PERDITA RECALLED
Saint Louis, or that part of it which is called by dealers in real estate
the choice residence section, grew westward. And Uncle Tom might be said
to have been in the vanguard of the movement. In the days before Honora
was born he had built his little house on what had been a farm on the
Olive Street Road, at the crest of the second ridge from the river. Up
this ridge, with clanking traces, toiled the horse-cars that carried
Uncle Tom downtown to the bank and Aunt Mary to market.
Fleeing westward, likewise, from the smoke, friends of Uncle Tom's and
Aunt Mary's gradually surrounded them--building, as a rule, the high
Victorian mansions in favour at that period, which were placed in the
centre of commodious yards. For the friends of Uncle Tom and Aunt Mary
were for the most part rich, and belonged, as did they, to the older
families of the city. Mr. Dwyer's house, with its picture gallery, was
across the street.
In the midst of such imposing company the little dwelling which became
the home of our heroine sat well back in a plot that might almost be
called a garden. In summer its white wooden front was nearly hidden by
the quivering leaves of two tall pear trees. On the other side of the
brick walk, and near the iron fence, was an elm and a flower bed that was
Uncle Tom's pride and the admiration of the neighbourhood. Honora has but
to shut her eyes to see it aflame with tulips at Eastertide. The eastern
wall of the house was a mass of Virginia creeper, and beneath that
another flower bed, and still another in the back-yard behind the lattice
fence covered with cucumber vine. There were, besides, two maples and two
apricot trees, relics of the farm, and of blessed memory. Such apricots!
Visions of hot summer evenings come back, with Uncle Tom, in his
seersucker coat, with his green watering-pot, bending over the beds, and
Aunt Mary seated upright in her chair, looking up from her knitting with
a loving eye.
Behind the lattice, on these summer evenings, stands the militant figure
of that old retainer, Bridget the cook, her stout arms akimbo, ready to
engage in vigorous banter should Honora deign to approach.
"Whisht, 'Nora darlint, it's a young lady yell be soon, and the beaux
a-comin' 'round!" she would cry, and throw back her head and laugh until
the tears were in her eyes.
And the princess, a slim figure in an immaculate linen frock with red
ribbons which Aunt Mary had copied from Longstreth's London catalogue,
would reply with dignity:
"Bridget, I wish you would try to remember that my name is Honora."
Another spasm of laughter from Bridget.
"Listen to that now!" she would cry to another ancient retainer, Mary
Ann, the housemaid, whose kitchen chair was tilted up against the side of
the woodshed. "It'll be Miss Honora next, and George Hanbury here to-day
with his eye through a knothole in the fence, out of his head for a sight
of ye."
George Hanbury was Honora's cousin, and she did not deem his admiration a
subject fit for discussion with Bridget.
"Sure," declared Mary Ann, "it's the air of a princess the child has."
That she should be thought a princess did not appear at all remarkable to
Honora at twelve years of age. Perdita may have had such dreams. She had
been born, she knew, in some wondrous land by the shores of the summer
seas, not at all like St. Louis, and friends and relatives had not
hesitated to remark in her hearing that she resembled--her father,--that
handsome father who surely must have been a prince, whose before-mentioned
photograph in the tortoise-shell frame was on the bureau in her little
room. So far as Randolph Leffingwell was concerned, photography had not
been invented for nothing. Other records of him remained which Honora had
likewise seen: one end of a rose-covered villa--which Honora thought was
a wing of his palace; a coach and four he was driving, and which had
chanced to belong to an Englishman, although the photograph gave no
evidence of this ownership. Neither Aunt Mary nor Uncle Tom had ever
sought--for reasons perhaps obvious--to correct the child's impression of
an extraordinary paternity.
Aunt Mary was a Puritan of Southern ancestry, and her father had been a
Presbyterian minister, Uncle Tom was a member of the vestry of a church
still under Puritan influences. As a consequence for Honora, there were
Sunday afternoons--periods when the imaginative faculty, in which she was
by no means lacking, was given full play. She would sit by the hour in
the swing Uncle Tom had hung for her under the maple near the lattice,
while castles rose on distant heights against blue skies. There was her
real home, in a balconied chamber that overlooked mile upon mile of
rustling forest in the valley; and when the wind blew, the sound of it
was like the sea. Honora did not remember the sea, but its music was
often in her ears.
She would be aroused from these dreams of greatness by the appearance of
old Catherine, her nurse, on the side porch, reminding her that it was
time to wash for supper. No princess could have had a more humble
tiring-woman than Catherine.
Honora cannot be unduly blamed. When she reached the "little house under
the hill" (as Catherine called the chamber beneath the eaves), she beheld
reflected in the mirror an image like a tall, white flower that might
indeed have belonged to a princess. Her hair, the colour of burnt sienna,
fell evenly to her shoulders; her features even then had regularity and
hauteur; her legs, in their black silk stockings, were straight; and the
simple white lawn frock made the best of a slender figure. Those frocks
of Honora's were a continual source of wonder and sometimes of envy--to
Aunt Mary's friends; who returned from the seaside in the autumn, after a
week among the fashions in Boston or New York, to find Honora in the
latest models, and better dressed than their own children. Aunt Mary made
no secret of the methods by which these seeming miracles were performed,
and showed Cousin Eleanor Hanbury the fashion plates in the English
periodicals. Cousin Eleanor sighed.
"Mary, you are wonderful," she would say. "Honora's clothes are
better-looking than those I buy in the East, at such fabulous prices,
from Cavendish."
Indeed, no woman was ever farther removed from personal vanity than Aunt
Mary. She looked like a little Quakeress. Her silvered hair was parted in
the middle and had, in spite of palpable efforts towards tightness and
repression, a perceptible ripple in it. Grey was her only concession to
colour, and her gowns and bonnets were of a primness which belonged to
the past. Repression, or perhaps compression, was her note, for the
energy confined within her little body was a thing to have astounded
scientists: And Honora grew to womanhood and reflection before she had.
guessed or considered that her aunt was possessed of intense emotions
which had no outlet. Her features were regular, her shy eye had the
clearness of a forest pool. She believed in predestination, which is to
say that she was a fatalist; and while she steadfastly continued to
regard this world as a place of sorrow and trials, she concerned herself
very little about her participation in a future life. Old Dr. Ewing, the
rector of St. Anne's, while conceding that no better or more charitable
woman existed, found it so exceedingly difficult to talk to her, on the
subject of religion that he had never tried it but once.
Such was Aunt Mary. The true student of human nature should not find it
surprising that she spoiled Honora and strove--at what secret expense,
care, and self-denial to Uncle Tom and herself, none will ever know--to
adorn the child that she might appear creditably among companions whose
parents were more fortunate in this world's goods; that she denied
herself to educate Honora as these other children were educated. Nor is
it astonishing that she should not have understood the highly complex
organism of the young lady we have chosen for our heroine, who was
shaken, at the age of thirteen, by unfulfilled longings.
Very early in life Honora learned to dread the summer, when one by one
the families of her friends departed until the city itself seemed a
remote and distant place from what it had been in the spring and winter.
The great houses were closed and blinded, and in the evening the servants
who had been left behind chattered on the front steps. Honora could not
bear the sound of the trains that drifted across the night, and the sight
of the trunks piled in the Hanburys' hall, in Wayland Square, always
filled her with a sickening longing. Would the day ever come when she,
too, would depart for the bright places of the earth? Sometimes, when she
looked in the mirror, she was filled with a fierce belief in a destiny to
sit in the high seats, to receive homage and dispense bounties, to
discourse with great intellects, to know London and Paris and the marts
and centres of the world as her father had. To escape--only to escape
from the prison walls of a humdrum existence, and to soar!
Let us, if we can, reconstruct an August day when all (or nearly all) of
Honora's small friends were gone eastward to the mountains or the
seaside. In "the little house under the hill," the surface of which was a
hot slate roof, Honora would awake about seven o'clock to find old
Catherine bending over her in a dun-coloured calico dress, with the light
fiercely beating against the closed shutters that braved it so
unflinchingly throughout the day.
"The birds are before ye, Miss Honora, honey, and your uncle waterin' his
roses this half-hour."
Uncle Tom was indeed an early riser. As Honora dressed (Catherine
assisting as at a ceremony), she could see him, in his seersucker coat,
bending tenderly over his beds; he lived enveloped in a peace which has
since struck wonder to Honora's soul. She lingered in her dressing, even
in those days, falling into reveries from which Catherine gently and
deferentially aroused her; and Uncle Tom would be carving the beefsteak
and Aunt Mary pouring the coffee when she finally arrived in the dining
room to nibble at one of Bridget's unforgettable rolls or hot biscuits.
Uncle Tom had his joke, and at quarter-past eight precisely he would kiss
Aunt Mary and walk to the corner to wait for the ambling horse-car that
was to take him to the bank. Sometimes Honora went to the corner with
him, and he waved her good-by from the platform as he felt in his pocket
for the nickel that was to pay his fare.
When Honora returned, Aunt Mary had donned her apron, and was
industriously aiding Mary Ann to wash the dishes and maintain the
customary high polish on her husband's share of the Leffingwell silver
which, standing on the side table, shot hither and thither rays of green
light that filtered through the shutters into the darkened room. The
child partook of Aunt Mary's pride in that silver, made for a Kentucky
great-grandfather Leffingwell by a famous Philadelphia silversmith
three-quarters of a century before. Honora sighed.
"What's the matter, Honora?" asked Aunt Mary, without pausing in her
vigorous rubbing.
"The Leffingwells used to be great once upon a time, didn't they, Aunt
Mary?"
"Your Uncle Tom," answered Aunt Mary, quietly, "is the greatest man I
know, child."
"And my father must have been a great man, too," cried Honora, "to have
been a consul and drive coaches."
Aunt Mary was silent. She was not a person who spoke easily on difficult
subjects.
"Why don't you ever talk to me about my father, Aunt Mary? Uncle Tom
does."
"I didn't know your father, Honora."
"But you have seen him?"
"Yes," said Aunt Mary, dipping her cloth into the whiting; "I saw him at
my wedding. But he was very, young."
"What was he like?" Honora demanded. "He was very handsome, wasn't he?"
'Yes, child."
"And he had ambition, didn't he, Aunt Mary?"
Aunt Mary paused. Her eyes were troubled as she looked at Honora, whose
head was thrown back.
"What kind of ambition do you mean, Honora?"
"Oh," cried Honora, "to be great and rich and powerful, and to be
somebody."
"Who has been putting such things in your head, my dear?"
"No one, Aunt Mary. Only, if I were a man, I shouldn't rest until I
became great."
Alas, that Aunt Mary, with all her will, should have such limited powers
of expression! She resumed her scrubbing of the silver before she spoke.
"To do one's duty, to accept cheerfully and like a Christian the
responsibilities and burdens of life, is the highest form of greatness,
my child. Your Uncle Tom has had many things to trouble him; he has
always worked for others, and not for himself. And he is respected and
loved by all who know him."
"Yes, I know, Aunt Mary. But--"
"But what, Honora?"
"Then why isn't he rich, as my father was?"
"Your father wasn't rich, my dear," said Aunt Mary, sadly.
"Why, Aunt Mary!" Honora exclaimed, "he lived in a beautiful house, and
owned horses. Isn't that being rich?"
Poor Aunt Mary!
"Honora," she answered, "there are some things you are too young to
understand. But try to remember, my dear, that happiness doesn't consist
in being rich."
"But I have often heard you say that you wished you were rich, Aunt Mary,
and had nice things, and a picture gallery like Mr. Dwyer."
"I should like to have beautiful pictures, Honora."
"I don't like Mr. Dwyer," declared Honora, abruptly.
"You mustn't say that, Honora," was Aunt Mary's reproof. "Mr. Dwyer is an
upright, public-spirited man, and he thinks a great deal of your Uncle
Tom."
"I can't help it, Aunt Mary," said Honora. "I think he enjoys being
--well, being able to do things for a man like Uncle Tom."
Neither Aunt Mary nor Honora guessed what a subtle criticism this was of
Mr. Dwyer. Aunt Mary was troubled and puzzled; and she began to speculate
(not for the first time) why the Lord had given a person with so little
imagination a child like Honora to bring up in the straight and narrow
path.
"When I go on Sunday afternoons with Uncle Tom to see Mr. Dwyer's
pictures," Honora persisted, "I always feel that he is so glad to have
what other people haven't or he wouldn't have any one to show them to."
Aunt Mary shook her head. Once she had given her loyal friendship, such
faults as this became as nothing.
"And when" said Honora, "when Mrs. Dwyer has dinner-parties for
celebrated people who come here, why does she invite you in to see the
table?"
"Out of kindness, Honora. Mrs. Dwyer knows that I enjoy looking at
beautiful things."
"Why doesn't she invite you to the dinners?" asked Honora, hotly. "Our
family is just as good as Mrs. Dwyer's."
The extent of Aunt Mary's distress was not apparent.
"You are talking nonsense, my child," she said. "All my friends know that
I am not a person who can entertain distinguished people, and that I do
not go out, and that I haven't the money to buy evening dresses. And even
if I had," she added, "I haven't a pretty neck, so it's just as well."
A philosophy distinctly Aunt Mary's.
Uncle Tom, after he had listened without comment that evening to her
account of this conversation, was of the opinion that to take Honora to
task for her fancies would be waste of breath; that they would right
themselves as she grew up.
"I'm afraid it's inheritance, Tom," said Aunt Mary, at last. "And if so,
it ought to be counteracted. We've seen other signs of it. You know
Honora has little or no idea of the value of money--or of its ownership."
"She sees little enough of it," Uncle Tom remarked with a smile.
"Tom."
"Well."
"Sometimes I think I've done wrong not to dress her more simply. I'm
afraid it's given the child a taste for--for self-adornment."
"I once had a fond belief that all women possessed such a taste," said
Uncle Tom, with a quizzical look at his own exception. "To tell you the
truth, I never classed it as a fault."
"Then I don't see why you married me," said Aunt Mary--a periodical
remark of hers. "But, Tom, I do wish her to appear as well as the other
children, and (Aunt Mary actually blushed) the child has good looks."
"Why don't you go as far as old Catherine, and call her a princess?" he
asked.
"Do you want me to ruin her utterly?" exclaimed Aunt Mary.
Uncle Tom put his hands on his wife's shoulders and looked down into her
face, and smiled again. Although she held herself very straight, the top
of her head was very little above the level of his chin.
"It strikes me that you are entitled to some little indulgence in life,
Mary," he said.
One of the curious contradictions of Aunt Mary's character was a never
dying interest, which held no taint of envy, in the doings of people more
fortunate than herself. In the long summer days, after her silver was
cleaned and her housekeeping and marketing finished, she read in the
book-club periodicals of royal marriages, embassy balls, of great town
and country houses and their owners at home and abroad. And she knew, by
means of a correspondence with Cousin Eleanor Hanbury and other
intimates, the kind of cottages in which her friends sojourned at the
seashore or in the mountains; how many rooms they had, and how many
servants, and very often who the servants were; she was likewise informed
on the climate, and the ease with which it was possible to obtain fresh
vegetables. And to all of this information Uncle Tom would listen,
smiling but genuinely interested, while he carved at dinner.
One evening, when Uncle Tom had gone to play piquet with Mr. Isham, who
was ill, Honora further surprised her aunt by exclaiming: "How can you
talk of things other people have and not want them, Aunt Mary?"
"Why should I desire what I cannot have, my dear? I take such pleasure
out of my friends' possessions as I can."
"But you want to go to the seashore, I know you do. I've heard you say
so," Honora protested.
"I should like to see the open ocean before I die," admitted Aunt Mary,
unexpectedly. "I saw New York harbour once, when we went to meet you. And
I know how the salt water smells--which is as much, perhaps, as I have
the right to hope for. But I have often thought it would be nice to sit
for a whole summer by the sea and listen to the waves dashing upon the
beach, like those in the Chase picture in Mr. Dwyer's gallery."
Aunt Mary little guessed the unspeakable rebellion aroused in Honora by
this acknowledgment of being fatally circumscribed. Wouldn't Uncle Tom
ever be rich?
Aunt Mary shook her head--she saw no prospect of it.
But other men, who were not half so good as Uncle Tom, got rich.
Uncle Tom was not the kind of man who cared for riches. He was content to
do his duty in that sphere where God had placed him.
Poor Aunt Mary. Honora never asked her uncle such questions: to do so
never occurred to her. At peace with all men, he gave of his best to
children, and Honora remained a child. Next to his flowers, walking was
Uncle Tom's chief recreation, and from the time she could be guided by
the hand she went with him. His very presence had the gift of dispelling
longings, even in the young; the gift of compelling delight in simple
things. Of a Sunday afternoon, if the heat were not too great, he would
take Honora to the wild park that stretches westward of the city, and
something of the depth and intensity of his pleasure in the birds, the
forest, and the wild flowers would communicate itself to her. She learned
all unconsciously (by suggestion, as it were) to take delight in them; a
delight that was to last her lifetime, a never failing resource to which
she was to turn again and again. In winter, they went to the botanical
gardens or the Zoo. Uncle Tom had a passion for animals, and Mr. Isham,
who was a director, gave him a pass through the gates. The keepers knew
him, and spoke to him with kindly respect. Nay, it seemed to Honora that
the very animals knew him, and offered themselves ingratiatingly to be
stroked by one whom they recognized as friend. Jaded horses in the street
lifted their noses; stray, homeless cats rubbed against his legs, and
vagrant dogs looked up at him trustfully with wagging tails.
Yet his goodness, as Emerson would have said, had some edge to it. Honora
had seen the light of anger in his blue eye--a divine ray. Once he had
chastised her for telling Aunt Mary a lie (she could not have lied to
him) and Honora had never forgotten it. The anger of such a man had
indeed some element in it of the divine; terrible, not in volume, but in
righteous intensity. And when it had passed there was no occasion for
future warning. The memory of it lingered.