“Wanting seemed to have little to do with making Catty talk,” I pointed out. “Couldnt you....”
“Make a tinugraph of Barbara’s traumatic shock? If I had the materials there would be no necessity.”
Perhaps there was less malice in her mockery now Catty was no longer the focus of his theories about emotional pathology; perhaps she forgave him for her temporary displacement, but she did not withhold her contempt. “Oliver, you should have been a woman,” she told him; “you would have been impossible as a mother, but what a grandmother you would have made!”
That Catty herself had in her own way as strong a will as Barbara was demonstrated in her determination to become part of Haggershaven. Her reaction to the visit of the Spanish official was translated into an unyielding program. She had gone resolutely to Thomas Haggerwells, telling him she knew quite well she had neither the aptitudes nor qualifications for admission to fellowship, nor did she ask it. All she wanted was to live in what she regarded as her only home. She would gladly do any work from washing dishes to making clothes—anything she was asked. When she came of age she would turn over whatever money she inherited to the haven without conditions.
He had patiently pointed out that a Spanish subject was a citizen of a far wealthier and more powerful nation than the United States; as an heiress she could enjoy the luxuries and distractions of Madrid or Havana and eventually make a suitable marriage. How silly it would be to give up all these advantages to become an unnoticed, penniless drudge for a group of cranks near York, Pennsylvania.
“He was quite right you know, Catty,” I said when she told me about the interview.
She shook her head vigorously, so the loose black curls swirled back and forth. “You think so, Hodge, because you are a hard, prudent Yankee.”
I opened my eyes rather wide; this was certainly not the description I would have applied to myself.
“And also because you have Anglo-Saxon chivalry, always rescuing maidens in distress and thinking they must sit on a cushion after that and sew a fine seam. Well, I can sew a fine seam, but sitting on cushions would bore me. Women are not as delicate as you think, Hodge. Nor as terrifying.”
Was this last directed toward Barbara? Perhaps Catty had claws. “There’s a difference,” I said, “between cushion-sitting and living where books and pictures and music are not regarded with suspicion.”