Six Girls and the Tea Room

by Marion Ames Taggart

"I certainly do not mind; you did quite right. It would be undignified to allow people under your roof who spoke ill of your mother," said Aunt Keren quietly. "Happie——"

"Aunt Keren!" Happie interrupted her passionately. "We never knew you had any money. As far as we thought about it at all, we thought you were rather poor. We have been setting aside part of the tea room money to pay our own rent, because we thought you ought not to have given us that rent at Christmas. You were just Aunt Keren to us; no one ever thinks about money, whether people that belong to them have it or not. But they said——"

"Yes, my dear," Aunt Keren interrupted in her turn. "On the whole, don't tell me what they said. You are not quite right in saying that no one thinks of money in connection with his affections, but it is a pitiable creature that does. And those two nieces of mine are decidedly pitiable creatures. They had a sordid, vulgar mother, Happie. My brother married most unfortunately. Those two daughters of his have made an open onslaught upon my possessions, and they are wildly afraid that I shall will all that I have elsewhere. They have good reason for their fears. They would never use money kindly, wisely, properly. They have quite enough now for all purposes, which frees me from scruples as to my justice in doing what I please with what is my own, but their greed for more would never be satisfied while anything was beyond their reach. These are hideous truths, dear Happie, but you will have to learn that there are people in the world different from your mother, and that plenty of unfortunate beings make for themselves an atmosphere that is far from the unworldly, simple and loving atmosphere of your little Harlem Patty-Pans. You must be unceasingly thankful that when your mother was left almost destitute at your father's death, she had for you children something far more valuable than money could have given."

"Ah, yes, we know that!" cried Happie. "But as well as we know it now, Margery and I often say we shall appreciate it better when we are older and see more of the unpleasant side of life, at which we only peep while we are young."

"Truer than you guess!" agreed Miss Keren briefly. "Now, Happie, listen to a story, a true story about one Keren-happuch, with a second Keren-happuch coming into the tale at the end. I am going to tell it to you because of what happened this afternoon. It will satisfy you forever as to my reasons for doing what I intend to do. Don't interrupt me. For the first time in my life it tires me to talk, and it spoils a story to interrupt it. Nearly fifty years ago the first of the two Keren-happuchs was young, a girl of definite opinions, considerable will, of few and strong attachments; the kind of girl that can be superlatively happy or altogether miserable, and who is likely to make a bad matter of her life if things go contrary with her. This girl had a friend, the most beautiful, best girl that the sun ever shone upon, with every grace of mind and character, and with the crowning grace of all,—entire unselfishness and unconsciousness of self. Her name was Elizabeth Vaughan, and she was your grandmother. One hears a good deal said of men's friendships and how no women are capable of equal love for each other, but I am certain David and Jonathan were not more truly devoted than were these two girls of a half century ago. Keren-happuch worshiped Elizabeth, and the tie was peculiarly tender on both sides. There came into Keren-happuch's life a new interest after a while. It was when Elizabeth was away, and there was nothing to divert this girl of natural strength of feeling from going with all her might with the tide that seemed to her the flood-tide of happiness. Of course you can guess what the new interest was, for the girls were not quite twenty, and romance loves the second decade. It looked as though this foolish Keren-happuch were going to sail into the port of bliss, but Elizabeth came home. And then—why, no one could remember Keren-happuch when Elizabeth was about, and Keren awoke from her dream to find it not hers, but Elizabeth's. It is good to know that Keren-happuch loved her friend no less that the love she had hoped was her own had turned to Elizabeth. Keren-happuch had common sense, I am glad to say, and she saw that only a blind man could have preferred herself. So she wept her little tear in private, as she hoped, but Elizabeth saw its stain, and she tried to turn back to Keren-happuch the love she had innocently diverted. That part of the story does not matter. Each girl tried to bring about the happiness of the other, but Elizabeth could not give to another what belonged to herself and she married Roland Spencer. Keren-happuch rejoiced in their happiness, because she loved them both best of all the world, yet—well, one can rejoice through a heartache, Happie, and it is a matter for gratitude when heartache takes the form which allows such rejoicing. The best of this story is that there was no break in the triangle of an affection beyond ordinary human attachment. No change came to it through the marriage of Elizabeth and the man she loved and who loved her, and whom Keren-happuch loved but who did not love Keren-happuch, not in that sense of the word love. To the end Elizabeth Spencer and her husband were the solitary Keren-happuch's loyal friends. But Keren-happuch knew at the beginning as well as she knows to-day that she was to be the solitary Keren-happuch all her life. She never cared for life in just the same, glad, youthful way again, and she saw clearly that her happiness must be found in peace, and in conferring happiness, if she were able. So she grew into the crotchety, eccentric maiden lady whom you know, and it has been her whim to live much within her means in order to afford the luxury of giving what, after all, she did not need. By and by Elizabeth and her husband both died. Keren-happuch likes to believe that they know how faithfully she loves them still, and that in their daughter Charlotte and their grandchildren, the little Scollards, she recognizes her nearest of kin—indeed her only kin, for she has never been kin to her kindred. So you see, Happie, why you are more than merely my namesake. You are the legacy to me of my more than sister, and the man I loved, and whom she married. I am a rich woman, my dear. By and by, when I cannot use my money any longer I shall give it to you to use it for me, feeling sure that you will do with it as I would have done. For you are my heir; my child by the tie of my lifelong loneliness and by your blood. I have told you this to prove to you how ridiculous it is for my nieces to fancy that anything could divert me from my intention in regard to you, and to satisfy you that whatever I do for you, or for your mother or the other children, is done as if you were my own children.

"I have a plan to propose to you soon, but not now. And that is the end of my story! Jump up, Happie, and run away, for I'm tired of your chatter! What makes you such a little magpie? Don't you know that an invalid should be kept quiet? Yet you talk and talk! Isn't it time to 'put the potatoes over,' as they say in our Crestville?"

Happie arose, understanding that her Aunt Keren wanted no comment from her on what she had just heard.

"I think it must be, Auntie Keren, dearest," she said. "You can rest while I take their jackets off. Here is Jeunesse Dorée. He will keep you company and not talk as fast as I have done."

She lifted the yellow bit of purring affection into Miss Keren's lap, kissed her hard on the cheek and went quietly away. There was much to think of in the story she had just heard, much to move her as a young girl is always moved by an unhappy love story, but there was nothing to say to the revelation of the reason why the Scollard family was the nearest of kin to this strong-hearted woman, nor any words in which to thank her for the intentions she had announced.