During the ensuing weeks Mr. Ramy, though his visits were as frequent as
ever, did not seem to regain his usual spirits. He complained frequently
of headache, but rejected Ann Eliza's tentatively proffered remedies,
and seemed to shrink from any prolonged investigation of his symptoms.
July had come, with a sudden ardour of heat, and one evening, as the
three sat together by the open window in the back room, Evelina said:
“I dunno what I wouldn't give, a night like this, for a breath of real
country air.”
“So would I,” said Mr. Ramy, knocking the ashes from his pipe. “I'd like
to be setting in an arbour dis very minute.”
“Oh, wouldn't it be lovely?”
“I always think it's real cool here--we'd be heaps hotter up where Miss
Mellins is,” said Ann Eliza.
“Oh, I daresay--but we'd be heaps cooler somewhere else,” her sister
snapped: she was not infrequently exasperated by Ann Eliza's furtive
attempts to mollify Providence.
A few days later Mr. Ramy appeared with a suggestion which enchanted
Evelina. He had gone the day before to see his friend, Mrs. Hochmuller,
who lived in the outskirts of Hoboken, and Mrs. Hochmuller had proposed
that on the following Sunday he should bring the Bunner sisters to spend
the day with her.
“She's got a real garden, you know,” Mr. Ramy explained, “wid trees and
a real summer-house to set in; and hens and chickens too. And it's an
elegant sail over on de ferry-boat.”
The proposal drew no response from Ann Eliza. She was still oppressed by
the recollection of her interminable Sunday in the Park; but, obedient
to Evelina's imperious glance, she finally faltered out an acceptance.
The Sunday was a very hot one, and once on the ferry-boat Ann Eliza
revived at the touch of the salt breeze, and the spectacle of the
crowded waters; but when they reached the other shore, and stepped out
on the dirty wharf, she began to ache with anticipated weariness. They
got into a street-car, and were jolted from one mean street to another,
till at length Mr. Ramy pulled the conductor's sleeve and they got out
again; then they stood in the blazing sun, near the door of a crowded
beer-saloon, waiting for another car to come; and that carried them out
to a thinly settled district, past vacant lots and narrow brick houses
standing in unsupported solitude, till they finally reached an almost
rural region of scattered cottages and low wooden buildings that looked
like village “stores.” Here the car finally stopped of its own accord,
and they walked along a rutty road, past a stone-cutter's yard with a
high fence tapestried with theatrical advertisements, to a little red
house with green blinds and a garden paling. Really, Mr. Ramy had not
deceived them. Clumps of dielytra and day-lilies bloomed behind the
paling, and a crooked elm hung romantically over the gable of the house.
At the gate Mrs. Hochmuller, a broad woman in brick-brown merino, met
them with nods and smiles, while her daughter Linda, a flaxen-haired
girl with mottled red cheeks and a sidelong stare, hovered inquisitively
behind her. Mrs. Hochmuller, leading the way into the house, conducted
the Bunner sisters the way to her bedroom. Here they were invited to
spread out on a mountainous white featherbed the cashmere mantles under
which the solemnity of the occasion had compelled them to swelter,
and when they had given their black silks the necessary twitch
of readjustment, and Evelina had fluffed out her hair before a
looking-glass framed in pink-shell work, their hostess led them to a
stuffy parlour smelling of gingerbread. After another ceremonial pause,
broken by polite enquiries and shy ejaculations, they were shown into
the kitchen, where the table was already spread with strange-looking
spice-cakes and stewed fruits, and where they presently found themselves
seated between Mrs. Hochmuller and Mr. Ramy, while the staring Linda
bumped back and forth from the stove with steaming dishes.
To Ann Eliza the dinner seemed endless, and the rich fare strangely
unappetizing. She was abashed by the easy intimacy of her hostess's
voice and eye. With Mr. Ramy Mrs. Hochmuller was almost flippantly
familiar, and it was only when Ann Eliza pictured her generous form bent
above his sick-bed that she could forgive her for tersely addressing him
as “Ramy.” During one of the pauses of the meal Mrs. Hochmuller laid her
knife and fork against the edges of her plate, and, fixing her eyes
on the clock-maker's face, said accusingly: “You hat one of dem turns
again, Ramy.”
“I dunno as I had,” he returned evasively.
Evelina glanced from one to the other. “Mr. Ramy HAS been sick,” she
said at length, as though to show that she also was in a position to
speak with authority. “He's complained very frequently of headaches.”
“Ho!--I know him,” said Mrs. Hochmuller with a laugh, her eyes still on
the clock-maker. “Ain't you ashamed of yourself, Ramy?”
Mr. Ramy, who was looking at his plate, said suddenly one word which the
sisters could not understand; it sounded to Ann Eliza like “Shwike.”
Mrs. Hochmuller laughed again. “My, my,” she said, “wouldn't you think
he'd be ashamed to go and be sick and never dell me, me that nursed him
troo dat awful fever?”
“Yes, I SHOULD,” said Evelina, with a spirited glance at Ramy; but he
was looking at the sausages that Linda had just put on the table.
When dinner was over Mrs. Hochmuller invited her guests to step out of
the kitchen-door, and they found themselves in a green enclosure, half
garden, half orchard. Grey hens followed by golden broods clucked under
the twisted apple-boughs, a cat dozed on the edge of an old well, and
from tree to tree ran the network of clothes-line that denoted Mrs.
Hochmuller's calling. Beyond the apple trees stood a yellow summer-house
festooned with scarlet runners; and below it, on the farther side of
a rough fence, the land dipped down, holding a bit of woodland in
its hollow. It was all strangely sweet and still on that hot Sunday
afternoon, and as she moved across the grass under the apple-boughs Ann
Eliza thought of quiet afternoons in church, and of the hymns her mother
had sung to her when she was a baby.
Evelina was more restless. She wandered from the well to the
summer-house and back, she tossed crumbs to the chickens and disturbed
the cat with arch caresses; and at last she expressed a desire to go
down into the wood.
“I guess you got to go round by the road, then,” said Mrs. Hochmuller.
“My Linda she goes troo a hole in de fence, but I guess you'd tear your
dress if you was to dry.”
“I'll help you,” said Mr. Ramy; and guided by Linda the pair walked
along the fence till they reached a narrow gap in its boards. Through
this they disappeared, watched curiously in their descent by the
grinning Linda, while Mrs. Hochmuller and Ann Eliza were left alone in
the summer-house.
Mrs. Hochmuller looked at her guest with a confidential smile. “I guess
dey'll be gone quite a while,” she remarked, jerking her double chin
toward the gap in the fence. “Folks like dat don't never remember about
de dime.” And she drew out her knitting.
Ann Eliza could think of nothing to say.
“Your sister she thinks a great lot of him, don't she?” her hostess
continued.
Ann Eliza's cheeks grew hot. “Ain't you a teeny bit lonesome away out
here sometimes?” she asked. “I should think you'd be scared nights, all
alone with your daughter.”
“Oh, no, I ain't,” said Mrs. Hochmuller. “You see I take in
washing--dat's my business--and it's a lot cheaper doing it out here dan
in de city: where'd I get a drying-ground like dis in Hobucken? And den
it's safer for Linda too; it geeps her outer de streets.”
“Oh,” said Ann Eliza, shrinking. She began to feel a distinct aversion
for her hostess, and her eyes turned with involuntary annoyance to the
square-backed form of Linda, still inquisitively suspended on the fence.
It seemed to Ann Eliza that Evelina and her companion would never return
from the wood; but they came at length, Mr. Ramy's brow pearled with
perspiration, Evelina pink and conscious, a drooping bunch of ferns in
her hand; and it was clear that, to her at least, the moments had been
winged.
“D'you suppose they'll revive?” she asked, holding up the ferns; but
Ann Eliza, rising at her approach, said stiffly: “We'd better be getting
home, Evelina.”
“Mercy me! Ain't you going to take your coffee first?” Mrs. Hochmuller
protested; and Ann Eliza found to her dismay that another long
gastronomic ceremony must intervene before politeness permitted them
to leave. At length, however, they found themselves again on the
ferry-boat. Water and sky were grey, with a dividing gleam of sunset
that sent sleek opal waves in the boat's wake. The wind had a cool tarry
breath, as though it had travelled over miles of shipping, and the hiss
of the water about the paddles was as delicious as though it had been
splashed into their tired faces.
Ann Eliza sat apart, looking away from the others. She had made up her
mind that Mr. Ramy had proposed to Evelina in the wood, and she was
silently preparing herself to receive her sister's confidence that
evening.
But Evelina was apparently in no mood for confidences. When they reached
home she put her faded ferns in water, and after supper, when she had
laid aside her silk dress and the forget-me-not bonnet, she remained
silently seated in her rocking-chair near the open window. It was long
since Ann Eliza had seen her in so uncommunicative a mood.
The following Saturday Ann Eliza was sitting alone in the shop when the
door opened and Mr. Ramy entered. He had never before called at that
hour, and she wondered a little anxiously what had brought him.
“Has anything happened?” she asked, pushing aside the basketful of
buttons she had been sorting.
“Not's I know of,” said Mr. Ramy tranquilly. “But I always close up the
store at two o'clock Saturdays at this season, so I thought I might as
well call round and see you.”
“I'm real glad, I'm sure,” said Ann Eliza; “but Evelina's out.”
“I know dat,” Mr. Ramy answered. “I met her round de corner. She told me
she got to go to dat new dyer's up in Forty-eighth Street. She won't be
back for a couple of hours, har'ly, will she?”
Ann Eliza looked at him with rising bewilderment. “No, I guess not,” she
answered; her instinctive hospitality prompting her to add: “Won't you
set down jest the same?”
Mr. Ramy sat down on the stool beside the counter, and Ann Eliza
returned to her place behind it.
“I can't leave the store,” she explained.
“Well, I guess we're very well here.” Ann Eliza had become suddenly
aware that Mr. Ramy was looking at her with unusual intentness.
Involuntarily her hand strayed to the thin streaks of hair on her
temples, and thence descended to straighten the brooch beneath her
collar.
“You're looking very well to-day, Miss Bunner,” said Mr. Ramy, following
her gesture with a smile.
“Oh,” said Ann Eliza nervously. “I'm always well in health,” she added.
“I guess you're healthier than your sister, even if you are less
sizeable.”
“Oh, I don't know. Evelina's a mite nervous sometimes, but she ain't a
bit sickly.”
“She eats heartier than you do; but that don't mean nothing,” said Mr.
Ramy.
Ann Eliza was silent. She could not follow the trend of his thought, and
she did not care to commit herself farther about Evelina before she
had ascertained if Mr. Ramy considered nervousness interesting or the
reverse.
But Mr. Ramy spared her all farther indecision.
“Well, Miss Bunner,” he said, drawing his stool closer to the counter,
“I guess I might as well tell you fust as last what I come here for
to-day. I want to get married.”
Ann Eliza, in many a prayerful midnight hour, had sought to strengthen
herself for the hearing of this avowal, but now that it had come she
felt pitifully frightened and unprepared. Mr. Ramy was leaning with both
elbows on the counter, and she noticed that his nails were clean and
that he had brushed his hat; yet even these signs had not prepared her!
At last she heard herself say, with a dry throat in which her heart was
hammering: “Mercy me, Mr. Ramy!”
“I want to get married,” he repeated. “I'm too lonesome. It ain't good
for a man to live all alone, and eat noding but cold meat every day.”
“No,” said Ann Eliza softly.
“And the dust fairly beats me.”
“Oh, the dust--I know!”
Mr. Ramy stretched one of his blunt-fingered hands toward her. “I wisht
you'd take me.”
Still Ann Eliza did not understand. She rose hesitatingly from her seat,
pushing aside the basket of buttons which lay between them; then she
perceived that Mr. Ramy was trying to take her hand, and as their
fingers met a flood of joy swept over her. Never afterward, though
every other word of their interview was stamped on her memory beyond
all possible forgetting, could she recall what he said while their hands
touched; she only knew that she seemed to be floating on a summer sea,
and that all its waves were in her ears.
“Me--me?” she gasped.
“I guess so,” said her suitor placidly. “You suit me right down to the
ground, Miss Bunner. Dat's the truth.”
A woman passing along the street paused to look at the shop-window, and
Ann Eliza half hoped she would come in; but after a desultory inspection
she went on.
“Maybe you don't fancy me?” Mr. Ramy suggested, discountenanced by Ann
Eliza's silence.
A word of assent was on her tongue, but her lips refused it. She must
find some other way of telling him.
“I don't say that.”
“Well, I always kinder thought we was suited to one another,” Mr.
Ramy continued, eased of his momentary doubt. “I always liked de quiet
style--no fuss and airs, and not afraid of work.” He spoke as though
dispassionately cataloguing her charms.
Ann Eliza felt that she must make an end. “But, Mr. Ramy, you don't
understand. I've never thought of marrying.”
Mr. Ramy looked at her in surprise. “Why not?”
“Well, I don't know, har'ly.” She moistened her twitching lips. “The
fact is, I ain't as active as I look. Maybe I couldn't stand the care.
I ain't as spry as Evelina--nor as young,” she added, with a last great
effort.
“But you do most of de work here, anyways,” said her suitor doubtfully.
“Oh, well, that's because Evelina's busy outside; and where there's only
two women the work don't amount to much. Besides, I'm the oldest; I have
to look after things,” she hastened on, half pained that her simple ruse
should so readily deceive him.
“Well, I guess you're active enough for me,” he persisted. His calm
determination began to frighten her; she trembled lest her own should be
less staunch.
“No, no,” she repeated, feeling the tears on her lashes. “I couldn't,
Mr. Ramy, I couldn't marry. I'm so surprised. I always thought it
was Evelina--always. And so did everybody else. She's so bright and
pretty--it seemed so natural.”
“Well, you was all mistaken,” said Mr. Ramy obstinately.
“I'm so sorry.”
He rose, pushing back his chair.
“You'd better think it over,” he said, in the large tone of a man who
feels he may safely wait.
“Oh, no, no. It ain't any sorter use, Mr. Ramy. I don't never mean to
marry. I get tired so easily--I'd be afraid of the work. And I have
such awful headaches.” She paused, racking her brain for more convincing
infirmities.
“Headaches, do you?” said Mr. Ramy, turning back.
“My, yes, awful ones, that I have to give right up to. Evelina has to do
everything when I have one of them headaches. She has to bring me my tea
in the mornings.”
“Well, I'm sorry to hear it,” said Mr. Ramy.
“Thank you kindly all the same,” Ann Eliza murmured. “And please
don't--don't--” She stopped suddenly, looking at him through her tears.
“Oh, that's all right,” he answered. “Don't you fret, Miss Gunner.
Folks have got to suit themselves.” She thought his tone had grown more
resigned since she had spoken of her headaches.
For some moments he stood looking at her with a hesitating eye, as
though uncertain how to end their conversation; and at length she found
courage to say (in the words of a novel she had once read): “I don't
want this should make any difference between us.”
“Oh, my, no,” said Mr. Ramy, absently picking up his hat.
“You'll come in just the same?” she continued, nerving herself to
the effort. “We'd miss you awfully if you didn't. Evelina, she--” She
paused, torn between her desire to turn his thoughts to Evelina, and the
dread of prematurely disclosing her sister's secret.
“Don't Miss Evelina have no headaches?” Mr. Ramy suddenly asked.
“My, no, never--well, not to speak of, anyway. She ain't had one for
ages, and when Evelina IS sick she won't never give in to it,” Ann Eliza
declared, making some hurried adjustments with her conscience.
“I wouldn't have thought that,” said Mr. Ramy.
“I guess you don't know us as well as you thought you did.”
“Well, no, that's so; maybe I don't. I'll wish you good day, Miss
Bunner”; and Mr. Ramy moved toward the door.
“Good day, Mr. Ramy,” Ann Eliza answered.
She felt unutterably thankful to be alone. She knew the crucial moment
of her life had passed, and she was glad that she had not fallen below
her own ideals. It had been a wonderful experience; and in spite of
the tears on her cheeks she was not sorry to have known it. Two facts,
however, took the edge from its perfection: that it had happened in the
shop, and that she had not had on her black silk.
She passed the next hour in a state of dreamy ecstasy. Something had
entered into her life of which no subsequent empoverishment could rob
it: she glowed with the same rich sense of possessorship that once, as
a little girl, she had felt when her mother had given her a gold locket
and she had sat up in bed in the dark to draw it from its hiding-place
beneath her night-gown.
At length a dread of Evelina's return began to mingle with these
musings. How could she meet her younger sister's eye without betraying
what had happened? She felt as though a visible glory lay on her, and
she was glad that dusk had fallen when Evelina entered. But her fears
were superfluous. Evelina, always self-absorbed, had of late lost all
interest in the simple happenings of the shop, and Ann Eliza, with
mingled mortification and relief, perceived that she was in no danger of
being cross-questioned as to the events of the afternoon. She was
glad of this; yet there was a touch of humiliation in finding that the
portentous secret in her bosom did not visibly shine forth. It struck
her as dull, and even slightly absurd, of Evelina not to know at last
that they were equals.