P.S. This is a recent portrait of the Hon. Cy drawn from life. The man,
in some respects, is a fascinating talker; he makes gestures with his
nose.
Thursday evening.
Dear Judy:
Sandy is back after a ten-days' absence,--no explanations,--and plunged
deep into gloom. He resents our amiable efforts to cheer him up, and
will have nothing to do with any of us except baby Allegra. He took
her to his house for supper tonight and never brought her back until
half-past seven, a scandalous hour for a young miss of three. I don't
know what to make of our doctor; he grows more incomprehensible every
day.
But Percy, now, is an open-minded, confiding young man. He has just been
making a dinner call (he is very punctilious in all social matters), and
our entire conversation was devoted to the girl in Detroit. He is lonely
and likes to talk about her; and the wonderful things he says! I hope
that Miss Detroit is worthy of all this fine affection, but I'm afraid.
He fetched out a leather case from the innermost recesses of his
waistcoat and, reverently unwrapping two layers of tissue-paper, showed
me the photograph of a silly little thing, all eyes and earrings and
fuzzy hair. I did my best to appear congratulatory, but my heart shut up
out of pity for the poor boy's future.
Isn't it funny how the nicest men often choose the worst wives, and the
nicest women the worst husbands? Their very niceness, I suppose, makes
them blind and unsuspicious.
You know, the most interesting pursuit in the world is studying
character. I believe I was meant to be a novelist; people fascinate
me--until I know them thoroughly. Percy and the doctor form a most
engaging contrast. You always know at any moment what that nice young
man is thinking about; he is written like a primer in big type and
one-syllable words. But the doctor! He might as well be written in
Chinese so far as legibility goes. You have heard of people with a dual
nature; well, Sandy possesses a triple one. Usually he's scientific
and as hard as granite, but occasionally I suspect him of being quite a
sentimental person underneath his official casing. For days at a time
he will be patient and kind and helpful, and I begin to like him; then
without any warning an untamed wild man swells up from the innermost
depths, and--oh, dear! the creature's impossible.
I always suspect that sometime in the past he has suffered a terrible
hurt, and that he is still brooding over the memory of it. All the time
he is talking you have the uncomfortable feeling that in the far back
corners of his mind he is thinking something else. But this may be
merely my romantic interpretation of an uncommonly bad temper. In any
case, he's baffling.
We have been waiting for a week for a fine windy afternoon, and this is
it. My children are enjoying "kite-day," a leaf taken from Japan. All
of the big-enough boys and most of the girls are spread over "Knowltop"
(that high, rocky sheep pasture which joins us on the east) flying kites
made by themselves.
I had a dreadful time coaxing the crusty old gentleman who owns the
estate into granting permission. He doesn't like orphans, he says,
and if he once lets them get a start in his grounds, the place will
be infested with them forever. You would think, to hear him talk, that
orphans were a pernicious kind of beetle.
But after half an hour's persuasive talking on my part, he grudgingly
made us free of his sheep pasture for two hours, provided we didn't step
foot into the cow pasture over the lane, and came home promptly when our
time was up. To insure the sanctity of his cow pasture, Mr. Knowltop has
sent his gardener and chauffeur and two grooms to patrol its boundaries
while the flying is on. The children are still at it, and are having a
wonderful adventure racing over that windy height and getting tangled up
in one another's strings. When they come panting back they are to have a
surprise in the shape of ginger cookies and lemonade.
These pitiful little youngsters with their old faces! It's a difficult
task to make them young, but I believe I'm accomplishing it. And it
really is fun to feel you're doing something positive for the good of
the world. If I don't fight hard against it, you'll be accomplishing
your purpose of turning me into a useful person. The social excitements
of Worcester almost seem tame before the engrossing interest of 113
live, warm, wriggling little orphans.
Yours with love,