Mr. Kempwood’s “rooms,” as he called them, were lovely. And I had a fine
time going around and looking at things. His furniture is more than
pretty; it has a reason. Everything is either very comfortable, or very
interesting. And it all makes you want to linger.
For instance, he opened a cabinette which honestly held interesting
things, not like Aunt Penelope’s, which has only six fancy fans and a
lot of ancient scent-bottles and an autographed book of poems and such
truck. His has really fascinating things in it, and it is, therefore,
worth the dusting trouble. There were all sorts of books in it, written
in different ways. I mean scrolls--simply yards of those, and an East
Indian one written on reeds all strung together, and even one on a
brick. We agreed that it would be frightful to have to scratch out a
best seller with a chisel. He said, “Think how your wrist would feel by
the time your hero gets his best girl!” and I agreed. That brick was
Assyrian. Then he had little tiny gods that the Egyptians buried with
people. And he even had the toilet things of an ancient queen, and it
had a tweezers in it, which led me to believe that even then they pulled
out the extra eyebrows and made them skinny and beautiful, as women do
to-day.
Evelyn has a woman come to do it each week, if she can’t get down to
Elizabeth Varden’s. And she squawls--there are no other words for
this--while it is being done. But her eyebrows are arched and
beautifully shaped. I told Mr. Kempwood how she yelled, as I suggested
the eyebrow theory. He laughed a good deal and said maybe I was right.
Then he said I really oughtn’t to tell him things like that, and,
although I didn’t see why I shouldn’t, I said I would not.
Then he asked me to sit down, and I did (and even I wanted to stay
sitting, for his chairs are wonderfully sittable), after which he rang
and we had tea, and since there were no plain bread and butter
sandwiches I felt no obligation to eat any. I thanked Mr. Kempwood for
omitting them, and I ate a good deal and enjoyed myself more than I have
since reaching New York.
I told him a lot about Uncle Frank and Bradly-dear and even about Willy
Jepson. And he asked me whether I thought I would marry Willy, and I
said not if anyone else asked me. And then I had some more tea.
He asked me how old I was, at that point, and when I said sixteen, he
was surprised. I don’t seem it. I know that. . . . That is one reason
Amy never has room in the motor for me. I know I humiliate her by my
lack of polish. Baseball doesn’t develop much beside muscle and
quickness and a certain sort of flash judgment, I have realized lately.
But I shall acquire those other things in the three years, of which over
a week has passed.
“Where’s the bracelet to-day, Natalie?” Mr. Kempwood asked, after
looking at my arms. . . . I wore a gray silk which has short sleeves. It
has broad white cuffs and a big flaring white collar, and is
pretty. . . . I replied that I thought I wouldn’t wear it, for I knew no
one would believe my story.
“I suppose you’re interested in the Mansion?” he questioned further.
I said I was, decidedly.
“Know its history?” he asked.
“In a way,” I answered. “But not as well as I shall. . . . History has
never interested me. I didn’t think things that happened to dead people
vital, but lately----”
“Well,” he said, “they may not be vital; nothing but food and sleep
really is, you know. But the things that have happened are interesting,
because they make you _think_. Beside making you realize what helped to
form the great country in which you live. Perhaps you haven’t _seen_
History. Perhaps you’ve just said, ‘In 1776 Washington occupied the
Jumel Mansion for some time’; or, ‘On Wednesday, July 3, 1833, Reverend
Doctor Bogart married the celebrated Col. Burr and Madam Jumel, widow of
the late Stephen Jumel,’ instead of _seeing_ Washington step out of that
door and stand on that porch. . . . Probably he watched the burning of
New York from there. (A great many people think Nathan Hale started it.
New York was then in the hands of the British, and many thought burning
it was the thing to do. There are a good many things about Nathan Hale’s
story that are still misty. . . .) You repeat dates about a wedding
instead of _seeing_ a queer old woman, rouged and smirking, come down
the twisting stairs of the Jumel Mansion to meet her groom, who was a
tired old man, poor and aware that a gay youth doesn’t leave much
precipitate for a comfortable old age. . . . He gained six thousand
dollars by that marriage, and she--some more experience with the law,
for she divorced him.”
Mr. Kempwood stopped and asked if he might smoke. I said yes, and after
he lit a long cigarette, which he put in an interesting holder, he went
on with: “Can’t you _see_ the old lady and the old man being married?
The ceremony took place in the small parlour at the left as one
enters. . . . Probably some servants looked on. Perhaps the room was lit
by candles, dozens of them, flickering high, then low, and casting
shadows. . . . My, what a house, what memories she put in it.” Mr.
Kempwood paused, knocked off his ash, and then said: “Do you know houses
have souls? They have the thoughts that their owners attach to their
walls. Haven’t you seen lovely houses and heard people say: ‘Horrible
place; I hate going there. . . . They are all so sarcastic.’ You
see--before one knows it--the house absorbs the spirit of the people who
live in it, and one thinks of the _home_ as horrible. Now, Madam Jumel
(you won’t quite understand this, Natalie, and it’s difficult to
explain) didn’t have much chance, and she wasn’t always good. In fact,
she was far from it. And she came to this house, which had belonged to
the Roger Morris family, who had kept it fine and splendid, and she
turned it to a mad-house before she died, and left it in possession of
three quarrelling sets of heirs, who dragged their claims through the
courts for years and years, and whose descendants are still bickering.
For those who had lost felt that they had been cheated, and so they kept
on bickering.”
“Don’t you think that a man who evades fighting leaves a stain?” I
asked.
“Roger Morris?” said Mr. Kempwood.
I nodded.
“Yes, but if the reasons for his not fighting were sufficient, his
evading it was right. . . . You see, his wife’s family, the Philipse,
and the Robinsons--I believe the Robinsons had a country place still in
existence at Dobbs Ferry, that has staged some interesting history,
too--they all owned property,” he went on, “and if Captain Morris had
sided with the King, where his sympathies probably lay, his property and
that of all his connection might have been burned by the ‘Liberty Boys.’
. . . He had a family and a wife to care for. The Beverly Robinsons and
their clan were not used to poverty. He could not drag them to it. We’ll
say he left for that reason.”
“Why did they burn houses?” I asked.
“Because they thought their owners sympathized with England. . . . They
_must_ have had a good time!” Mr. Kempwood stopped and shook his head.
“Imagine,” he said, “a mob of a hundred men, all carrying sticks and
throwing stones and some of them swinging tin lanterns--from which
gleamed the feeble light of candles. Probably they catcalled, sang, and
whistled as they tramped along the street, and little girls in long
quilted skirts ran after them, and little boys--in homespun
breeches--joined the moving throng, adding their shrill voices,
whistles, sticks, and stones. Then perhaps they would pause before a
house and call, ‘Master Benson, we’ll greet you immedjet’--and others,
‘Come forth, yuh dog!’ while the wag of the crowd would sing a song of
King George. Then perhaps a window would slide up, and a man who wore a
nightcap would stick a head out and ask for mercy. . . . But I doubt
whether he got it, for crowds are cruel. . . . Perhaps his wife and
little girls would come out of the house, carrying what little they
could, and crying. . . . And then the man, sullen and angered, would be
put through a mock trial, for the benefit of the jeering crowd. . . .
And back of him a house would blaze, and the things he had loved would
vanish in smoke. . . . A fire looks pretty against a black night sky.
The blazing red which vanishes in sullen smoke. . . . The light. . . .
See it?”
I said I did.
“But they had to burn those houses, didn’t they?” I asked.
“No,” he answered; “George Washington didn’t want them to. They did more
harm than good, for often they burned the houses of the innocent, and a
mob spirit--uncontrolled--has no business in war. Anything is done
better under direction of a man who sees things coolly and takes them
quietly.”
I said I supposed this was so.
“What happened to the Jumel Mansion after the Roger Morris family left
it?” I asked. “Did they come back?”
“No,” he answered. “The Philipse Manor was confiscated and sold with the
Morris property, for these two families had gone back to England. . . .
There was some mix-up about the income from the properties--war makes
that, you know--and the heirs, I suppose, were glad to dispose of the
place, for John Jacob Astor, seeing what is to-day called a ‘good buy,’
purchased the right of the heirs, with legal power to transfer, for
twenty thousand pounds. . . . Later, the State of New York bought it
from him for half a million dollars.
“From the close of the Revolution until Stephen Jumel bought the
property, a period of nearly thirty years, the old house was, in turn, a
humble farmhouse or an inn. . . . Stages began to go from Albany to New
York in 1787, and of course they stopped at the inn. Changed horses, you
know. . . . Can’t you see them dashing up in style, the whips cracking,
the horses sweating, then the stop, and the ladies, all flounced and
hooped of skirt, getting out to walk about and shake the stiffness from
their bones? . . . Perhaps a gentleman would say, ‘Will madam do me the
proud honour to sup with me?’ and perhaps they had fried chicken and
mashed potato and pie--all on the table at once. And I’m sure the
innkeeper’s wife frankly listened to their talk, for talk in those days
took the place of newspapers, which even our country people get
to-day. . . . Then after they’d ‘supped’ I think they’d go out and get
in, the ladies most ‘genteel’ settling their skirts, and the gentlemen
putting cushions back of them and murmuring something about the ‘glories
of all blue skies paling beside the colour of their orbs.’ . . . They
did it that way, in those days, Natalie,” Mr. Kempwood ended.
I said I knew it, but that I’d rather have a man say right out if he
liked me, that I preferred sensible frankness. Mr. Kempwood said he knew
it and that he thought a man would try to be awfully square with me.
Then I said, “What next?” and he smiled and said:
“And--with a crack of a whip, they dashed off to New York, a large town,
which lay some ten miles distant from the hamlet of Harlem Heights!”
“Did they go up to see the view, I wonder?”
Mr. Kempwood thought they did. . . . You can see _miles_ from the little
balcony at the top of the Jumel Mansion, and then, of course, further,
for nothing was built up.
“Yes,” he said, “probably the beau bowed very low and said, ‘Will
madam’--or mistress--‘honour me by going up the stairs to see the view
from the top balcony, which is rumoured to be the most beauteous, and is
of great renown?’”
And then we stood up and I put on my things. For we were going driving.
We were through with history for that day. . . . But Mr. Kempwood had
made me see it. . . . I could actually hear the creak of the old inn
sign as it swung in the wind. . . . I could see the tired horses, and
the little daughters of the innkeeper peeping around the big white
posts. . . . For I am sure that they were bashful country children
(quite like me) with no way to say what they felt. . . . Probably they
were afraid of the grand ladies who travelled so “elegant” and who
minced so daintily as they walked. And perhaps, as they sat around the
fireplace at night, one would say: “Mother, I was in the room turning
the loom and I heard the grand lady with the purple ostrich plumes talk.
She was a-viewing the view. She said: ‘Laws, you bold man, I cannot
believe one word you say!’ He said: ‘No rose in all of Heaven’s garden
wears the bloom of your sweet cheek!’ What do you think of that,
mother?” And then perhaps she would look in the fire and dream. . . .
For even little country girls do that--if they can’t play baseball!
We had a lovely, lovely drive.
Mr. Kempwood was so kind to me, and he said he was going to take me
every week. I could hardly believe it.
“I think you are _very_ good to me,” I whispered. For I felt it so
deeply that it was hard to say.
“I’m not,” he said. “I am being very good to myself. . . . I can’t tell
you how much I enjoy this, Natalie. . . .”
I slipped my hand in his and squeezed it.
“Little person,” he said, “you _are_ a dear!” And he smiled down at me,
but he let go of my hand after two pats. Then, before I knew it, it was
really late and time to get ready for dinner.
“I hate leaving you!” I said, as we stood in our small outer hall. He
thanked me and said he felt that way about me. “But,” he said, “we’ll
have another ride soon, and I’ll see you within a few days.”
But I couldn’t believe this; it seemed too good. However, I saw him the
next evening, or, as they say in the North, afternoon. It was at the
Jumel Mansion. . . . And I was the direct cause of it all, which makes
me feel dreadfully. But how could I tell that that would happen and that
I would make him get hurt?
It was terrible, but I am so thankful that it was no worse. I think of
that all the time--for, if Mr. Kempwood _had_ been killed, there is a
spot in my heart that would never have healed. But--he wasn’t!