ELEANOR HEARS THE NEWS
"Dear Uncle Jimmie:
"I said I would write you, but now that I have taken this hour in
which to do it, I find it is a very, very hard letter that I have got
to write. In the first place I can't believe that the things you said
to me that night were real, or that you were awake and in the world of
realities when you said them. I felt as if we were both dreaming; that
you were talking as a man does sometimes in delirium when he believes
the woman he loves to be by his side, and I was listening the same
way. It made me very happy, as dreams sometimes do. I can't help
feeling that your idea of me is a dream idea, and the pain that you
said this kind of a letter would give you will be merely dream pain.
It is a shock to wake up in the morning and find that all the lovely
ways we felt, and delicately beautiful things we had, were only dream
things that we wouldn't even understand if we were thoroughly awake.
"In the second place, you can't want to marry your little niecelet,
the funny little 'kiddo,' that used to burn her fingers and the
beefsteak over that old studio gas stove. We had such lovely kinds of
make-believe together. That's what our association always ought to
mean to us,--just chumship, and wonderful and preposterous _pretends_.
I couldn't think of myself being married to you any more than I could
Jack the giant killer, or Robinson Crusoe. You're my truly best and
dearest childhood's playmate, and that is a great deal to be, Uncle
Jimmie. I don't think a little girl ever grows up quite _whole_ unless
she has somewhere, somehow, what I had in you. You wouldn't want to
marry Alice in Wonderland, now would you? There are some kinds of
playmates that can't marry each other. I think that you and I are that
kind, Uncle Jimmie.
"My dear, my dear, don't let this hurt you. How can it hurt you, when
I am only your little adopted foster child that you have helped
support and comfort and make a beautiful, glad life for? I love you so
much,--you are so precious to me that you _must_ wake up out of this
distorted, though lovely dream that I was present at!
"We must all be happy. Nobody can break our hearts if we are strong
enough to withhold them. Nobody can hurt us too much if we can find
the way to be our bravest all the time. I know that what you are
feeling now is not real. I can't tell you how I know, but I do know
the difference. The roots are not deep enough. They could be pulled up
without too terrible a havoc.
"Uncle Jimmie, dear, believe me, believe me. I said this would be a
hard letter to write, and it has been. If you could see my poor
inkstained, weeping face, you would realize that I am only your funny
little Eleanor after all, and not to be taken seriously at all. I hope
you will come up for my graduation. When you see me with all the other
lumps and frumps that are here, you will know that I am not worth
considering except as a kind of human joke.
"Good-by, dear, my dear, and God bless you.
"Eleanor."
* * * * *
It was less than a week after this letter to Jimmie that Margaret
spending a week-end in a town in Connecticut adjoining that in which
Eleanor's school was located, telephoned Eleanor to join her
overnight at the inn where she was staying. She had really planned the
entire expedition for the purpose of seeing Eleanor and preparing her
for the revelations that were in store for her, though she was
ostensibly meeting a motoring party, with which she was going on into
the Berkshires.
She started in abruptly, as was her way, over the salad and cheese in
the low studded Arts and Crafts dining-room of the fashionable road
house, contrived to look as self-conscious as a pretty woman in new
sporting clothes.
"Your Uncle David and your Uncle Jimmie are going to be married," she
told her. "Did you know it, Eleanor?"
"No, I didn't," Eleanor said faintly, but she grew suddenly very
white.
"Aren't you surprised, dear? David gave a dinner party one night last
week in his studio, and announced his intentions, but we don't know
the name of the lady yet, and we can't guess it. He says it is not a
society girl."
"Who do you think it is?"
"Who do you think it is, Eleanor?"
"I--I can't think, Aunt Margaret."
"We don't know who Jimmie is marrying either. The facts were merely
insinuated, but he said we should have the shock of our lives when we
knew."
"When did he tell you?"
"A week ago last Wednesday. I haven't seen him since."
"Perhaps he has changed his mind by now," Eleanor said.
"I don't think that's likely. They were both very much in earnest.
Aren't you surprised, Eleanor?"
"I--I don't know. Don't you think it might be that they both just
thought they were going to marry somebody--that really doesn't want to
marry them? It might be all a mistake, you know."
"I don't think it's a mistake. David doesn't make mistakes."
"He might make one," Eleanor persisted.
Margaret found the rest of her story harder to tell than she had
anticipated. Eleanor, wrapped in the formidable aloofness of the
sensitive young, was already suffering from the tale she had come to
tell,--why, it was not so easy to determine. It might be merely from
the pang of being shut out from confidences that she felt should have
been shared with her at once.
She waited until they were both ready for bed (their rooms were
connecting)--Eleanor in the straight folds of her white dimity
nightgown, and her two golden braids making a picture that lingered in
Margaret's memory for many years. "It would have been easier to tell
her in her street clothes," she thought. "I wish her profile were not
so perfect, or her eyes were shallower. How can I hurt such a lovely
thing?"
"Are the ten Hutchinsons all right?" Eleanor was asking.
"The ten Hutchinsons are very much all right. They like me better now
that I have grown a nice hard Hutchinson shell that doesn't show my
feelings through. Haven't you noticed how much more like other people
I've grown, Eleanor?"
"You've grown nicer, and dearer and sweeter, but I don't think you're
very much like anybody else, Aunt Margaret."
"I have though,--every one notices it. You haven't asked me anything
about Peter yet," she added suddenly.
The lovely color glowed in Eleanor's cheeks for an instant.
"Is--is Uncle Peter well?" she asked. "I haven't heard from him for a
long time."
"Yes, he's well," Margaret said. "He's looking better than he was for
a while. He had some news to tell us too, Eleanor."
Eleanor put her hand to her throat.
"What kind of news?" she asked huskily.
"He's going to be married too. It came out when the others told us. He
said that he hadn't the consent of the lady to mention her name yet.
We're as much puzzled about him as we are about the other two."
"It's Aunt Beulah," Eleanor said. "It's Aunt Beulah."
She sat upright on the edge of the bed and stared straight ahead of
her. Margaret watched the light and life and youth die out of the face
and a pitiful ashen pallor overspread it.
"I don't think it's Beulah," Margaret said. "Beulah knows who it is,
but I never thought of it's being Beulah herself."
"If she knows--then she's the one. He wouldn't have told her first if
she hadn't been."
"Don't let it hurt you too much, dear. We're all hurt some, you know.
Gertrude--and me, too, Eleanor. It's--it's pain to us all."
"Do you mean--Uncle David, Aunt Margaret?"
"Yes, dear," Margaret smiled at her bravely.
"And does Aunt Gertrude care about Uncle Jimmie?"
"She has for a good many years, I think."
Eleanor covered her face with her hands.
"I didn't know that," she said. "I wish somebody had told me." She
pushed Margaret's arm away from her gently, but her breath came hard.
"Don't touch me," she cried, "I can't bear it. You might not want
to--if you knew. Please go,--oh! please go--oh! please go."
As Margaret closed the door gently between them, she saw Eleanor throw
her head back, and push the back of her hand hard against her mouth,
as if to stifle the rising cry of her anguish.
* * * * *
The next morning Eleanor was gone. Margaret had listened for hours in
the night but had heard not so much as the rustle of a garment from
the room beyond. Toward morning she had fallen into the sleep of
exhaustion. It was then that the stricken child had made her escape.
"Miss Hamlin had found that she must take the early train," the clerk
said, "and left this note for Miss Hutchinson." It was like Eleanor to
do things decently and in order.
* * * * *
"Dear Aunt Margaret," her letter ran. "My grandmother used to say that
some people were trouble breeders. On thinking it over I am afraid
that is just about what I am,--a trouble breeder.
"I've been a worry and bother and care to you all since the beginning,
and I have repaid all your kindness by bringing trouble upon you.
Perhaps you can guess what I mean. I don't think I have any right to
tell you exactly in this letter. I can only pray that it will be found
to be all a mistake, and come out right in the end. Surely such
beautiful people as you and Uncle David can find the way to each
other, and can help Uncle Jimmie and Aunt Gertrude, who are a little
blinder about life. Surely, when the stumbling block is out of the
way, you four will walk together beautifully. Please try, Aunt
Margaret, to make things as right as if I had never helped them to go
wrong. I was so young, I didn't know how to manage. I shall never be
that kind of young again. I grew up last night, Aunt Margaret.
"You know the other reason why I am going. Please do not let any one
else know. If the others could think I had met with some accident,
don't you think that would be the wisest way? I would like to arrange
it so they wouldn't try to find me at all, but would just mourn for me
naturally for a little while. I thought of sticking my old cap in the
river, but I was afraid that would be too hard for you. There won't be
any use in trying to find me. I am going where you can not. I couldn't
ever bear seeing one of your faces again. I have done too much harm.
Don't let Uncle Peter _know_, please, Aunt Margaret. I don't want him
to know,--I don't want to hurt him, and I don't want him to know.
"Oh! I have loved you all so much. Good-by, my dears, my dearests. I
have taken all of my allowance money. Please forgive me.
"Eleanor."