JANNET GATHERS HER IMPRESSIONS
I am so ashamed, Lina, not to have written you a long letter before
this. You are good to have sent me a letter in reply to those few
cards. I had to write to Miss Hilliard, you know, and some way, I
haven't felt like writing about some things that I have really wanted
to tell you, like how I felt to be in my mother's room and all. I'll
wait until I see you, I think. I am going to ask Uncle Pieter, when I
know him better, if I can not have a little company this summer. I feel
pretty sure that he will let me ask you for a visit, so please keep it
in mind before you fill up the summer with other things. Then I can
show you everything and tell you all about the mysteries here, for
there are some that I do not understand.
I meant to have a long talk with my uncle right away, yet I have been
here for several weeks and I have not talked to him alone. I've been
too timid to ask, for one thing; then he is busy about the place, and
then I don't feel that I can go to him as I can to Miss Hilliard. He
lets Cousin Di, or Mrs. Holt, look after my wants.
Please, by the way, keep what I tell you to yourself, except what
anybody might know. You will "use judgment" what to report to the girls
that know you have had a letter from me.
Your namesake is here, for one, in our family,--"Old P'lina," they call
her and she is so odd. You will have to see her to appreciate her. She
is the real housekeeper and just about owns the place. But while you
are Adeline, she is Paulina, the i long.
Mrs. Holt is a rather distant cousin who knows Uncle Pieter very well
and was a much younger friend of his wife, who is dead. Her mother,
Mrs. Perry, will be here pretty soon, they say. She went on a little
visit and keeps staying. Cousin Di worries about it, though I'm sure I
don't know why. Two of her friends from Albany have been here this week
and they have had a fine time. Uncle Pieter likes to have company,
Cousin Andy says, though he doesn't pay much attention to anybody, I
must say. I suppose he just likes to have the big place full of people,
not to be lonesome.
Cousin Di is kind and easy-going. My lessons are a myth, for which I am
not sorry. I don't see how I could have studied so far. Uncle Pieter
looked at me one time, at dinner, and said, "You need not hurry about
lessons, Diana. Jannet looks as if she has had about enough of school.
I suppose, Jannet, that you have been trained to think that school
hours are the only thing in the world worth keeping?"
"Yes, sir," I said. "Aren't they? Most of the girls I know that amount
to anything get their lessons."
For once Uncle Pieter laughed out. "Yes, yes," he said, "I suppose that
is so. Whatever you have to do, keep at it, if you want to put it
through. But we shall change matters a little, with the permission of
your guardian, of course."
I did not like the way he said that, but then he does not know how fine
Miss Hilliard is. I looked straight at him, but not saucily, and then I
said, "Miss Hilliard is the one who has taken good care of me for all
these years." I did not mean it for a "dig" at him, since of course he
did not know that I existed. But I'm sure that he took it that way. He
froze right up, and I wished that I had not said anything.
"I must see Miss Hilliard very soon," he answered, "and relieve her of
her charge."
That scared me so that I sat right down at my lovely desk with the
_secret drawers_, as soon as I reached my room, and wrote the
conversation to Miss Hilliard. And I've wished ever since that I
hadn't. I'm always doing something that I wish afterwards I
hadn't,--but you know me, Lina!
So you see that I don't know whether I like my uncle very much or not,
though I am grateful to him for hunting me up and that _ought_ to make
up for everything else. I think that Cousin Andy knows that his father
is a little queer, for he makes it up to me by being extra nice. He is
Andrew Van Meter and is somewhere around thirty years old, perhaps
older, and was in the war. He was shell-shocked and wounded, but won't
talk about it. He has some trouble with his back and there are days
when he does not come to meals. I wanted to do something for him, read
to him, or anything, but Cousin Di said not to, that Andrew wanted to
be by himself at those times.
But other times he is just as friendly as can be. He said that his
father "is a very scholarly man," and Uncle Pieter does read in his
library till all hours of the night, Cousin Di says. She told me that
it was my great-grandfather who made all the first money in the family.
My grandfather was a sort of "gentleman farmer" and had "investments;"
and Uncle Pieter got through college early and lived in Albany with his
family until his father wanted him to come out and run this
place,--and, oh, Lina, it is a beautiful place! There is a big orchard
and a wonderful woods. I don't know anything about what kind of land it
is, but there is money enough somewhere to fix the house up and have
everything the way Uncle Pieter wants it.
I think that I mentioned Cousin Di's son in one of my cards. We are
"Jannet and Jan," though Jan is called John at school. He is jolly and
a little careless sometimes and carries his fun too far, Miss Hilliard
would say, but I like him and his friend, "Chick" Clyde. I am getting
well acquainted with Nell Clyde, who lives nearest of any of the young
folks around here. Oh, it's so _different_, Lina, and I haven't begun
to tell you the half! We have a family ghost, two or three of them,
perhaps, and whatever it is, I've already had a queer experience or two
that I'm not very keen on thinking about. My room seems to be the
"haunted room," but I can't help but feel that somebody is responsible
for these odd happenings and I'm going to find out about it just as
soon as I can.
You would think that I'd have loads of time, wouldn't you? There are no
lessons and no recitation hours. But for some reason, I don't get half
as much done. Perhaps I was a little tired, and then it has been so
exciting to find my family and learn so many different things.
Commencement will be here pretty soon. There is no chance of my going
to Philadelphia for it, and really, Lina, I could not bring myself to
leave right now. Don't say that to Miss Hilliard, though. She might
think that I have lost interest, and I haven't a bit.
Now you are saying that I might tell you more about the mysteries, but
this letter is too long now. You can tell the girls that I'm in one of
the fine old Dutch houses, with a ghost and everything, and that I've
been having a great time, riding all over the place, and the country,
and getting acquainted with people. I'll write you again after you are
home. Do write again, though, and tell me all the news about the
seniors and the play and how everything goes off. Give dear Miss Marcy
a big hug for me. Aren't you lucky to have an aunt on the faculty!
* * * * *
So Jannet wrote to her chum and room-mate. Meanwhile Miss Hilliard and
her friend Jannet's lawyer, had been making further inquiries about
Pieter Van Meter, without discovering anything particularly to his
credit. Miss Hilliard, busy with the last days of school, was relieved
to find that there was no need to worry about the environment of her
young protegée. Matters could rest where they were for the present. She
had received no further suggestion from Mr. Van Meter in regard to a
change in guardianship. This she did not intend to relinquish without
being very sure that it was to Jannet's advantage. Of Jannet's first
impressions, she thought little.
Miss Hilliard's errand in Albany, upon that day when she put Jannet in
charge of Mrs. Holt and Andrew Van Meter, was to the office of a lawyer
in Albany, a gentleman of whom she had been told, prominent in the
place and of a wide acquaintance. Briefly she related the object of her
visit, when, fortunately for her limited time, she was able to have an
immediate interview.
"I want to make some inquiry about Mr. Pieter Van Meter and his
family," she said, "and I was told that you would be a sincere source
of information. I am the head of a school in Philadelphia, as you note
by my card, and a young ward of mine, who knew nothing of this family,
has just been discovered to be Mr. Van Meter's niece. There is some
suggestion of a change of guardianship, to which I will not agree
unless it is for the good of my ward. I rather think that the family
must be of some standing, but the personality of Mr. Van Meter is
unknown to me." Miss Hilliard paused, and looked inquiringly at the
lawyer, a serious gentleman, who was listening to what she said with
sober attention.
"You are right in regard to the standing of the family. I should say
that Mr. Van Meter's wealth would clear him from any suspicion of being
concerned financially in a desire to become the guardian of his niece.
I know him, but not intimately. He is regarded as peculiar, is close at
a bargain, looking out for himself, but that can be said of many
businessmen. I have never heard of anything dishonorable in connection
with his transactions. To tell the truth, he seems to me like a
disappointed and unhappy man. What there is back of that I do not know,
unless it is the health of his son who is one of the war victims. Yet
Andy, as we know him, is one of the finest lads, and his father may be
glad to have him back at all. I understand, too, that there was serious
difficulty between Mr. Van Meter and his second wife. At any rate she
is not there any more. Indeed, she may not be living."
"I know nothing about Mr. Van Meter's family, and only just met his son
and the cousin who is practically in charge of Jannet, Mrs. Holt."
"She is a very fine woman and consented to come with her mother, I
understand, to make a home for Andy and give a cheerful atmosphere,
needed particularly because his marriage was given up after the war.
You need have no uneasiness about your ward so far as she is concerned.
My family knows Mrs. Holt very well indeed."
"Well, thank you, this little conference has been very helpful. I must
make my train now, but I felt that I wanted some assurance in regard to
the family with whom I am leaving Jannet, before I could go back to my
work with a clear conscience."
With this information, Miss Hilliard felt that a load had been rolled
off, as she took the train back to New York, and later went on to
Philadelphia with cheerful news for Miss Marcy and the other teachers
who were especially interested in Jannet. "Yes, Jannet's people seem to
be all that we could desire," she reported. Yet she was none the less
interested in hearing what Jannet had to say about the household, and
wondered over a vein of reserve in Jannet's letters, coming to the
conclusion that Jannet was not relating everything, or was reserving
her conclusions about her family till she was better acquainted. This
Miss Hilliard quite approved.
Jannet, to be sure, was quite ignorant of Miss Hilliard's conference in
Albany and might have been very much interested in it, especially in
one bit of information which she did not possess at this time, that
relating to the fact of a second wife.