ah! my dear child, you are making history fast enough," said Miss Dorcas, with that kind of half sigh with which people at eighty look down on the aspirants of twenty; "don't try to hurry things."
"But I think old things are so nice," said Eva. "They get so many associations. Things just out of Tiffany's or Collamore's haven't associations – there's no poetry in them. Now, everything in your house has its story. It's just like the old villas I used to see in Italy where the fountains were all mossy."
"We are mossy enough, dear knows," said Miss Dorcas, laughing, "Betsey and I."
"I'm so glad I've got acquainted with you," said Eva, looking up with clear, honest eyes into Miss Dorcas's face; "it's so lonesome not to know one's neighbors, and I'm an inexperienced beginner, you know. There are a thousand questions I might ask, where your experience could help me."
"Well, don't hesitate, dear Mrs. Henderson," said Mrs. Betsey; "do use us if you can. Dorcas is really quite a doctor, and if you should be ill any time, don't fail to let us know. We never have a doctor. Dorcas always knows just what to do. You ought to see her herb closet – there's a little of everything in it; and she is wonderful for strengthening-mixtures."
And so Eva was taken to see the herbal, and thence, by natural progression, through the chambers, where she admired the old furniture. Then cabinets were unlocked, old curiosities brought out, snatches and bits of history followed, and, in fact, lunch time came in the old Vanderheyden house before any of them perceived whither the tide of social enthusiasm had carried them. Eva stayed to lunch. Such a thing had not happened for years to the desolate old couple, and it really seemed as if the roses of youth and joy, the flowers of years past, all bloomed and breathed around her, and it was late in the day before she returned to her own home to look back on the Vanderheyden fortress as taken. Two stiff, ceremonious strangers had become two warm-hearted, admiring friends – a fortress locked and barred by constraint had become an open door of friendship. Was it not a good morning's work?
