THE TWO KEREN-HAPPUCHS
MISS KEREN said that she "did not know how to be ill." It was owing to
this ignorance--which some people might have called pluck--that she did
not succumb to the effect of the shock she had undergone.
As it was, she was able to get up every day and sit in the warmest
corner of the Patty-Pans parlor, trying not to be any trouble to Happie.
For Happie found her hands full in the month that followed Aunt Keren's
arrival. The tea-room saw her no more. If she had allowed herself to
think about it she would have been sorry for this. She enjoyed what
Bob called for short "The Six Maidens," more and more, got on better
with all sorts and conditions of women than Margery did, and had the
cheerful conviction that she was, of all the girls, the one most
essential to the tea-room's success. But she did not allow herself to
recognize her uneasiness in being so long away, for Aunt Keren wanted
her, and there was little enough that any of the Scollards could do to
show their sense of loving gratitude to Aunt Keren.
Happie was established as housekeeper and attendant, also as amanuensis
to their guest, and there were not many minutes in the short February
days in which she found time to regret anything. Every morning she
saw depart her mother and Bob, together as always, and later Margery,
Gretta and Laura, sometimes with one, sometimes with both of the
younger children. Then, left alone, Happie flew from one task to
another till nightfall brought back the family to an orderly and
prepared Patty-Pans and a tired Happie who tried to keep the latter
item out of sight.
Aunt Keren began to have visitors when people found out where she had
taken refuge, elderly and impressive ladies who toiled up the three
flights that led to the Patty-Pans, their furs hanging, their breath
short, to present themselves at the door, pantingly reproachful in
their tone as they asked for Miss Bradbury. Miss Bradbury's lawyer
came, the insurance adjuster came, several times, and Aunt Keren had
such heavy mails that Happie daily sat down to the task of replying to
her letters with dismay. Most of these letters were appeals for help;
for money for every imaginable charity, individual and collective,
and for the weight of Miss Bradbury's name on boards and committees
and lists of "patronesses." Happie began to realize that Aunt Keren,
for all her eccentricities of plain garments, must be known widely as
a fountain of beneficence. As Happie drew checks, under Aunt Keren's
instruction, for her to sign, she began to see that Miss Keren could
not be an elderly lady of straightened means, in which light the young
Scollards had always looked on her, for her donations in this month
alone were mounting up amazingly.
One afternoon the two Keren-happuchs were at work on the elder's
correspondence by two o'clock, lunch having been over and out of the
way early because it was the day for Polly and Penny to go to dancing
school, to which Laura had taken them, remaining at home that morning
for the purpose.
Miss Keren watched Happie's absorbed face as she sealed the note in
which she had gently refused the request of a young woman for help to
go abroad and cultivate her genius for art, and drew up Miss Keren's
check book to make out a check of ten dollars for coal and groceries to
a family which was, it seemed, among her constant dependents.
"Happie," said Miss Keren, so suddenly out of a silence of several
minutes that the end of Happie's figure nine, as she wrote the year
date, went far below the line in the jump she gave, "Happie, if you had
an income, what would you do?"
Happie looked at her adopted aunt unseeingly, as she considered. Then
she dimpled and laughed. "I should live on it, Aunt Keren," she said.
"Live _within_ it, if you wanted to be happy in reality, and not in
name only," said Miss Keren. "What do you think you would do first if
money, a fairly large income, fell into your hands?"
"First of all I should give motherums warning that she had to stop
foreign corresponding for that firm down in town. Then I should hunt
up a house and set her in it, and not let her do one thing but be dear
and sweet and idle for an endless time. Then I should buy Margery lots
of lovely things--she is so pretty! Maybe I wouldn't, though, for I can
see that she looks altogether too pretty in Robert Gaston's eyes now!
But maybe I would, and then take her abroad where he couldn't see her.
Then I'd begin Laura's musical education--that really is important. And
get a splendid, life-size doll for Penny, and lots of things for good
little Polly, and send them to a fine school--and for my dearest old
Bob--oh, I don't know! Buy him a partnership in a great business, or
something. Why, Aunt Keren?"
Miss Keren had listened to Happie's list of benefactions with a smile
in her eyes. "For no reason, Keren-happuch, my dear, except that your
doing these things for me made me wonder how you would use money if you
had it," she said. "And nothing for Happie?"
"Oh, I suppose I should buy her lots of things between times; every
time I went out, probably. And I know I should buy her cases and cases
of books," said Happie, resuming her task. "But I'm sure I shall always
have to grub along, because I don't mind doing it as much as most
girls. I believe I've a contented mind, Aunt Keren."
"There is no doubt of that, my namesake, and you have no idea what
a blessing it is. Cultivate it all your life. It can be cultivated
or lost, Happie. Dear me, the bell! Just when we were so comfortably
settled for a long afternoon! It is some one for me, almost certainly.
I must fly, Happie, and you will ask the visitor to wait for me a few
moments." Aunt Keren went through to her room, which had been Bob's
before her coming, and Happie opened the door after she had hastily
gathered up the scattered papers on which she had been at work. But she
dropped Aunt Keren's check book in her hurry, and it lay in long black
evidence on the lightest figure of the rug.
Two ladies confronted Happie as she obeyed the summons of the upper
bell. They were handsomely clad, and there was something familiar in
both faces, which, nevertheless, Happie was sure that she had not seen
before. With this haunting familiarity there was a certain hardness
in the visitors' expression which was repellent. They were about the
same age--well into their thirties--and carried their years with the
jauntiness of intentional youth.
Happie ushered them into the small parlor, which they seemed to fill
in every corner, and asked whom she should say had come to see Miss
Bradbury.
"Say her nieces, Miss Helen and Miss Irene Bradbury," said one of the
two. "Wait a moment, what is your name?"
"I am one of the daughters of Miss Bradbury's friend, Mrs. Scollard;
the second one, Happie," said Happie. Something antagonistic in this
very different Miss Bradbury's manner kept her from saying that she
was Keren-happuch, named after the strangers' aunt.
"Happie! Then you are the one whom they called after Aunt Keren? Is
Happie your abbreviation of Keren-happuch?" asked Miss Irene Bradbury.
"Yes," said Happie. "Shall I call Miss Bradbury?"
"Wait one moment," said Miss Irene Bradbury very low. "I see that you
are very young, but you are not a child, and there is something that
I wish to say to you. Miss Bradbury's family are greatly annoyed by
her taking refuge in this little Harlem flat, after having already
carried your entire family with her into the country for a summer that
stretched out into half the year. It is extraordinary, the fancy that
a woman of her usual sense and strength of mind has taken to people of
this sort----"
"What sort, Miss Bradbury?" Happie quietly interrupted her. "My
grandmother was Miss Bradbury's dearest friend."
"People who are not her kindred," said Miss Irene Bradbury, somewhat
confused. "We understand your part of it--perhaps not your part since
you are so young--but your mother's. We wish you to know, and to repeat
to your mother, that we shall not allow her plans to succeed. If Aunt
Keren should will away her fortune to you, to any of your family, we
shall break the will, and we shall leave no means untried to prevent
her continuing under your mother's influence. That is all. Repeat
what I have said to your mother, but you will not gain anything by
repeating it to Miss Bradbury."
Happie had turned white under these remarks, but she looked Miss Irene
Bradbury over from head to foot with a scorn she richly deserved.
"I shall certainly spare Aunt Keren the annoyance of knowing that one
of her own nieces could insult her namesake in the home she has chosen
to come to in her trouble," said Happie. Her naturally quick temper did
not flare up, but in its stead burned a righteous indignation that made
her young eyes rather awful, and Miss Bradbury quailed before them. "My
mother--well, you do not know my mother, so there may be some excuse
for you, though I can't imagine any. We have all thought Miss Bradbury
poor, until now." Happie's eye fell upon the check book, and Miss
Helen's following it, she started to pick it up, but Happie forestalled
her. "Pardon me, that is not for any one to see," she said. "There is
nothing for me to reply to the insults you have heaped upon my mother
and upon us all. If you have anything more to say, you will please tell
your aunt your plan is to prevent her doing as she likes. And I don't
envy you if you do tell her. I will send her in to see you, since you
are here, and I don't want her to guess how badly you have behaved. She
is not at all well. But while she is visiting us you will please not
come here again to see her. If you come I shall not let you in."
Happie walked out of the little room, head up, and with an air that
was little less than regal. Inwardly she was in a tumult. It was
inconceivable that these two women could have stayed her in her own
Patty-Pans parlor to subject her to such treatment! That they did not
know her beautiful mother, to whom they imputed such baseness, hardly
bettered it. What right had they so to suspect the daughter of Miss
Bradbury's dearest friend?
"Aunt Keren, it is your two nieces, Miss Helen and Miss Irene Bradbury.
If you don't need my help I won't wait; I am in a wee hurry." Happie
steadied her voice to say this at Miss Keren's door, and scuttled away.
She dared not risk letting Miss Keren see her tell-tale face, nor hear
her voice in one avoidable word.
As soon as she heard Miss Keren go through the hall to the parlor
Happie flew to her own room and threw herself face downward on the
bed. She pulled the pillows down over her head and burrowed further in
under them. The tears that she had been holding back burst forth in a
tropical tempest; wounded affection, pride, a cruel sense of injustice
against which she was helpless, righteous wrath that her mother could
be so misjudged, so outraged, combined to make the tears the bitterest
that sunny Happie had ever shed. She cried and cried, and, because
she was suffocating herself to keep the sound of her crying down, she
kicked her feet and dove further under the pillows till the chance of
sweet sleep that night in that particular bed seemed very slender.
Miss Bradbury's nieces did not make a long call. If Happie had not been
in such violent contradiction to her nickname she might have discovered
from the tones carried out through the little flat by its telescopic
construction, that the call was not a particularly pleasant one. As
the rustle of skirts and the fall of feet announced the fact that Aunt
Keren was conducting her guests to the door, Happie restrained her sobs
and lay still, under the fear of being heard, in spite of her upheaval
of the pillows.
"You have known me quite long enough, Irene Bradbury," Aunt Keren was
saying in her clear-cut accent, and with a vigor of which she had not
seemed capable since coming to the Patty-Pans, "to know that if you
had set about defeating your own ends you could not have taken a surer
method than the one you have employed this afternoon."
"I hope, Aunt Keren," retorted her niece with unmistakable temper,
"that your physician is competent. A shock such as you have had
requires more than ordinary skill. I should be glad to have him consult
with my physician."
"I think mine is quite competent to pronounce on the effect of the
shock," said Miss Keren. "It will be made perfectly clear to every one
interested that I have sustained no real harm; I will see to that.
Don't trouble to come to see me again, Irene. When I need you, I
will send for you."
[Illustration: "SHE JUMPED UP, STRAIGHTENED HER TWISTED GARMENTS...."]
Happie triumphed as she heard this valedictory, and, throwing off her
pillows, she sat up feeling better. Then, as the door shut, and she
heard Aunt Keren turn, she suddenly realized that she would be obliged
to appear with the marks of her recent tempest upon her, and that Aunt
Keren would ask an explanation of her unmistakable tears.
She jumped up, straightened her twisted garments with rapid pulls down,
and shrugs up, wrenched her collar around from under her ear, crossed
to the bowl, turned on the hot water and was wildly bathing her eyes
when Miss Keren came to the door, and called: "Happie, Happie, child,
what are you doing? I am ready to resume our pleasant duet, and, if you
will, I should be glad to have you bring me a glass of hot milk, for I
am tired."
"Yes, Auntie Keren. Go and sit down in the most restful place you
can find, and the milk and I will be there in a few minutes," called
Happie, catching at anything that prolonged her time.
She could not delay longer than it took to heat the milk to the point
when it was just ready to boil, and as she handed it to Miss Keren
she saw that her keen eyes espied other cause than the gas range for
Happie's crimson cheeks and inflamed eyelids.
"Sit down, Keren-happuch," said the elder of that name, motioning to
the footstool at her feet. Happie obeyed, rather dreading what might
be coming. Miss Bradbury touched her eyelids lightly, and tipped up her
chin with her fingers.
"What did they say to you, my Unhappie?" she asked without an echo of
her usual brisk and brusque manner. Then, as Happie hesitated for an
answer at once truthful and not unpleasant, she added: "Don't fence,
my dear, and don't try to spare me. This is by no means the first
time that I have encountered the unlovable qualities of my brother's
daughters. Did they suggest to you their doubt of singleness of motive
in your mother's love for me?"
"They said horrible things!" declared Happie, throwing away all reserve
in letting herself speak. "Horrible, brutal, false things, Aunt Keren!
At first I was stunned, then I was furious, sort of deadly, still,
white furious, Aunt Keren! And I told them--I don't know WHAT
I told them. Only I know I told them not to come here to see you again,
because I shouldn't let them in. I hope you don't mind! I suppose I
should let them in if you wanted them."
"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.