“My dear child,” he said, “that breeze is too strong. I am sure that your tam will have rheumatism. I should feel so sorry if it grew stiff. I like to see it waving in the wind. . . . Shall we go in for a little while?”
I said I thought it would be fine, and we did.
As we stood before the portrait of Madam Jumel and her niece and nephew, I began to feel cold and frightened. Mr. Kempwood pointed out the break in the canvas, and I couldn’t help feeling a little scornful toward the boy.
“Weak,” I said. Mr. Kempwood, like most people, misunderstood my meaning. He thought I meant because he had let himself be married at fifteen--to a woman who only wanted his money. He was paid for that, poor boy, in more than unhappiness, for Madam Jumel disinherited him. And she sewed a black patch over his face too, saying that he had placed it there by hurting his character.
Again, as I looked, she seemed to smile. I became frightfully, absurdly, frightened, and I slipped the bracelet from my arm. “She does not want me to have it!” I whispered.
Mr. Kempwood laughed at me, and even ridiculed me a little, but it did not help. Then he took the bracelet and slipped it in his pocket. I let him have it until I was myself again, and then I took it back. We were alone in a little back room at that time, looking up at a high-set cupboard, which Mr. Kempwood thought had once held much good English ale. And he said he wished some of it would come back to haunt its home of long before, since he was getting tired of Bevo.
“I’m ashamed,” I said; “give me the bracelet!” And he clasped it on, and said: “Now, dear child, no more nonsense!” But he was so gentle about this that it was not a scolding. After that he said, “By George!” and looked at his watch. “Dinner engagement,” he added quickly, “and a half-hour over-due. . . . Good-bye, Nat. I’ll see you Monday or Tuesday--want to take you to the Hippodrome----” But he saw me before that, and he did not keep the dinner engagement. . . . He couldn’t, for he was unconscious--at that time, I thought dead!
Chapter XII--What Happened
For a few minutes after Mr. Kempwood left, I moved around looking at the Napoleon relics, which, of course, are fascinating. Some people think that Stephen Jumel bought these from Royalty itself, but others think that they came to Madam Jumel and were by way of wiping out an indebtedness. . . . Madam Jumel lived in Paris between 1819 and 1826, and during those years the cousin of the Empress Josephine, who was Madame la Comtesse de la Pagerie, made her home with the Jumels, and moved with them from house to house as they did--seeming one of the family--part of the establishment. I think she was not well off and had to accept much from the Jumels for which she could make no return. So, when Madam Jumel came back to America the Comtesse settled in snuff-boxes, vases, shoe-buckles, lockets, and dear knows what all. And I think Madam Jumel probably made a good bargain, for she was the sort who could do that. It is said that the things that she brought to the United States were valued at twenty-five thousand dollars, which strengthens the fact that she must have got them without money output, for at that time Stephen Jumel was in pecuniary straits and probably a sum of that size would have been difficult for him to spare for such purpose.
I loved looking at them and thinking of how the Empress Josephine might have had this or that small box upon her dressing-table. And it always gives me a curious feeling. I think old things are much more interesting because of the people who have touched them, and I have often thought that if you could touch one of these things and close your eyes you might drift off into a dream that would take you into another time, but I suppose that is silly.