OUT-OF-THE-WAY CORNERS
If the outside was gloomy, it had a queer, disorderly, and rather cheerful aspect within, for the sun was pouring a flood of gold in one window where it happened to strike a spot between two trees. And Frank Forrester was by no means melancholy to-day. He shook hands cordially with Mr. Whitney, and welcomed the rest of the party with the utmost affability,—a fine-looking Englishman with a picturesque air, due largely to his rather long hair, which fell about his forehead and neck in a tumbled manner, suggesting a tendency to curls.
"These young people may like to look over my curiosities, while we have our talk," he said. "Take a cigar, and I'll bring a bottle of wine. Won't you join us, Doctor? Here, young folks, are curiosities from everywhere."
He ushered them into a small room that was library and everything by turns. There were trophies of hunting expeditions, some rare birds stuffed and mounted, looking so alive Hanny would not have been surprised if they had suddenly begun to warble; books in every stage of dilapidation, some of them quite rare copies, Ben found; portfolios of old engravings; curious weapons; foreign wraps; Grecian and Turkish bits of pottery; and the odd things we call bric-à-brac nowadays.
Delia began to make some notes. Ben laughed a little. Interviewing was not such a fine art then; and people were considered greater subjects of interest than their belongings. But Delia was saving up things for stories which she meant to write as she found time.
Doctor Joe had come in here with the young people, leaving the two friends to discuss their business. He, too, found much to interest him; and he was amused at Delia's running comments, some of them very bright indeed. She was quite a spur to Ben, he found; and he was surprised at the varied stock of knowledge Ben had accumulated.
It did not seem as if they had explored half, when Mr. Whitney opened the door.
"Young folks, we must be going, if we expect to reach home that very same night, like the old woman with her pig," he said.
"Are you talked out?" asked Delia, archly; "for we haven't half looked through things."
"I want your brother to stay and have some supper with me. I'm my own housekeeper now; but I think we could manage."
"What fun it would be," said Delia. "As there are no stores, we should have to start at the foundation of things."
"I have a loaf of bread, and some cold mutton, and eggs, I think, and tea and coffee. Come, you had better accept my hospitality."
"I must be home in the early evening," remarked Doctor Joe.
"And Hanny's not to stay out after dark," appended Ben.
"We are going down to Cockloft Hall," explained Mr. Whitney. "I am sorry we cannot accept."
"Then you must bring your happy family again. If they are fond of curiosities, the old house could entertain them all day long."
"And if they are fond of adventures, which they are, they might put you to the test," said Delia, daringly.
Herbert laughed at the vivacious tone.
"Then you'd have to find me in the mood. In that respect, I am variable."
"Do you have a mood for each day? Then your friends could be sure—"
"A good idea, like the ladies' reception-days. Must I put on the card, Serious, Jolly, Adventurous, etc.?"
"And supernatural. I should come on the ghost days. For if ever a ghost walked out of its earthy habitation, I should think it would be here. Did you ever see a ghost, Mr. Herbert?"
"I have seen some queer things. But these up here," nodding his head, "seem a very well behaved community. I can't say that they have troubled me; and I've come down the road at twelve or so at night. Perhaps my imagination is not vivid enough in that line. Have you ever seen a ghost, Miss Whitney?"
"No, I have not, except the ghosts of my imagination. I can shut my eyes now, and see them come trooping down that lonely road by twos and threes."
Herbert laughed again. "A vivid imagination is worth a good deal at times," he said. "There ought to be a ghost-walk about here; and next time you come over, we'll arrange one so perfectly that he shall defy detection. I'll walk a bit with you, if I am not a ghost."
When he put on his wide-brimmed, rather high-crowned hat, he looked more Spanish than English. They went through another room that opened on a porch, and, from thence, through the garden, or an attempt at one that did not betoken signal success.
The cemetery sloped down from a high hill that was such a thicket of woods it hid all indications of the City of the Dead. The placid river, in which there was only a gentle tide up here, lapped the shores with a little murmur as it came up from the bay. The green, irregular shore opposite showed here and there a house. The wood-robins were beginning their vespers already. Hanny thought them the sweetest singers she had ever heard.
Just here there was a terraced garden-spot and an old house adorned with all kinds of blossoming shrubbery.
"You see we two are guardians of the place, at either end. Miss Whitney, this house could tell some interesting tales of the bygone time; but the glory is departing. In a few years the city will stretch out and invade our solitude."
A wild spot of ground it was below, hilly, gravelly, sloping sharply down to the river. But people were beginning to take advantage of the shore-edge for business. There were shops, and a foundry stretching out smoky, dingy arms in various directions.
They said their good-byes here, as they were in sight of the old Gouverneur mansion. And no one guessed then that a tragedy of love and desperation to madness was soon to follow, and that in the dreary old house "Frank Forrester" was to lie, slain by his own hand, that he waved so jauntily to them as he bade them "Come again."
They scrambled up the small ascent, and sprang over the wall. Here was where the Nine Worthies used to come for their merry-making in their exuberant youth, and, as one of their number said afterward, "enlivened the solitude by their mad-cap pranks and juvenile orgies." The house had not been much modernised up to that period. Its young owner, Mr. Kemble, who was the Patroon of the merry company, still held it. They found the old honeydew cherry-tree standing; but some of its long-armed branches were going to decay. The odd, octagonal summer-house had not then fallen down.
They went up to the old room in the south-western angle, the green moreen chamber, as it had been called, where the Nine Worthies used to congregate, and where Irving concocted some choice bits of fun for the Salamagundi Club. And here was the great drawing-room where they disposed themselves to sociable naps on Sunday afternoons, the vine-covered porch on which they sat and smoked starlit evenings, and the grassy lawn over which they rambled. And now Mr. Washington Irving had been minister to Spain, and the guest of noted people in England and on the continent. He had won fame in more than one line, and hosts of appreciative readers.
Hanny could hardly realise it all, as she thought of the still handsome though rather delicate man, past middle life, gracious and dignified and kindly, sitting on his own porch at Sunnyside. She couldn't help going back to her first love, the old "Knickerbocker History" that seemed so real to her, even now.
The hand of improvement touched Cockloft Hall shortly after. The old summer-house was taken down; the famous cherry-tree, where the robins sang and reared their young for so many generations, succumbed to old age and wintry blasts; but she was glad she had seen it in its romantic halo.
They were not far from the upper railroad station then,—the old Morris and Essex that had stirred up the country people mightily when it first went thundering through quiet vales, and screaming out at little way-stations. They were just in time for a train. The sun had dropped down behind the Orange Mountain, though the whole west was alive with changeful gold and scarlet, melting to fainter tints, changing to indescribable hues and visionary islands floating in seas of amber and chrysoprase.
Hanny was quite tired, and leaned her head on Joe's shoulder. Ben and Delia were in front, and Mr. Whitney in the seat behind. They kept up an animated conversation, and thought it had been a delightful afternoon.
"And I feel like quoting a bit out of a letter of the Poet Gray," said Ben. "'Do you not think a man may be the wiser, I had almost said better, for going a hundred or two miles?' We have gone a tenth or so of that, and I feel ever so much richer as well as wiser. How is it with you, little Hanny?"
"I've been to the land of heroes," she replied, with a soft smile. "I shall insist that Jim must honour New Jersey in the future."
"Bravo!" said Mr. Whitney. "And there are many more heroes in it, and I think some heroines, that we must hunt up at a leisure day. There was Ann Halsted of Elizabethtown, who saw the British foraging expedition coming over from Staten Island, where the ship lay at anchor; and, donning a suit of her father's clothes, and taking an old musket, she went down to the only road they could come up, and blazed away at them with such intrepidity that the red-coats were alarmed lest a whole squad might be quartered there, and retreated in haste. It was said when Washington heard of it, he toasted the young lady. And there were the brave women of Valley Forge."
"And Moll Pitcher, don't forget her," put in Ben. "We in New York don't own quite everything."
They went rumbling into the tunnel, and Hanny started. She was used to the Harlem tunnel; but this came upon her unexpectedly.
"And there are three considerable tunnels," laughed Delia. "Yet there are people who believe the State is one vast sandy plain, and that the agricultural products are solely watermelons and peaches. Some one always stands ready to believe ridiculous things."
"Hereafter, we will take up the cudgels for New Jersey," declared Ben. "I am hungry as a bear! That rye bread was splendid, wasn't it! We must ask mother to make some, Joe."
Mr. Whitney begged them to stop to tea; but Doctor Joe thought they had better get home. They were late, of course; but Mrs. Underhill had a nice supper for them.
When Jim heard about Captain Alden, he half wished he had gone.
"But I had to come in and save the day, or we should have been beaten out of sight, so I was of some use," he announced.
Mrs. Underhill was put on her mettle by hearing about Mrs. Alden's rye bread; and the very next week she made some quite as splendid.
Hanny displayed her sprig of hawthorn,—real hawthorn.
"Are you sure it isn't artificial?" asked Jim, teasingly.
"An artificial branch can't grow," she said indignantly.
The next week at school, the girls' compositions had to be read aloud; and Hanny wrote about her tour, which received the highest commendation.
Delia came up to get the story of the man who had been on board the slave ship. She had a sketch of her own under way, and she wanted to make it very thrilling.
"And I shall have to give you half the money for it," she said laughingly.
It had a rather amusing hitch about its acceptance. The editor of the paper to which it was offered liked it extremely for its vigourous treatment, but begged her to use a masculine name, or simply initials, because it didn't sound like a young girl's story.
She told this over with great gusto, and showed her check for twenty dollars. But Mr. Underhill magnanimously refused to accept the half of it.
"I don't approve of so much mannishness in a girl," Mrs. Underhill said decisively. In her heart she wished Ben did not like her so well. But they really were more like two boys than lovers.
She took every occasion to make sharp little comments. Delia was rather careless in her attire; and while she dressed her heroines in the styles of their period, or in good taste, if they were modern, she had a rather mismatched look herself, except when she wore white, which she nearly always did evenings at home.
And she made home a really delightful place. She was quite ambitious for reception evenings. Mrs. Osgood was holding them for a literary circle. Of course she could not aim at anything as elegant as that; but newspaper men, young and old, were in the habit of dropping in upon Mr. Whitney quite informally. About ten, they might be asked down to the dining-room, where there was a dainty little spread, sometimes a Welsh rarebit that Dele could concoct to perfection. To be sure, they smoked the room blue; and Mr. Whitney often brought out a bottle of wine, as was the custom then; true, he waited until Delia and Nora had gone upstairs, and taken some of the younger men. Delia had made a strong protest against it, in her humourous way.
"I don't so much mind you old fellows, who, if you haven't sense enough not to addle your brains, never will have. But the young men oughtn't have the temptation thrust in their way. They think it looks smart and manly; and they make themselves so silly that I'm like a lump of ice to some of them. I like clear-brained people."
So upstairs they had music and recitations. Every young man of any elocutionary ability felt himself empowered to recite "The Raven," that much admired and sharply discussed poem by the Poet Poe, whose melancholy end still created much interest. Critical spirit ran high. One party could see only a morbid faculty heightened by opium and intoxicants; others found the spirit of true and fine genius in many of his efforts, and believed the circumstances of his life had been against him.
Ben was reading one evening in Doctor Joe's cosy library, enjoying the most capacious arm-chair, and improvising a foot-rest out of one not quite so luxurious. The Doctor had been making out bills, and feeling quite encouraged, perhaps lighter-hearted than he would when he had waited a year for the payment of some of them.
"Joe," began his brother, abruptly, "what do you suppose makes mother so bitter about Delia Whitney?"
"Bitter?" repeated Joe, in the tone of indecision people often use when a proposition or question takes them by surprise.
"Yes. We all used to be so nice and jolly together, and Delia likes us all so much. Hanny has such good times down there, with the old lady who sings such pretty old-fashioned songs, if her voice is rather cracked and tremulous; and Nora is bright and entertaining. But the other day mother wouldn't let her go; and she was dreadfully disappointed; and mother is not as cordial to Delia as she used to be. Dele spoke of it."
Ben looked straight at his brother, out of the frankest of eyes. It was Joe who changed colour.
"I hate things to go crosswise. And when something keeps you just a little ruffled up all the time—"
Ben drew his brows. Was he really unconscious of the trouble?
"You go there a good deal, you know. Some of the men are not quite the company a young fellow should choose, mother thinks."
That was begging the main issue, of course.
"I don't see much of the older men. They're mostly smoking downstairs, and I don't care a bit for that. But their talk is often worth listening to. People who just keep in one little round have no idea how rich the world is growing intellectually, scientifically; and on what broad lines it is being laid."
"It is not the men altogether. Ben, you don't go anywhere else. Perhaps it would be wisdom to enlarge your acquaintance among girls, young ladies," and Joe gave a short laugh that betrayed the effort.
"I don't care a penny for girls in general," said Ben, with elderly gravity. "Delia sometimes asks them in; and we seldom have as good a time. She's a host in herself; and I've always liked her."
"You haven't had a very wide experience. And you are too young to make up your mind about—anything."
Ben started up suddenly and flushed. What a fine, strong, solid face he had! It wasn't the face of one turned about with every wind of doctrine; it was not as handsome as Jim's bid fair to be, but it had hardly a weak or selfish line in it. Ben had always been such a good, generous, steady boy.
"You don't mean," he began with a little gasp,—"Joe, you can't think that mother—that any one would object if the time came for me to—to marry Delia?"
"You are too young to think of such things, Ben," said his brother, gently.
"Why—I've been thinking of it ever since Mr. Theodore came home. We were talking one time about going to Europe—"
"Are you really engaged, Ben?"
The young fellow laughed and blushed.
"Well—I suppose not exactly," he answered slowly. "We've never come to that boshy stuff you find now and then in stories. But we know all about each other's plans; and we like so many of the same things; and we always feel so comfortable together, not a bit as if we were trigged up in Sunday clothes. I don't think she's the most beautiful girl in the world; but she has lovely eyes, and I've never seen a handsome girl I have liked as well. Steve chose his own wife, and so did John. Cleanthe's a splendid housekeeper; but she doesn't have time to read a newspaper. Dolly's well informed, and has something fresh to talk about. But it seems to me Margaret is always caring about society and etiquette, and who is in our set, and a hundred things that bore me. Phil has all his life been used to style, so Margaret's just the one for him. And why shouldn't I have just the one for me?"
Joe laughed heartily then.
"I'd wait a year or two," he answered drily. "You are not out of your time; and it is an unwise thing to take the responsibilities of life too early. Delia may fancy some one else."
"Oh, no, she won't," replied Ben, confidently. "We just suit. I can't explain it to you, Joe; but it is one of the things that seem to come about without any talking. Are some things ordained? I should be awful sorry to have mother object to it; but I know Dolly would stand by us when the time came."
"Well—don't hurry; and, Ben, take the little comments patiently. If mother was convinced that it was for your happiness, she would consent. We all know there are unwise marriages, unhappy ones, as well."
"Oh, we're not in any hurry! You see, Delia is really needed at home. The old aunt is awfully fond of her. And she's so interested in her stories. We have such fun planning them out; and she does some capital little sketches."
Joe nodded in a friendly manner, as if he did not altogether disapprove. But there was a belief that literary women could not make good wives. People quoted Lady Bulwer and Lady Byron; and yet right in the city were women of literary proclivities living happily with their husbands.
And Joe had found careless, fretful, indifferent wives and poor housekeepers among women who could not even have written a coherent account-book. Come to think, he liked Delia a good deal himself. And if she wasn't such a great worker, she did have the art of making a cheerful, attractive home, and putting everybody at ease.
The new woman and cooking-schools were in the far future. Every mother, if she knew enough, trained her daughter to make a good wife, to buy properly, to cook appetisingly if not always hygienically, to make her husband's shirts, and do the general family sewing, to keep her house orderly, to fight moths and mice, and to give company teas with the best china and the finest tablecloth.
To be sure there was a little seething of unrest. Mrs. Bloomer had put forth a new costume that shocked the feminine world, though they were complaining of the weight of heavy skirts and the various devices for distending them. Lucretia Mott and some other really fine women were advocating the wider education of the sex. Women were being brought to the fore as teachers in schools, and higher institutions were being discussed. There was a Mrs. Bishop who had preached; there were women who lectured on various subjects.
The sewing-machine was making its way; and the argument in its favour was that it would save a woman's strength and give her more leisure. But employment of any kind out of the house was considered derogatory unless one had no father or brother to supply her needs.
Still, the old simple life was going out of date. There was more style; and some leaders of opinion professed to be shocked at the extravagance of the day. There was a sudden influx of people up-town. There were new stores and offices. One wondered where all the people came from. But New York had taken rapid strides in her merchant-marine. The fastest vessels in the China trade went out of her ports. The time to both California and China was shortened by the flying clippers. The gold of that wonderful land of Ophir was the magic ring that one had only to rub, if he could get hold of it, and work wonders.
But the little girl went on her quiet way. They were finding friends in the new neighbourhood; yet Daisy Jasper could not be superseded. Every letter was carefully treasured; and, oh, how many things she found to say in return.
They kept up the intimacy with the Deans, though Josephine seemed almost a young woman. Mr. Reed enjoyed the pleasant home wonderfully. Charles spent much of his leisure over music, of which he was passionately fond. He and Jim were not so intimate. Jim was going with a gayer lot of young fellows, while Charles was seriously considering his life-plans.