This world is a hard place to live in. I wish somebody would tell me
what we are born for anyway, and what's the use of living.
There are so many things that hurt, and you get so mixed up trying to
understand, that if you don't keep busy you'll spend your life guessing
at a puzzle that hasn't any answer.
Miss Katherine has gone away. Gone to stay two months, anyhow. Maybe
three.
Her Army brother, the one who is a Captain, has been sent to Texas, and
his wife and children were taken ill as soon as they got there.
Of course, they sent for Miss Katherine; that is, asked her by telegraph
if she wouldn't come. She went. And she'll be going to somebody all her
life, for she's the kind that is turned to when things go wrong.
Miss Webb is awful worried. She says a cool head and a warm heart are
always worked to death, and the person who has them is forever on call.
Miss Katherine has them.
She had to go, of course. We were not sick, except a few snifflers. We
didn't exactly need her, and her brother did; but oh the difference her
being away makes!
Three months of doing without her is like three months of daylight and
no sunlight. It's like things to eat that haven't any taste; like a room
in which the one you wait for never comes.
I am back in No. 4, in one of the thirteen beds. My body goes on doing
the same things. Gets up at five o'clock. Dresses, cleans, prays, eats,
goes to school, eats, sews, plays, eats, studies, goes to bed. And
that's got to be done every day in the same way it was done the day
before.
But it's just my body that does them. Outside I am a little machine
wound up; inside I am a thousand miles away, and doing a thousand other
things. Some day I am going to blow up and break my inside workings, for
I wasn't meant to run regular and on time. I wasn't.
What was I meant for? I don't know. But not to be tied to a rope. And
that's what I am. Tied to a rope. If I were a boy I'd cut it.
* * * * *
I am almost crazy! A wonderful thing has happened. I am so excited my
breathing is as bad as old Miss Betsy Hays's. I believe I know who I am.
My heart is jumping and thumping and carrying on so that it makes my
teeth chatter; and as I can't tell anybody what I've heard, I am likely
to die from keeping it to myself.
I am _not_ going to die until I find out. If I did I would be as bad off
in heaven as on earth. Even an angel would prefer to know something
about itself.
I'm like Miss Bray now. I'm counting on going to heaven. Otherwise it
wouldn't make any difference who I was, as one more misery don't matter
when you're swamped in miserableness. I suppose that's what hell is:
Miserableness.
What are you when you don't go to heaven?
But that's got nothing to do with how I found out who I am. It's like
Martha, though: always butting in with questions no Mary on earth could
answer.
Well, the way I found out was one of those mysterious ways in which God
works his wonders. Yesterday afternoon I asked Miss Bray if I could go
over and play with the Moon children, three of whom are sick, and she
said I might. We were in the nursery, which is next to Mrs. Moon's
bedroom, and she and the lady from Michigan, who is visiting her, were
talking and paying no attention to us. Presently something the lady
said--her name is Mrs. Grey--made everything in me stop working, and my
heart gave a little click like a clock when the pendulum don't swing
right.
She was sitting with her back to the door, which was open, and I could
see her, but she couldn't see me. All of a sudden she put down her
sewing and looked at Mrs. Moon as if something had just come to her.
"Elizabeth Moon, I believe I know that child's uncle," she said. "Ever
since you told me about her something has been bothering me. Didn't you
say her mother had a brother who years ago went West?"
"Hush," said Mrs. Moon, and she nodded toward me. "She'll hear you, and
the ladies wouldn't like it."
She lowered her voice so I couldn't hear all she said, but I heard
something about its being the only thing Yorkburg ever did keep quiet
about. And only then because everybody felt so sorry for her. In a flash
I knew they were talking about me.
After the first understanding, which made everything in me stop,
everything got moving, and all my inward workings worked double quick.
Why my heart didn't get right out on the floor and look up at me. I
don't know. I kept on talking and making up wild things just to keep the
children quiet, but I had to hold myself down to the floor. To help, I
put Billy and Kitty Lee both in my lap.
What I wanted to do was to go to Mrs. Moon and say: "I am twelve and a
half, and I've got the right to know. I want to hear about my uncle. I
don't want to know him, he not caring to know me." But before I could
really think Mrs. Grey spoke again.
"He has no idea his sister left a child. He told me she married very
young, and died a year afterward; and he had heard nothing from her
husband since. As soon as I go home I am going to tell him. I certainly
am."
"You had better not," said Mrs. Moon. "It's been thirteen years since he
left Yorkburg, and, as he has never been back, he evidently doesn't
care to know anything about it. I don't think the ladies would like you
to tell. They are very proud of having kept so quiet out of respect to
her father's wishes. If Parke Alden had wanted to learn anything, he
could have done it years ago."
"But I tell you he doesn't know there's anything to learn." And the
Michigan lady's voice was as snappy as the place she came from. "I know
Dr. Alden well," she went on. "He's operated on me twice, and I've spent
weeks in his hospital. When he tells me it's best for my head to come
off--off my head is to come. And when a man can make people feel that
way about him, he isn't the kind that's not square on four sides.
"I tell you, he doesn't know about this child. He's often talked to me
about Yorkburg, knowing you were my cousin. He told me of his sister
running away with an actor and marrying him, and dying a year later.
Also of his father's death and the sale of the old home, and of many
other things. There's no place on earth he loves as he does Virginia. He
doesn't come back because there's no one to come to see specially. No
real close kin, I mean. The changes in the place where you were born
make a man lonelier than a strange city does, and something seems to
keep him away."
"You say he doesn't know his sister left a child?" Mrs. Moon put down
the needle she was trying to thread, and stuck it in her work. "Why
doesn't he know?"
"Why should he? Who was there to tell him, if a bunch of women made up
their minds he shouldn't know? He wrote to his sister again and again,
but whether his letters ever reached her he never knew. He thinks not,
as it was unlike her not to write if they were received.
"Travelling from place to place with her actor husband, who, he said,
was a 'younger son Englishman,' the letters probably miscarried, and not
for months after her death did he know she was dead."
"We didn't, either," interrupted Mrs. Moon. "In fact, we heard it
through Parke, who went West after his father's death. He wrote Roy
Wright, telling him about it."
"Who is Roy Wright, and where is he, that he didn't tell Dr. Alden about
the child?"
"Oh, Roy's dead. I believe Mary Alden's marriage broke Roy's heart;
that is, if a man's heart can be broken. He had been in love with her
all her life. Not just loved her, but in love with her. His house was
next to the Aldens', where the Reagans now live, and Major Alden and
General Wright were old friends, each anxious for the match. When Mary
ran away at seventeen and married a man her father didn't know, I tell
you Yorkburg was scared to death."
"Do you remember it?"
"Remember! I should think I did. I cried for two weeks. Nearly ruined my
eyes. Mary and I were deskmates at Miss Porterfield's school, and I
adored her. I really did. So did Dick Moon." She stopped. Then: "Like
most women, I'm a compromise," and she laughed. But it was a happy
laugh. Mrs. Grey smiled too.
"Was Mary Alden engaged to Roy Wright when she married the other man?"
she asked. "Tell me all about her."
"No, she wasn't. Mary Alden was incapable of deceit, and Roy Wright knew
she didn't love him. He knew she was never going to marry him. Poor Roy!
He was as gentle and sweet and patient as Mary was high-spirited and
beautiful, and the last type on earth to win a woman of Mary's
temperament. She wanted to be mastered, and Roy could only worship."
"And her father--what did he do?"
"Do? The Aldens are not people who 'do' things. The day after the news
came, he and General Wright walked arm and arm all over Yorkburg, and
their heads were high; but oh, my dear, it was pitiful. They didn't
know, but they were clinging to each other, and the Major's face was
like death."
"Didn't some one say he had been pretty strict with her? Held too tight
a rein?"
"Yes, he had, and he deserved part of his suffering. His pride was
inherited, and Mary could go with no one whose great-grandparents he
didn't know about. But Mary cared no more for ancestors than she did for
Hottentots. When she met this Mr. Cary, a young English actor, at a
friend's house in Baltimore, she made no inquiry as to whether he had
any, and fell in love at once. He was a gentleman, however. That was as
evident as Major Alden's rage when he went to see the latter, and asked
for Mary. Mrs. Rodman happened to be in the house at the time, and what
she didn't see she heard. She says the one thing you can't fool her
about is a counterfeit gentleman. And Ralston Cary was no counterfeit."
"For Heaven's sake, don't get on what Mrs. Rodman thinks or says. Tell
me about the marriage. I'm asking a lot of questions, but you're so
slow."
"I'm telling as fast as I can. You interrupt so much with questions I
can't finish." And Mrs. Moon's voice was real spunky.
"They were married in Washington," she began again. "The morning after
the interview with the Major they caught the five-o'clock train, and
that afternoon there was a telegram telling of the marriage.
"Her father never forgave Mary. Seven months later he died, and after
settling up affairs there was nothing left. Alden House was mortgaged to
the limit. There were a number of small debts as well as two or three
large ones, and when these were paid and all accounts squared there was
barely enough left for Parke to buy his railroad ticket to some city out
West, where he had secured a place as resident physician in a hospital.
That was thirteen years ago." She took a deep breath, as if thinking.
"Thirteen years. Since then we've known little about him. You say he is
a famous surgeon? We've never heard it in Yorkburg."
"Of course you haven't. Yorkburg has heard nothing since 1865. But there
are a good many things it could hear." And Mrs. Grey laughed, but with
her forehead wrinkled, as if she were trying to understand something
that was puzzling her.
And then it was Mrs. Moon said something that made understanding come
rolling right in on me. The answer to that look on Miss Katherine's face
the night of the Reagans' ball was as plain as Jimmie Jenkins's nose,
which is most all you see when you see Jimmie. It was like I thought. It
was a man.
"Ophelia," said Mrs. Moon, and she moved her chair closer to Mrs. Grey,
and leaned forward with her hands clasped, "did you ever hear Doctor
Alden speak of a Miss Trent--Miss Katherine Trent?"
"No. You mean--"
"Yes; she's the one. Parke Alden and Katherine Trent were sweethearts
from children. Shortly after Mary's marriage something happened. There
was a misunderstanding of some kind, and they barely bowed when they
met. Everybody was sorry, for it was one of the matches Heaven might
have made without discredit. Soon after Parke went away, Katherine went
off to some school just outside of Philadelphia, and, so far as is
known, they've never seen each other since."
Mrs. Grey brought both hands down on her knees. "I knew it was something
like that. I knew it! Doctor Alden is just that sort of a man. And it's
Katherine Trent? I wish I'd known it before she went away."
"What would you have done?" Mrs. Moon looked frightened. She's very
timid, Mrs. Moon is, and always afraid of telling something she
oughtn't. "What could you have done?"
"Looked at her better. She's certainly good to look at. Not beautiful,
but a face you never forget. And Doctor Alden is the kind that never
forgets. But tell me something about the child. How did she get here?"
"Her nurse brought her. Her father kept her after her mother's death,
taking her about from place to place with this old negro mammy until she
was three, when he died suddenly, strange to say, in the same place his
wife died, Mobile, Alabama."
"Why did the nurse bring her here? Was she a Yorkburg darkey?"
"No; but she had heard Mr. Cary say there was an Orphan Asylum here,
and not knowing what else to do, she came on with her. She told the
Board ladies she had heard the child's father say a hundred times he
would rather see her dead than have her mother's family take her. And
she begged them not to let it be known who she was until she was old
enough to understand."
Just then Bobbie Moon laid out flat on his back and kicked up his heels.
And Billie looked so disgusted, I stopped the story I was trying to
tell.
"You ain't talking sense," he said. "And I'm not going to listen any
more. An ant can't eat an elephant in half an hour and leave no scraps."
And he rolled over and began to fight Bobbie.
Sarah Sue and Myrtle, who'd been playing with their mother's muff and
tippet, got to fussing so about which should have her hat that Mrs.
Moon, hearing it, jumped up, and I heard her say:
"Mercy me! Do you suppose she heard?"
I never was so glad of a fight in my life. The more fuss was made the
more chance there was of my being forgot, and presently I told Mrs. Moon
I had to go home. The boys said they didn't care, my stories were
rotten anyhow, and out I went and ran so fast I had such a pain in my
side I could hardly breathe.
But I didn't go in right away. I couldn't. Inside of me everything was
thumping: "Mary Alden, your Mother; Mary Alden, your Mother; Mary Alden,
your Mother." There was no other thought but that.
Presently I turned and went down to King Street, to where the Reagans
live, and in the dark I stood there and shook my fist at my dead
grandfather. I hated him for treating my mother so. Hated him! Then I
burst out crying, and cried so awful my eyes were nearly washed out.
There were twelve and a half years' worth of tears that had to come out,
and I let them come. After they were out I felt lighter.
But sleep? There wasn't a blink of it for me all night. I was so mixed
up with new feelings that I was sick in my stomach, and my old
conscience got so sanctimonious that if I could have spanked it I would.
I wasn't eavesdropping; I know that's nasty. But forty times I'd been
punished for speaking when I shouldn't, and, besides, it was my duty to
find myself. They saw me, and then forgot. If they hadn't wanted me to
know what they were saying, they shouldn't have said it.
But that didn't do my conscience any good. I hate a conscience. It's
always making you feel low down and disreputable. I don't believe I will
say anything to my children about one, and let them have some peace.
For two days I didn't have any. Then I decided I'd wait until Miss
Katherine came, and not say anything to her or to anybody about what I'd
heard until I found out a little more about that remembrance in her
face. But the waiting for her is the longest wait I've ever waited
through yet.
It certainly is queer what a surprise you are to yourself. Before I knew
that my mother and her father and his father and some other fathers
behind him had lived in the Alden House, I would have given all I own,
which isn't much, just my body, to have known it. And I guess I would
have been that airy Martha couldn't have lived with me, and would have
had to take Mary to the pump to bring her senses back with water. Mary
is my best part, but at times she hasn't half the common sense she
needs, and frequently has a pride Martha has to attend to.
But after I found out I had the same kind of blood in me that Mrs.
General Rodman had in her, though I'm thankful it isn't mentioned on the
family's tombstones, it didn't seem half as big a thing as I thought.
I was ashamed of the way it had acted, and of the way it had treated my
father. He was too much of a gentleman to talk about his, whether high
or low, and I know nothing about him. But I adore his memory! I am his
child as well as Mary Alden's, and that's a thing my children are never
going to forget. Never.
And now the part I'm thinking of most is what was said about Miss
Katherine and Dr. Parke Alden being sweethearts when they were young. He
has been away thirteen years, Mrs. Moon said, and Miss Katherine is now
twenty-eight. I know she is, because she told me so.
Thirteen from twenty-eight leaves fifteen, so she was fifteen when they
had that fuss and he went off. Fifteen was awful young to love hard and
permanent; but Miss Webb says Miss Katherine was born grown and
stubborn, and when she once takes a stand she keeps it.
I wonder what she took the stand with Uncle Parke for? She is right
quick and outspoken at times, and I bet he made her mad about
something.
But she ought to have known he was a man, and not expected much. I know
my children's father is going to make me so hopping at times I could
shake him. If he didn't, he would be terrible stupid to live with, and
nothing wears you out like stupidness. I don't really mind a scrap. It's
so nice to make up.
But I believe that's the reason Miss Katherine don't get married.
Because in her secret heart Dr. Parke Alden is still her sweetheart. I
know in his secret heart she is still his. She's bound to be if she ever
once was.
Glorious superbness! Wouldn't that be grand? If they were to get married
she would be my really, truly Aunt! The very thought makes me so full of
thrills I can't sit still when it comes over me.
Oh, Mary Martha Cary, what a beautiful place this world could be!