MOSTLY UNCLE PETER
"Dear Uncle Peter," the letter ran, "I am very, very homesick and
lonely for you to-day. It seems to me that I would gladly give a whole
year of my life just for the privilege of being with you, and talking
instead of writing,--but since that can not be, I am going to try and
write you about the thing that is troubling me. I can't bear it alone
any longer, and still I don't know whether it is the kind of thing
that it is honorable to tell or not. So you see I am very much
troubled and puzzled, and this trouble involves some one else in a way
that it is terrible to think of.
"Uncle Peter, dear, I do not want to be married. Not until I have
grown up, and seen something of the world. You know it is one of my
dearest wishes to be self-supporting, not because I am a Feminist or a
new woman, or have 'the unnatural belief of an antipathy to man' that
you're always talking about, but just because it will prove to me once
and for all that I belong to myself, and that my _soul_ isn't, and
never has been cooperative. You know what I mean by this, and you are
not hurt by my feeling so. You, I am sure, would not want me to be
married, or to have to think of myself as engaged, especially not to
anybody that we all knew and loved, and who is very close to me and
you in quite another way. Please don't try to imagine what I mean,
Uncle Peter--even if you know, you must tell yourself that you don't
know. Please, please pretend even to yourself that I haven't written
you this letter. I know people do tell things like this, but I don't
know quite how they bring themselves to do it, even if they have
somebody like you who understands everything--everything.
"Uncle Peter, dear, I am supposed to be going to be married by and by
when the one who wants it feels that it can be spoken of, and until
that happens, I've got to wait for him to speak, unless I can find
some way to tell him that I do not want it ever to be. I don't know
how to tell him. I don't know how to make him feel that I do not
belong to him. It is only myself I belong to, and I belong to you, but
I don't know how to make that plain to any one who does not know it
already. I can't say it unless perhaps you can help me to.
"I am different from the other girls. I know every girl always thinks
there is something different about her, but I think there are ways in
which I truly am different. When I want anything I know more clearly
what it is, and why I want it than most other girls do, and not only
that, but I know now, that I want to keep myself, and everything I
think and feel and am,--_sacred_. There is an inner shrine in a
woman's soul that she must keep inviolate. I know that now.
"A liberty that you haven't known how, or had the strength to prevent,
is a terrible thing. One can't forget it. Uncle Peter, dear, twice in
my life things have happened that drive me almost desperate when I
think of them. If these things should happen again when I know that I
don't want them to, I don't think there would be any way of my bearing
it. Perhaps you can tell me something that will make me find a way out
of this tangle. I don't see what it could be, but lots of times you
have shown me the way out of endless mazes that were not grown up
troubles like this, but seemed very real to me just the same.
"Uncle Peter, dear, dear, dear,--you are all I have. I wish you were
here to-night, though you wouldn't be let in, even if you beat on the
gate ever so hard, for it's long after bedtime. I am up in my tower
room all alone. Oh! answer this letter. Answer it quickly, quickly."
* * * * *
Eleanor read her letter over and addressed a tear splotched envelope
to Peter. Then she slowly tore letter and envelope into little bits.
"He would know," she said to herself. "I haven't any real right to
tell him. It would be just as bad as any kind of tattling."
She began another letter to him but found she could not write without
saying what was in her heart, and so went to bed uncomforted. There
was nothing in her experience to help her in her relation to David.
His kiss on her lips had taught her the nature of such kisses: had
made her understand suddenly the ease with which the strange, sweet
spell of sex is cast. She related it to the episode of the unwelcome
caress bestowed upon her by the brother of Maggie Lou, and that half
forgotten incident took on an almost terrible significance. She
understood now how she should have repelled that unconscionable boy,
but that understanding did not help her with the problem of her Uncle
David. Though the thought of it thrilled through her with a strange
incredible delight, she did not want another kiss of his upon her
lips.
"It's--it's--like that," she said to herself. "I want it to be from
somebody--else. Somebody _realer_ to me. Somebody that would make it
seem right." But even to herself she mentioned no names.
She had definitely decided against going to college. She felt that she
must get upon her own feet quickly and be under no obligation to any
man. Vaguely her stern New England rearing was beginning to indicate
the way that she should tread. No man or woman who did not understand
"the value of a dollar," was properly equipped to do battle with the
realities of life. The value of a dollar, and a clear title to
it--these were the principles upon which her integrity must be founded
if she were to survive her own self-respect. Her Puritan fathers had
bestowed this heritage upon her. She had always felt the irregularity
of her economic position; now that the complication of her relation
with David had arisen, it was beginning to make her truly
uncomfortable.
David had been very considerate of her, but his consideration
frightened her. He had been so afraid that she might be hurt or
troubled by his attitude toward her that he had explained again, and
almost in so many words that he was only waiting for her to grow
accustomed to the idea before he asked her to become his wife. She had
looked forward with considerable trepidation to the Easter vacation
following the establishment of their one-sided understanding, but
David relieved her apprehension by putting up at his club and leaving
her in undisturbed possession of his quarters. There, with
Mademoiselle still treating her as a little girl, and the other five
of her heterogeneous foster family to pet and divert her at intervals,
she soon began to feel her life swing back into a more accustomed and
normal perspective. David's attitude to her was as simple as ever, and
when she was with the devoted sextet she was almost able to forget the
matter that was at issue between them--almost but not quite.
She took quite a new kind of delight in her association with the
group. She found herself suddenly on terms of grown up equality with
them. Her consciousness of the fact that David was tacitly waiting
for her to become a woman, had made a woman of her already, and she
looked on her guardians with the eyes of a woman, even though a very
newly fledged and timorous one.
She was a trifle self-conscious with the others, but with Jimmie she
was soon on her old familiar footing.
* * * * *
"Uncle Jimmie is still a great deal of fun," she wrote in her diary.
"He does just the same old things he used to do with me, and a good
many new ones in addition. He brings me flowers, and gets me taxi-cabs
as if I were really a grown up young lady, and he pinches my nose and
teases me as if I were still the little girl that kept house in a
studio for him. I never realized before what a good-looking man he is.
I used to think that Uncle Peter was the only handsome man of the
three, but now I realize that they are all exceptionally good-looking.
Uncle David has a great deal of distinction, of course, but Uncle
Jimmie is merry and radiant and vital, and tall and athletic looking
into the bargain. The ladies on the Avenue all turn to look at him
when we go walking. He says that the gentlemen all turn to look at
me, and I think perhaps they do when I have my best clothes on, but in
my school clothes I am quite certain that nothing like that happens.
"I have been out with Uncle Jimmie Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday
and Friday,--four days of my vacation. We've been to the Hippodrome
and Chinatown, and we've dined at Sherry's, and one night we went down
to the little Italian restaurant where I had my first introduction to
_eau rougie_, and was so distressed about it. I shall never forget
that night, and I don't think Uncle Jimmie will ever be done teasing
me about it. It is nice to be with Uncle Jimmie so much, but I never
seem to see Uncle Peter any more. Alphonse is very careful about
taking messages, I know, but it does seem to me that Uncle Peter must
have telephoned more times than I know of. It does seem as if he
would, at least, try to see me long enough to have one of our old time
talks again. To see him with all the others about is only a very
little better than not seeing him at all. He isn't like himself,
someway. There is a shadow over him that I do not understand."
* * * * *
"Don't you think that Uncle Peter has changed?" she asked Jimmie,
when the need of speaking of him became too strong to withstand.
"He is a little pale about the ears," Jimmie conceded, "but I think
that's the result of hard work and not enough exercise. He spends all
his spare time trying to patch up Beulah instead of tramping and
getting out on his horse the way he used to. He's doing a good job on
the old dear, but it's some job, nevertheless and notwithstanding--"
"Is Aunt Beulah feeling better than she was?" Eleanor's lips were dry,
but she did her best to make her voice sound natural. It seemed
strange that Jimmie could speak so casually of a condition of affairs
that made her very heart stand still. "I didn't know that Uncle Peter
had been taking care of her."
"Taking care of her isn't a circumstance to what Peter has been doing
for Beulah. You know she hasn't been right for some time. She got
burning wrong, like the flame on our old gas stove in the studio when
there was air in it."
"Uncle David thought so the last time I was here," Eleanor said, "but
I didn't know that Uncle Peter--"
"Peter, curiously enough, was the last one to tumble. Dave and I got
alarmed about the girl and held a consultation, with the result that
Doctor Gramercy was called. If we'd believed he would go into it quite
so heavily we might have thought again before we sicked him on. It's
very nice for Mary Ann, but rather tough on Abraham as they said when
the lady was deposited on that already overcrowded bosom. Now Beulah's
got suffrage mania, and Peter's got Beulah mania, and it's a merry
mess all around."
"Is Uncle Peter with her a lot?"
"Every minute. You haven't seen much of him since you came, have
you?--Well, the reason is that every afternoon as soon as he can get
away from the office, he puts on a broad sash marked 'Votes for
Women,' and trundles Beulah around in her little white and green
perambulator, trying to distract her mind from suffrage while he talks
to her gently and persuasively upon the subject. Suffrage is the only
subject on her mind, he explains, so all he can do is to try to cuckoo
gently under it day by day. It's a very complicated process but he's
making headway."
"I'm glad of that," Eleanor said faintly. "How--how is Aunt Gertrude?
I don't see her very often, either."
"Gertrude's all right." It was Jimmie's turn to look self-conscious.
"She never has time for me any more; I'm not high-brow enough for her.
She's getting on like a streak, you know, exhibiting everywhere."
"I know she is. She gave me a cast of her faun's head. I think it is
lovely. Aunt Margaret looks well."
"She is, I guess, but don't let's waste all our valuable time talking
about the family. Let's talk about us--you and me. You ask me how I'm
feeling and then I'll tell you. Then I'll ask you how you're feeling
and you'll tell me. Then I'll tell you how I imagine you must be
feeling from the way you're looking,--and that will give me a chance
to expatiate on the delectability of your appearance. I'll work up
delicately to the point where you will begin to compare me favorably
with all the other nice young men you know,--and then we'll be off."
"Shall we?" Eleanor asked, beginning to sparkle a little.
"We shall indeed," he assured her solemnly. "You begin. No, on second
thoughts, I'll begin. I'll begin at the place where I start telling
you how excessively well you're looking. I don't know, considering its
source, whether it would interest you or not, but you have the biggest
blue eyes that I've, ever seen in all my life,--and I'm rather a judge
of them."
"All the better to eat you with, my dear," Eleanor chanted.
"Quite correct." He shot her a queer glance from under his eyebrows.
"I don't feel very safe when I look into them, my child. It would be a
funny joke on me if they did prove fatal to me, wouldn't
it?--well,--but away with such nonsense. I mustn't blither to the very
babe whose cradle I am rocking, must I?"
"I'm not a babe, Uncle Jimmie. I feel very old sometimes. Older than
any of you."
"Oh! you are, you are. You're a regular sphinx sometimes. Peter says
that you even disconcert him at times, when you take to remembering
things out of your previous experience."
"'When he was a King in Babylon and I was a Christian Slave?'" she
quoted quickly.
"Exactly. Only I'd prefer to play the part of the King of Babylon, if
it's all the same to you, niecelet. How does the rest of it go, 'yet
not for a--' something or other 'would I wish undone that deed beyond
the grave.' Gosh, my dear, if things were otherwise, I think I could
understand how that feller felt. Get on your hat, and let's get out
into the open. My soul is cramped with big potentialities this
afternoon. I wish you hadn't grown up, Eleanor. You are taking my
breath away in a peculiar manner. No man likes to have his breath
taken away so suddint like. Let's get out into the rolling prairie of
Central Park."
But the rest of the afternoon was rather a failure. The Park had that
peculiar bleakness that foreruns the first promise of spring. The
children, that six weeks before were playing in the snow and six weeks
later would be searching the turf for dandelions, were in the listless
between seasons state of comparative inactivity. There was a deceptive
balminess in the air that seemed merely to overlay a penetrating
chilliness.
"I'm sorry I'm not more entertaining this afternoon," Jimmie
apologized on the way home. "It isn't that I am not happy, or that I
don't feel the occasion to be more than ordinarily propitious; I'm
silent upon a peak in Darien,--that's all."
"I was thinking of something else, too," Eleanor said.
"I didn't say I was thinking of something else."
"People are always thinking of something else when they aren't talking
to each other, aren't they?"
"Something else, or each other, Eleanor. I wasn't thinking of
something else, I was thinking--well, I won't tell you exactly--at
present. A penny for your thoughts, little one."
"They aren't worth it."
"A penny is a good deal of money. You can buy joy for a penny."
"I'm afraid I couldn't--buy joy, even if you gave me your penny, Uncle
Jimmie."
"You might try. My penny might not be like other pennies. On the other
hand, your thoughts might be worth a fortune to me."
"I'm afraid they wouldn't be worth anything to anybody."
"You simply don't know what I am capable of making out of them."
"I wish I could make something out of them," Eleanor said so
miserably that Jimmie was filled with compunction for having tired her
out, and hailed a passing taxi in which to whiz her home again.
* * * * *
"I have found out that Uncle Peter is spending all his time with Aunt
Beulah," she wrote in her diary that evening. "It is beautiful of him
to try to help her through this period of nervous collapse, and just
like him, but I don't understand why it is that he doesn't come and
tell me about it, especially since he is getting so tired. He ought to
know that I love him so dearly and deeply that I could help him even
in helping her. It isn't like him not to share his anxieties with me.
Aunt Beulah is a grown up woman, and has friends and doctors and
nurses, and every one knows her need. It seems to me that he might
think that I have no one but him, and that whatever might lie heavy on
my heart I could only confide in him. I have always told him
everything. Why doesn't it occur to him that I might have something to
tell him now? Why doesn't he come to me?
"I am afraid he will get sick. He needs a good deal of exercise to
keep in form. If he doesn't have a certain amount of muscular
activity his digestion is not so good. There are two little creases
between his eyes that I never remember seeing there before. I asked
him the other night when he was here with Aunt Beulah if his head
ached, and he said 'no,' but Aunt Beulah said her head ached almost
all the time. Of course, Aunt Beulah is important, and if Uncle Peter
is trying to bring her back to normality again she is important to
him, and that makes her important to me for his sake also, but nobody
in the world is worth the sacrifice of Uncle Peter. Nobody, nobody.
"I suppose it's a part of his great beauty that he should think so
disparagingly of himself. I might not love him so well if he knew just
how dear and sweet and great his personality is. It isn't so much what
he says or does, or even the way he looks that constitutes his charm,
it's the simple power and radiance behind his slightest move. Oh! I
can't express it. He doesn't think he is especially fine or beautiful.
He doesn't know what a waste it is when he spends his strength upon
somebody who isn't as noble in character as he is,--but I know, and it
makes me wild to think of it. Oh! why doesn't he come to me? My
vacation is almost over, and I don't see how I could bear going back
to school without one comforting hour of him alone.
"I intended to write a detailed account of my vacation, but I can not.
Uncle Jimmie has certainly tried to make me happy. He is so funny and
dear. I could have so much fun with him if I were not worried about
Uncle Peter!
"Uncle David says he wants to spend my last evening with me. We are
going to dine here, and then go to the theater together. I am going to
try to tell him how I feel about things, but I am afraid he won't give
me the chance. Life is a strange mixture of things you want and can't
have, and things you can have and don't want. It seems almost disloyal
to put that down on paper about Uncle David. I do want him and love
him, but oh!--not in that way. Not in that way. There is only one
person in a woman's life that she can feel that way about.
Why--why--why doesn't my Uncle Peter come to me?"