To quote S. K., it had an entirely “sane and logical” explanation, and
it was started by that little fellow who wears wings, carries a quiver,
is talked of and felt often, but is never seen--except on Valentines.
And of course you know whom I mean. His name comes from an old monk,
which is strange, I think. S. K. said it was not. He said that everybody
has their monastery garden where they, quite alone, make the prettiest
rhymes to love. And he explained further that when you try to say them
aloud, in the fumbling words of men, they will not echo even half of
what is felt.
All this discussion came because of the date, which was February
fourteenth. Much had happened since Christmas week, and this day we all
sat in the living-room reviewing things.
Evelyn was hemming napkins, and Herbert sat on a foot-rest at her feet,
muttering things like “_Beautiful_ hands!” or “Did she prick her _sweet_
finger!” which everybody heard, but had to pretend they didn’t. (That’s
a funny sentence, but I haven’t time to alter it.) Amy and Willy were
doing a picture puzzle, S. K. was sitting idle, and I was trying to
address post-cards to people at home. Personally, I don’t like them, but
the people to whom I was going to send them did. I could take part in
all the talk, inasmuch as I only wrote, “Wish you were here,” and, “This
is a picture of Grant’s tomb,” or, “The Woolworth Tower,” or whatever it
was. Of course, it said what the picture was, in print; but people
always do explain again in writing on post-cards, I suppose because it
fills up space. Even real writers always use a great deal of explaining
to do that, I have noticed.
Willy would leave the table now and again to read my messages, all of
which were almost the same, in a different voice. He made it deeply
dramatic, or Miss Hooper-high, and Amy giggled awfully. She laughs at
anything he says; and he says she has more perception and appreciation
of true humour than any woman he has ever met--which is what men always
do say when women laugh at their jokes.
The fifth time he made a tour to the desk he picked up a card I had
addressed to Colonel Sephus I. Lemley, who did detective work in
Baltimore in 1892. He has been resting since then, and his wife takes in
sewing. He explained that the business world was not a fit place for a
Southern gentleman. Willy told about how he acts when he gets drunk. On
one occasion he painted the entire house with apple butter (his wife had
just made five crocks), and it was in fly season, too. And on another he
sawed out the lower panel of the front door, and then he got down on his
hands and knees and stuck his head through the hole and barked at
everyone who passed. That was really very funny, because he has a little
goatee which wags when he talks, and to see his head, topped by a
wide-brimmed felt hat, and bottomed by wiggling fluff, to see this
sticking through a hole in the door and hear him say, “Bow, wow!” in a
high falsetto, was enough to make you yell. For three days he honestly
thought he was Miss Hooper’s dog, Rover. His wife was visiting in a near
town. When she is at home she tactfully restrains him, with a broom, the
neighbours say, and it is noticeable that he stands in front of the
Mansion House after these attacks, instead of occupying one of the
rocking-chairs which trail all over the porch and half across the
sidewalk.
But to get back. After Willy told of him, he said he should have been on
the job. And I agreed. “No six weeks to find out what started it, if
Sephus had humped!” he stated, surely. I nodded, for Colonel Lemley’s
own tales of his achievements made Sherlock Holmes’ affairs look as
exciting as the woven mats you do in the first year of school.
After I wrote for perhaps fifteen more minutes I finished my work and
went over to sit by S. K., who was on the davenport before the fire. I
had on a lovely bunch of violets he had sent me, and I was enjoying them
a lot, also the prospect for the evening, which was a theatre party,
which S. K. was giving because Evelyn and Herbert are engaged. People
seem to do things like that for engaged people, quite as if they need
cheering up. And I was to wear a new dress, which was pink and fluffy
and, I must admit, becoming.
“You are going to sit next to me, to-night,” said S. K.
I said I hoped so, and then I was quiet, for I was thinking how very
much S. K. had done to make my New York life happy and to smooth out,
and erase, my troubles.
The bracelet business had made me half sick. It had been so crawly. And
it all happened because a little coquette, who was the Spanish girl we
saw photographed in the Sunday paper, and the one who muttered pretty
Spanish admirations over the bracelet (one of the people who stays at
the Mansion told me of those), had made her lover a test. I think she
did it in joke, but he took it seriously because he was so very much in
love. Of course, he was Vicente Alcon y Rodriguez, and it happened this
way:
He had met her somewhere on a business trip. I suppose he had letters of
introduction which admitted him almost anywhere, since he has a great
deal of money and is of great importance in the business world of Cuba.
And, like a good many Latin men, he fell in love with her immediately,
and wildly so. He called her “orange blossom,” and “white, sweet heart
of the rose” (that is, in notes), and he threatened to kill himself if
she didn’t love him, but he didn’t. And she didn’t love him; she only
laughed. That is, at first.
I think she was capricious and liked to feel her power, for she played
with him. One day being kind, and the next day scorning, as only her
race can scorn. . . . S. K. told me the story, and he put in trimmings,
as he always does. And I am repeating in part from the tale that he
related. . . .
Each day this man who had so much money--but not the love he wanted more
than all of the world--would send her mountains of flowers, or a strange
string of beads, or candied fruits from the Orient, or candies from our
States. S. K. said he was a good lover, and he sounded so. I became very
much interested, and I did not see how Marguerita Angela Blanco y
Chiappi could help liking it, but sometimes she didn’t. One morning she
threw all of his flowers out on the street, and then she called to him
(he was lurking around on the other side of the way; they act that way
more there than here), and she said: “The scent in all of its heaviness
is wearisome!” And rumour states that he tore his hair, but I think S.
K. put that in for a nice touch, because he had it clipped so short I
don’t see how he could get a decent hold.
Well, things went on in that way. She would soften, only to harden. And
he would become elated, only to taste the depth of despair. It was very
romantic. And then--Marguerita’s father had a mission to perform in the
United States; she came along, and of course Vicente Alcon y Rodriguez
trailed at a respectful distance (but he didn’t stay so), which is the
paper-chase manner in which some South American and Cuban courtships
come off.
Their pictures were taken together at the Jumel Mansion, and so
evidently she was a little kinder to him then. And that was the day she
paused before the bracelet and said, “Es incomparable lindo y yo lo
deseo!” and she said it with hunger floating on her liquid voice.
“Would that I could give it to you!” whispered Vicente Alcon y
Rodriguez.
“You can give me nothing I want!” he was answered, and after this
pleasant speech the little señorita shrugged her shoulders.
S. K. said he clenched his hands, glared ahead, and then said: “A copy?
A good copy, Fairest Angel of Heaven?”
And she said, “A copy? Bah!” and her lips curled. I didn’t see why he
loved her after that, but S. K. said she stimulated his interest by
acting that way. But that I wasn’t to try it on him, since his interest
didn’t need stimulating. Then Marguerita looked mischievous and said:
“The man who would get for me this original, I would give the gift of my
love. . . . But it is a poor thing, my little heart, and perhaps not
worth the effort to get?”
He said: “You cast me to the depths. . . . How can I live? . . . For
this, you ask the impossible!”
And again she shrugged her shoulders.
“Why ask the possible?” she said, “since that I could get myself?” Then
S. K. said Vicente went out, sat down on the green bench that faces the
side gate, held his head in his hands, and stared unseeingly at the
gravel at his feet. He said they both enjoyed acting that way and being
miserable, as a good many people do.
And Marguerita laughed in her tinkling way, not seeming to care how
unhappy she had made him. Just before they started back to The Biltmore,
he spoke to her again. “You meant that?” he said fiercely.
“But certainly,” she replied. “I have said, my heart in exchange for
that bracelet!” And then they all got in motors and started off for
lunch.
Well, Vicente was determined to get that bracelet, and he set out to do
it. Somehow he got into communication with Debson, offered him
twenty-five thousand dollars if he got the bracelet and delivered it
into his, Vicente Alcon y Rodriguez’s hands, and then he sailed off on
another chase, for Marguerita and her papa had started home again.
So much is simple, and the rest is only the result of the start.
Debson heard me tell the tale of my bracelet that day I first visited
the Mansion. Getting the one in the case was not an easy affair, for the
place is well guarded, and so--he naturally decided to get mine. It was
he who chased me, dodging behind things when I turned, and even sitting
on the kerb at the last with his cup for pennies, and telling me that he
was blind! . . . He had, of course, visited the Mansion often in
different disguise, hoping each time to have the opportunity. And, of
course, he began to lurk around our apartment-house after he knew what
was in my possession.
He had a brother who worked with him; they had an idea that confusion of
evidence made evidence weak, and so there were two blind men around the
Mansion that Sunday, and no two people agreed about where they had seen
the shambling figure. It wasn’t a bad idea, for during the investigation
of that particular event the police had been so tried by different
stories of where people had seen this old man that they brushed aside
any mention of him, and muttered of “crowd hysteria.” It was the brother
of Debson who knocked S. K. down because he had seen me give the
bracelet into S. K.’s keeping. It was he who was the old Italian woman
that day and who suddenly shed his shawl and skirts and was again the
blind man shuffling up the steps. That was after he stuffed his
woman-duds in a basket of soiled clothes which some neglectful small boy
had left for a moment on the sidewalk while he went up to join the crowd
around Sammy.
That was clever, I think, for when the washwoman returned the things
washed, the Italian garb was probably sent back to her with a word that
it did not belong in that particular laundry, and she, the washwoman,
was, I suppose, glad enough to keep the garments and say no more.
Meanwhile, that same afternoon, Debson had seen me give the bracelet to
the keeper--probably he peered through a window, or half hid behind a
big pillar outside--and it was he who attacked him, after the crowd had
gone out to see what had happened to S. K.; and he who, with tears
running down his face, called for help--since getting away was
dangerous. It all seems very simple--now--and makes us seem great fools.
When S. K. advertised for a servant, Debson applied for the position,
and fortune favoured him, since I often went to see S. K. and talked all
my troubles over with him.
He used a long rod with a hook on top of it to get upstairs, since the
back entrances were too public for his late night visits, and he could
come in this way under the dark of the court. For people kept their
shades down in their court windows. Other windows are too close to do
otherwise. He made those tapping noises that night everyone was
frightened and Uncle Archie fell over the pedestal, and it was only
coincidence that made them tap in three in that way.
He also made violent love to Jane, thinking perhaps that he could get
her help, or that in that way his visits to our apartment would be
accounted for. But it was not my bracelet, but Evelyn’s, she wore that
night he took her to the ball. And she wore it because he had talked so
much of how greatly a bracelet “enhanced the fair roundness of a woman’s
arm. . . .” Jane admitted that statement “got her,” and it must have,
for she remembered it absolutely correctly. Evelyn at that time
sometimes substituted her bracelet for mine, because the Tiffany mark
made her story of its being real a lie; and she, at that time, wanted
the real one.
Jane told me lots about it. “It was that romantic, miss,” she said, “to
hear a tap, and then to lean from the window, and to see him coming hand
over hand up that there rod with the hook on top. And it used to turn me
sick like, to think that he might fall, but he never did--worse luck!”
And then she sniffed.
He had a very hard time, for I hid my bracelet often and Evelyn took it
too, and it seemed that every time he called it was out. . . . Of
course, he had come up that night that we had the detectives waiting,
for he thought it was his last chance, and of course it was he whom I
followed down the fire-escape. He expected to bag the bracelet easily
that night that he was caught. He was going to get it in some way, and
he had been sure that would be easy; then lower it to his brother, who
would, if possible, take it off; if not, throw it, as he did, in the
coal cellar.
I found out everything and began to believe S. K.’s remark about sanity
and logical reasons for all events. I even found out about Jane’s
blushes and the ice-pick. It seemed she used to give Debson suppers when
he came up, and she gave him a very nice grape juice that aunt had got
for Evelyn. It was that that made her so anxious to speak of thefts as
borrowing. . . . And again there was coincidence in the hurt hands. All
but Debson’s had happened from innocent causes. His came from my
mouse-trap, but to throw people off the scent he deliberately broke that
Stiegel glass.
Of course, I was shadowed and followed, and it was Debson’s brother who
pulled me from my mount on Riverside Drive. . . . Two men who are very
intent on getting anything can think lots of ways to get it,
and--twenty-five thousand dollars is quite an incentive. I felt sorry
for the men--I couldn’t help it--and for Vicente Alcon y Rodriguez, for
I was afraid Marguerita would never marry him.
I wrote Señor Vicente Alcon y Rodriguez and told him how sorry I was and
that I would give him my bracelet if my mother had not owned and worn
it, and that I hoped perhaps Señorita Blanco y Chiappi could get one
made like it. And I explained about how nice Evelyn’s was. I really
wanted to send my bracelet to Señor Alcon y Rodriguez, but S. K., who
occasionally gives me orders quite as if he had every right to, would
not permit it.
“Nonsense!” he said. “She’s only tiring him out. After he begins to gasp
and shows signs of giving up, she’ll pull him in the boat. I know ’em!”
which I considered cynical. But she did. Just that very thing happened,
and I got a piece of wedding cake. They were married January twentieth
after an engagement of two days. He answered my note most courteously
and apologized at length. And she added a little line.
“I have capitulated,” she acknowledged, in a very shaded, elaborate
writing. “It is useless to allow innocent childs to be stabbed in back
because of my light mention of a bracelet, and because of his great
urgency I have achieved for myself the married state. We are happy and
wish you the same.”
And then she said she kissed my feet, which is very polite Spanish, and
signed herself undyingly and affectionately mine.
Señor Vicente gave S. K.’s words backing when he wrote: “I was willing
to give up. All was despair. I vowed I would not request again, when lo!
she softened and turned to me the glory of her love.”
I was glad it ended that way.
“What are you thinking of?” asked S. K. that afternoon of February
fourteenth when we were all together and yet--all sort of paired off in
the living-room. I told him.
“You like to see people love the people who love them,” I said. “Now
Evelyn has answered the right call, and I think Amy is going to.”
“Pshaw!” said S. K. “You don’t mean those kids----” He didn’t finish his
sentence, but he meant that Amy and Willy weren’t old enough to do
anything but all the latest waltz and fox steps.
“I’m sure they’re going to throw into it,” I said. “Somehow--I feel it.
They slam each other now, and disagree terribly, but he has unexpected
moments of patience with her, and when he has those I can see that he
likes her lots.”
“What sort?” asked S. K., looking at them. They were doing a one-step,
and Amy said Willy did it all wrong, and Willy said no Northerner could
dance. What with the victrola and their quarrelling, we could shout
anything and not be heard.
I told him. “He is trying to explain baseball to her,” I said, “since
you said you’d take us all to all the games. And after he finished
yesterday she said: ‘I don’t think it’s _polite_ or nice for the man
with the stick to wave it in front of the man with the little thing like
a dish-drain over his face!’ She saw a game last year, and that’s all
she got out of it!” And I went on to explain how well Willy played and
how he would usually greet that sort of a remark.
S. K. laughed and after a little more watching them agreed.
“Then,” I went on, “I asked her last night whether she was going to
marry the broker, and she clasped her hands, stared ahead, and
whispered: ‘_What a child I was!_’”
S. K. laughed some more. Then he sobered.
“So,” he said, “you like to see the ‘fellow get the girl’?”
I said I thought everyone was disappointed in books or life, if he
didn’t.
Then he mentioned a subject that he hadn’t touched for ages and didn’t
mean to then. I think it slipped out. And I found I didn’t mind, but
really liked it.
“Do you think,” he asked in an undertone, “that this fellow is going to
get her?”
“Oh, S. K.,” I answered, as I slipped my hand in his, “I _know_ he is!
And you do too! How _can_ you help it?”
“Dear child!” said S. K. “My _dear_ child!” He said it in that tight way
in which people speak when they care very much, and he pressed my hand
between both of his.
“What are you talking of over there?” asked Evelyn, looking up from her
work. And I gave an answer which did not surprise her, for everyone did
talk of them a great deal--if not exactly the sort S. K. and I had
touched that day.
“We’re discussing mysteries,” said I.
“Right,” added S. K., looking down at me. And then Ito came in,
trundling a tea-waggon ahead of him. I saw that he had Aunt Penelope’s
best service on it, little cakes in paper cases, and big pink roses on
the napkins. It looked pretty, festive and good.
“It is day of love,” said Ito. “We have fancy tea!”
THE END
* * * * *
NOVELS BY
KATHARINE HAVILAND
TAYLOR
Natalie Page
Stanley Johns’ Wife
Yellow Soap
Tony
HODDER AND
STOUGHTON
Ltd., London
* * * * *
Transcriber’s Notes:
Spelling and hyphenation have been left as in the original. A few
obvious typesetting errors have been corrected without note.
[End of _Natalie Page_ by Katharine Haviland Taylor]
End of Project Gutenberg's Natalie Page, by Katherine Haviland Taylor