Ruth realized that she had never felt so much herself as she did now—rather hopelessly alone and independent in a way that frightened her. These kind women were all her mother’s friends, not hers. She had none. She had always prided herself on being different from other girls and not interested in the things they cared for—boys and parties and dress. Even at the art school she had found the other students disappointingly frivolous. They had not taken their art seriously as she did. The letter was curious:
“My dear child,” she had written, “by all means come to me in New York if your mother dies. But why anticipate? She’ll probably live for years. I hope so. To say I hope so sounds almost like a lack of hospitality and to send you an urgent invitation to come, under the circumstances, sounds—This is getting too complicated. Come whenever you need me, I’m always at home now.”
And the letter was signed with her full name, Gloria Mayfield. She had not even called Ruth niece, or signed herself “your loving aunt,” or anything that might be reasonably expected.
Ruth might have lingered on at home, but she had refused the hospitality of her mother’s friends and the house was empty and desolate and she was dressed in black. She hadn’t wanted to dress in black, but she hadn’t the courage to shock people by continuing to wear colours, so she hurriedly finished all the ghastly business that some one must always finish after a funeral, and then she packed her trunks, putting in all the pictures and books that she liked best, and took a train for New York. She had a plan in the back of her mind about a studio there. She had never seen a real studio, but she had read about them, and if Aunt Gloria proved disagreeable, she would go and live in one. She wondered a bit what sort of a place Aunt Gloria lived in. The address sounded aristocratic and sort of English, Gramercy Square. She liked the sound of it.
Her mother’s death had hurt her cruelly, but she was so young that already she was beginning to rebound. The journey helped to revive her spirits. Everything interested her, but her first sight of New York disappointed her vaguely. If she had known, her disappointment was caused only because the cab driver took her down Fourth Avenue instead of Fifth, and there was little to interest her in the dull publishing buildings and wholesale houses, and she missed even the shabby green of Madison Square. Her spirits rose a bit when the cab turned into Gramercy Square. All the fresh greenness of it, the children playing within the iron-barred enclosure, the old-fashioned houses and clubs and the big, new apartment buildings looking so clean and quiet in the morning sunlight, appealed to her. She rather expected the cab to stop before one of the apartment houses, but instead it stopped on the north side of the park. Her aunt lived in a house then. This was also cheering. The cab driver carried her bag for her up the high steps and she rang the bell with a fast-beating heart. She didn’t know exactly what she had expected—perhaps that Aunt Gloria would open the door in person—and she started back when it was opened by a tall negro who looked as startled as herself.
“Is Aunt Gloria—is Miss Mayfield at home?”
“Are you expected?”
He spoke in a soft, precise voice unlike the voice of any nigger Ruth had ever heard before. She knew he must be a servant though he was not in livery, and she looked at him as she answered, suddenly impressed by his regular features, his straight hair, and yellow-brown skin.
“She didn’t know exactly when I’d come, but she knew I was coming. I am her niece.”
The servant picked up her bag, which the cab driver had left beside her and opened the door wider for her to come in.