MISS ARABELLA
No ghosts came to disturb my slumbers in the great four-poster, but the
early morning sun awoke me long before Tweedles gave any indication of
coming to life. I thought for a while I was at Bracken. It must have
been the lavender in the sheets and the mocking-bird, who was singing
like Caruso just outside of my window. An odor will carry more
suggestion than any sight; and sound comes next, I believe. I lay there
wondering how long it would be before Mammy Susan would come bringing my
bath-water, devoutly praying she would not "het" it up, but let me have
it stinging cold from the well.
The realization that I was in Charleston came over me gradually; also,
that no one would bring me bath-water, and that if I wanted first to go
in the preserving-kettle I had better get up and take it. I had to go
through the twins' room to get to the bathroom, and I found them
sleeping like infants, looking ridiculously alike with their eyes shut
and their chins snuggled down in the bed clothes. The squareness of
Dum's chin and the dimple in Dee's was more of a differentiation in
their case than even the eyes. Dum's were hazel while Dee's were gray,
but the shape and setting were similar, if not identical. I stood a
moment gazing at them, and it came over me with an added realization
what their friendship had meant to me; theirs and their father's. I had
known them according to the calendar only twenty months, not quite two
years, but counting time by "heart throbs," I had known them since the
beginning of time. God grant nothing should ever come between us!
Mr. Tucker had certainly been a little snappy with me before he went to
Columbia, but I was never the kind to go around with a chip on my
shoulder hunting for trouble, so if it was an accident I was perfectly
willing to let it go at that. The truth of the matter was, that the
Tuckers had one and all spoiled me. They were so lovely to me on all
occasions that a slight let-up on the part of any one of them was more
noticeable because of their usual kindness. He was to come back that
day, and I was very glad, as indeed all of us were, although we were
expecting a good teasing for having so bravely undertaken the business
of getting board and then moving in without any business arrangement.
The copper tub was not so bad, after all, and the Charleston water is
always a delight to bathe in. It is strangely soft, as though it had
just fallen from a summer cloud, and it has a peculiar sweetish taste. I
dressed in a great hurry and soon found myself in the garden. The sun
that had made his way into my window had not yet reached the garden,
because of the high wall.
"One morning, very early, before the sun was up,
I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;
But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head,
Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed."
That was what I thought as I stepped out into that wonderful old garden.
There was a misty haze of early morning, and the freshness of the
new-born day that few persons know of. Early rising is a habit that it
is a pity ever to lose, and still it is something that the civilized
world seems to fight against. Children naturally wake early, but as one
grows older the sunrise is such a rarity that many grown-ups cannot
remember ever having seen this wonderful spectacle which takes place
every morning.
Father says that one of the signs of advancing years is waking quite
early in the morning and not being able to go back to sleep. When he is
called in to doctor old persons, who complain of waking early, he always
tells them not to try to go back to sleep, but to get up and go out in
the morning and see how glorious Creation is. Nature may be asserting
herself in these old persons so they can get back some of the spirit of
childhood before they are called to the Great Beyond. He always tells
them to eat something, however, before they go to commune with Nature.
The mocking-bird was not holding the fort alone that morning, as he had
the evening before. His little wife was still carrying building
materials for their home, and he was helping, but every now and then he
left off work, although he had heard no whistle blow to tell him it was
time to stop. Then such a stream of melody as he would pour forth would
put Caruso to the blush. Other birds were in the garden, and all of them
very busy. A tiny song sparrow had something to say with remarkable
volume considering his size, and Mr. Mocking-Bird listened intently,
determined to learn the new song. A thrush broke in and then a stylish
robin. I thought I heard the notes of a bobolink, but it turned out to
be the mocking-bird, who seemed intent on singing down all the others.
It reminded me rather of the sextette from "Lucia de Lammermoor" when
the artists all seem to be trying to outdo each other and still harmony
is the result.
I had brought down all the combings from our three heads, well knowing
how the birds delight in hair as a building material. Of course Mammy
Susan had done her best all my life to keep me from letting birds get
any of my hair for nests, as it is supposed to be the very worst luck
that can befall one, and terrible headaches are sure to be the lot of a
person whose hair helps make a nest. Nevertheless, I had always sneaked
my hair to the birds at Bracken, and this morning, feeling sure that I
was the only person astir, I had quite openly brought a wad of hair,
Dum's burnished black, Dee's blue black, and my curly brown, all mingled
together. I put some on a lilac bush and some on the path where I
noticed the builders had found some straw and would no doubt soon spy
the more desirable material.
"I wish I had some of Molly Brown's," I said to myself. We had got in
the habit of speaking of Mrs. Green as Molly Brown, and no doubt would
soon begin to call her Molly to her face. "Hers would make the dear
birds feel that they were weaving sunshine into their nests. I'm going
to ask her for some."
I made my way very slowly and quietly, so as not to disturb the busy
homemakers, along the overgrown path to the summer house.
I was mistaken in thinking I was the only human being astir in that
enchanted garden. As I lifted a great branch of snowballs that, heavy
with its own beauty, had fallen across the path, I saw that Miss
Arabella was before me. She was seated in the summer house. The great
gray cat was on the ground in front of her, looking up into her face
with a sly expression in his round, yellow eyes.
"Now, Grimalkin, I give you fair warning. If you dare so much as look at
one of these birds I will shut you up in the house for the rest of the
day! You hear me, sir?"
"Me-i-ou----!" and he tried to slink off, deceit in every curve of his
handsome body.
"No, you don't, sir!" and with astonishing agility for an old lady who
had swallowed a hereditary poker, she swooped forward and caught the cat
up into her lap. How different this was from the Miss Arabella of the
evening before! Her soft gray hair, with a glint of gold in it, was all
loosened about her face. There was a little flush on her cheeks, and
instead of the sombre black dress she now wore a loose lavender
wrapper. If it had been possible to back out and get up the garden path
without being seen, I would have done it. I felt like Peeping Tom and
Lady Godiva. Somehow this was Miss Arabella's naked soul I had come on,
and I was afraid she would be terribly cut up. There was nothing for me,
however, but to speak. I made a little scratching on the path with my
toe and shook the snowball branch. She looked up, startled, and loosened
her hold on Grimalkin, who immediately took advantage of her and sprang
from her lap. This was no time for dignity! The cat at liberty in the
garden meant havoc for the nesting birds.
"I'll catch him!" I cried, and then such a chase ensued! Grimalkin
thought all the world moved as slowly as the dear ladies who had raised
him, and at first scorned me as a pursuer, but I soon gave him to
understand that a country girl with gym training added to her natural
agility is a match for a fat old tomcat. I cornered him just as he
started up the high wall, and, catching him by the back of his neck, in
the proper place for a cat to be held, I carried him back to his
smiling mistress, who, all unmindful of his unsheathed claws, caught him
to her bosom, where he soon dropped asleep, purring away as though that
was where he meant to go all the time.
"You are very kind! I am exceedingly grateful to you!"
"Oh, not at all! It was my fault the cat got away. I thought I was all
alone in the garden and did not mean to come on you this way. I fancied
the birds and I were the only creatures awake."
"I always come down in the garden very early in the morning. I can't
trust Grimalkin alone out here while the birds are nesting. After they
have hatched and the little ones can fly they can escape from him, he is
so fat, but I am always afraid he will drive the mocking-birds away. I
can't sleep in the early morning, anyhow. Do you usually arise so
early?"
"Not always, but I am a country girl, and country people always get up
earlier than city people. My friends, the Tuckers, have to be dragged
out of bed unless there is some especial reason for getting up, and then
they are energetic enough. I did not disturb them this morning as they
were sleeping so peacefully."
Miss Arabella had made a place for me on the stone bench, and was still
smiling at me in a very encouraging way. Perhaps she was as eager to
find out things about me as I was about her.
"My sister was sleeping, too, at least she seemed to be trying to. Both
of us, as a rule, awaken very early, but she lies still trying to get
back to sleep, while I feel that it is best to get up and take advantage
of the beautiful morning light. You must excuse my being _en
deshabille_. I did not expect to be seen."
"Oh, I think you look lovely!"
She didn't mind a bit, but blushed and patted my hand.
"I am very fond of young girls, but never see any nowadays but Claire
Gaillard. She is the only one who comes to our sad old house."
"Sad! Not sad, it is too beautiful to be sad."
"It is its very beauty that seems sad to me," she sighed. "And the
garden! I feel like a traitor to let it get so unkempt. I am not strong
enough to keep it weeded. All I have strength to do now is to keep
Grimalkin from devouring the birds. Judith thinks I am very foolish. She
lays more stress on having the furniture rubbed and keeping up the
inside of the house, but to me the garden and birds are more important.
I'd like to see the garden looking as it used to, with trim flower beds
and the dead wood all cut away."
Miss Arabella seemed to forget I was there, or to forget I was a
stranger, perhaps. I am sure she had no intention of unburdening her
soul to me. She closed her eyes and I knew she was picturing the garden
as it had been years ago, and perhaps she was even seeing the lover of
the past as he looked when she kissed him through the gate. A thought
wave seemed to have gone from me to her. I no sooner put my mind on the
iron gates that I felt sure must have been where the ugly board ones
were now, ere she began talking of those very gates. The sun had
reached the garden now, and was lifting the soft mist that hung over it
like a tulle veil. I felt somehow that the veil of the past was being
lifted, too, and Miss Arabella was letting me catch a glimpse of her
true self.
"I hate that ugly gate," she mused. "I miss the beautiful old grille
that had been there for so many years--where our friends and ancestors
had come and gone so often."
"I was sure there must have been an iron gate there."
"Yes, my dear, one of the most beautiful in Charleston. We had to let
something go. I thought the Stuart portrait of General Laurens would be
the best, but Judith felt that the gates would be the thing to give up.
She rather likes having the board ones that no one can see through. I
hate them, as I like to look out on the street sometimes. The gates were
very valuable, being wrought-iron of a most delicate and intricate
pattern. There was hardly a spot where one could so much as get a hand
through." I gasped here and had a vision of Miss Arabella, young and
beautiful, trying to get her hand through and ending by finding a place
where her rosy lips with some pouting could reach her lover, locked out
no doubt by a stern parent. "I don't know why I should speak of these
things to you, child. It would provoke sister Judith very much if she
knew----"
"But she won't know," and I took the frail old hand in mine. "I long to
hear about the gates and the garden as it used to be. It is so lovely
now that I can well picture what it must have been. Please go right on
and tell me everything about it, and let me be your friend, as well as
Claire."
And the old lady, with her eyes all soft, sat on the stone bench in that
early morning, the purring Grimalkin clasped with one hand and the other
holding mine, and told many wonderful tales of olden times. It was an
hour never to be forgotten by me. The birds hopped close to us, some in
search of the early worm and some intent on building material, stopping
every now and then to pour forth the joy of living in song. They seemed
to trust the lady of the garden to keep the enemy from them.
I hoped the stern Miss Judith was sleeping peacefully, and would not
come stalking into our dreams like a great Grimalkin herself. Miss
Arabella was enjoying herself immensely. She lived in the past, and her
mind was like some old chest filled with faded souvenirs of a happier
time. She had opened this wonder-box for me and was having the time of
her life taking out treasure after treasure, shaking out the folds of
some rare silken memory, or unwrapping some quaintly set jewel of
experience. I listened entranced, only occasionally dropping a word to
show my interest or pressing the little hand, so thin now that perhaps
it might have slipped through the grille.
Dilsey, opening the shutters of the dining-room, brought us back to the
present. The household was astir! Miss Judith must be up and doing by
now. The sun had found the garden out with his searching rays, and the
last bit of mist had disappeared.
"My goodness! It must be getting quite late!" exclaimed my old new
friend. "I am afraid you are sadly bored with my tales," she added
penitently.
"Bored! Why, Miss Arabella, it has been lovely. I do thank you for
talking to me and please do it some more."
"Well, another morning then, child! I must hurry in now and dress myself
and be a sad old woman some more. I thank you for making me forget it
for once,--being a sad old woman, I mean."
She certainly did not look like a sad old woman as she tripped down the
path to the house, her lavender draperies brushing the syringa and
lilacs as she passed. She seemed to me more to be the spirit of eternal
youth and spring. Miss Arabella might swathe herself in black again and
remember to respond to the hereditary poker, but I had glimpsed the real
Miss Arabella and knew now that the sad old woman was merely the body in
which a radiant spirit dwelt. It was this spirit that we had heard
singing that night in the garden, "Speak not, ah, breathe not--there's
peace on the deep."
Tweedles were opening their eyes when I came in, and, uncovering their
chins, so they did not look so much alike.
"Dressed already, Page?" yawned Dum.
"Yes, dressed and out in the garden for hours! I took down all the
combings for the birds and they are crazy about them. Can't you hear
their hymn of thanksgiving?"
"Pig! Why didn't you call me?" and Dee rolled out of bed to beat Dum to
the copper-kettle-like bathtub.
"I hate to wake you up when I have to, and goodness knows I am not going
to do any gratuitous waking," I laughed. "Girls! I have had the time of
my life, and have got to know Miss Arabella real well. She is simply a
darling!" and I rummaged for my notebook.
I was afraid to put off for a moment jotting down in my little book some
of the impressions of the morning. If I should forget anything Miss
Arabella had told me I would never forgive myself. I wrote like mad all
the time the twins were dressing, but it is strange about the things
Miss Arabella divulged to me that morning; although I know that what an
author or a would-be author hears in this life belongs to him, and is
his property to be twisted and turned in his writing as he sees fit to
use it, somehow those memories I have held sacred always, and I can't
believe in my writing I could ever get so hard-pressed that I'd feel at
liberty to make copy of what Miss Arabella told me on that enchanted
morning in the garden.