HOPE AND LIFE
“Poley, dear darling, will you go with Cleve and me to West Virginia to
live?” exclaimed Palma, running into the cabinet kitchen of her flat,
where good Mrs. Pole was busy over the fire, baking those very muffins
in which she so excelled.
Cleve had gone out to change the bonanza check to pay the rent and to
give up the flat.
Poley paused, with a spoonful of batter held in her hand, halfway
between the bowl on the table and the muffin rings in the pan on the
range.
“What is that you said, my dear?”
Palma repeated her question.
“Will I go with you to Vest Wirginny? That’s the furrin nation we was to
war with, ain’t it?” inquired Mrs. Pole, going on to fill her muffin
rings.
“Don’t mention the war, Poley. I cannot bear to talk of it.”
“Well, I won’t. But that Vest Wirginny—where is it? In New Orleenes?”
inquired Mrs. Pole, whose ideas of geography were so vague that she once
asked Palma if Africa was in the United States. And Palma, to spare the
good woman’s self-esteem, answered that Africans, or their descendants,
had been in America for a couple of centuries. Whereupon Mrs. Pole had
added that, of course, she knew that America was in the United States.
Palma had not set her right, but ruminated in her own mind on the fact
of the future when our national New Jerusalem would not make a part of
the Western continent, but the Western continent would be only a part of
the grand republic of the planet Earth. But this is a digression. Now to
return.
“West Virginia is much nearer than New Orleans,” replied Palma.
Mrs. Pole filled the last of her muffin rings and set the pan containing
them on the range before she spoke again.
“And you and Mr. Stuart be going there to live, ma’am, you say?”
“Indeed, yes—and very soon, too.”
Mrs. Pole put the bowl of batter in the cupboard, covered it over with a
clean napkin and sat down, “to save her back,” while her muffins were
baking.
“For good?” she inquired.
“Yes, indeed, for good in every sense of the word, I do hope and
believe. I will tell you all about it.”
Mrs. Pole jumped up and ran into her little bedroom adjoining the
kitchen, and brought out a small, low-backed rocker, saying to her
little lady:
“There! Sit ye down while you talk. You have often enough told me to
‘spare my back’ whenever I could lawfully do so. And now I tell you to
spare your own.”
Palma laughed and dropped into her chair, and when Mrs. Pole had looked
at her muffins and seen that they were doing well, and taken her own
seat on a cane chair, Palma began:
“I will tell it to you as Cleve told it to me, for it is like a story,
Poley. Here goes!
“Once upon a time there was an old man—a very rich old man—who lived in
an old stone house at the foot of a mountain, called Wolfscliff, and the
woods that clothed the side of the mountain were called Wolfswalk,
because, when the land was surveyed and the first house was built there
was neither sleep by night nor safety by day, for the wolves. They
carried off hens and geese and sheep and calves, and—horror to
relate!—even the little negro babies. This was how the place received
its name. The wolves were worse than the Indians. They could neither be
fought off nor bought off, but had gradually to die off, like the
Indians.
“So the name came down the generations to the time of Jeremiah Cleve,
the old man with whom my story commenced, and who lived in an old stone
farmhouse in the woods at the foot of the mountain—a house many times
larger than the log cabin of his first American ancestor.
“This Jeremiah had married an heiress in his own neighborhood, and so
had doubled his fortune.
“They had three sons.
“John, the eldest, was, according to the law of primogeniture then
prevailing in Virginia, heir to the landed estate of his father. This
John, when he was but twenty years of age, became engaged to be married
to the beautiful daughter of the man who owned the nearest plantation to
Wolfswalk. It was a long engagement, on account of the young fiancée’s
extreme youth; but just when they were going to be married, when he was
twenty-five and she was eighteen, she caught a severe cold while out
sleighing with him, and died within a week of inflammation of the lungs.
She was buried in her bridal dress, on her wedding day. It is said that
on her deathbed he solemnly vowed himself to her, lover and husband, for
time and eternity. That was seventy years ago, and he has kept his
faith. He is now a lonely old man of ninety-five, the solitary master of
Wolfscliff, waiting for the Lord to call him to join his bride in
heaven.
“The younger sons, Charles and James, were, by the terms of the marriage
settlements of their parents, co-heirs of their mother’s estate; and if
there had been ten, they would have all been equal co-heirs, and each
portion small; as there were but two, each portion was considerable.
“Charles was the first of the family to marry. He wedded a young woman
of family and fortune, and went to live on his mother’s plantation. They
had two sons. When these boys were old enough to be sent to college
their mother sickened and died of typhoid fever, how contracted no one
ever could tell. Their father never married. His house was well managed
by a capable young mulatto woman, who made it homelike to the boys when
they came there to spend the vacation. At length, when the young men
were relatively twenty-two and twenty-four years old, their father also
died, and the young men lived on the farm like true brothers until the
Civil War broke out, when they entered the Southern army. Ah! poor,
dear, brave boys! One fell at Fredericksburg, the other at Cold Harbor.
Truly ‘The glory of this world passeth away.’
“I come now to the youngest of old Jeremiah’s sons—James, who was
Cleve’s grandfather—his mother’s father. He had a passion for the
military life, and he entered the army. When he had gained his
commission as second lieutenant of infantry, he married Molly Jefferson,
a relation of the illustrious Thomas.
“By this time the aged couple, Jeremiah and Josephine Cleve, had passed
on to a higher life, and John, their eldest son, a man passed middle
age, reigned at Wolfscliff in their stead.
“John, a lonely man, invited the young couple to make their permanent
home with him, and they did so until the Mexican War broke out, when the
young lieutenant had to follow Gen. Scott to Mexico. His young wife
would gladly have accompanied him ‘even to the battlefield,’ but she was
then nursing her first—and only—child, a baby girl not a month old, when
the young husband and father went away to the war, from which he never
came back again.
“The tidings of his death in the battle of Chepultepec came to
Wolfscliff as a death blow to the youthful widow. She pined and died
within the year, leaving her infant daughter, Cara, to the charge, yes,
rather to the heart of John Cleve. He brought up and educated the orphan
and, when she was grown, went out into the world for her sake.
“In a winter they passed in Washington they met young Mr. Stuart, of the
Cypresses, Mississippi. A mutual attachment between the young people was
approved by John Cleve. And the next summer Mr. Stuart, of Mississippi,
and Miss Cleve, of Virginia, were married at Wolfscliff. They went on an
extended wedding tour which filled up all the summer and autumn months,
and only returned to the husband’s home in Mississippi in time for the
Christmas holidays, when they were joined by John Cleve, of Wolfscliff,
who came at their—not invitation only, but prayer—to spend the winter
with them.
“That was his first and last visit—not that he had not enjoyed it, nor
that he ceased to love his dear niece, but that after her marriage he
grew more and more of a recluse, a student and a dreamer.
“And she visited him all the more frequently that she could not induce
him to leave his home. Instead of going to a gay summer resort when she
migrated to the North every summer, she would go to Wolfscliff, until at
length, when years passed and children came every year, and sickened
every year, and she had to take them to the seaside, her annual visits
to Wolfscliff were discontinued.
“Cleve, the youngest child, and the only one who survived his parents,
was taken to Wolfscliff when he was about three years old. That was the
first and last time he ever saw his grand-uncle. Of the tragic fate of
Cleve’s father and mother you have heard me tell, Poley.”
“Oh, yes,” answered Mrs. Pole; “they were fatally hurt on the wreck of
the _Lucy Lee_, I remember.”
“And after that, do you know that the aged John Cleve, of Wolfscliff,
who sank deeper and deeper into solitary study and reverie, utterly lost
sight of his grand-nephew, whom he was contented to think of as at
school under the supervision of his guardian, Judge Barrn, or at
college, or traveling in Europe, or on his Mississippi plantation, not
knowing that the latter was a charred and blasted ruin and desert until
the death, in battle, of his last nephew left him without an heir
bearing the name of Cleve. Then he instituted inquiries for his
grand-nephew, Cleve Stuart, but without the least effect.
“Accident at last revealed Cleve’s residence in New York. Mr. Sam
Walling went to Washington on legal business and fell in with a Mr.
Steele, of Wolfswalk, the nearest town to Wolfscliff, and, in the course
of conversation, mentioned the sage of Wolfscliff and his vain quest for
his nephew and heir, Cleve Stuart. Then Mr. Walling gave information,
and the West Virginian went back to the mountains with the news the
hermit was pining to hear.
“John Cleve immediately wrote the letter inviting Mr. Stuart and myself
to come and make our home with him.”
“And you are going?”
“Yes, I told you so. Will you come with us?”
“To the end of the world. To the jumping-off place. And even there, if
you should take the leap in the dark, I’ll jump down after you.”
“Dear Poley, I am so glad!”
“And why should I stay behind? And why should I not go? I have nieces
and cousins here, to be sure; but they are all doing well. And though I
love them, I think I love you more, for you do seem more like a child of
my own than any of them do; and you seem to want me more than they can.”
“I do want you more, Poley, darling. And Cleve is so anxious for you to
go with us for me. Though I am now in excellent health, he seems to
think I require a nurse to look after me as much as if I were a sick
baby.”
“And so you be, my dear, for this present time, and will be for some
time to come,” Mrs. Pole replied, nodding wisely.
“Oh, I am so glad you will come, Poley, dear. And listen. When I get
settled at Wolfscliff next summer you can invite any of your relations,
or all of them, as many as the house will hold, to come and stay with
you. It will be such a pleasant, healthful change for them, from the
crowded city to the fine, open mountains.”
“It would be heaven for them to see it only for a day. Why, we all went
up the North River and saw the hills only from the deck of the steamer,
and they thought that was paradise, and longed to be in it. What would
they say to staying a week among the mountains?” exclaimed Poley.
“Then they shall come. They shall all come,” responded Palma
delightedly.
“But, my dear child, what would the old gentleman say?” demurred Mrs.
Pole.
“Oh, Poley, you don’t know the Southern people. Neither do I, for that
matter, except upon Cleve’s showing. But I am sure I can guarantee you
and yours a welcome at Wolfscliff. And mind, we won’t have to send to
market for meat, poultry and vegetables, nor to the grocer’s for flour,
and meal, and lard, and eggs, and such things. Nearly everything, except
tea and sugar, pepper and salt, and such, are produced on the farm, and
cost next to nothing,” said Palma, speaking as she believed and proving
how little she knew of the cost of labor or the worth of time on a farm.
But Mrs. Pole, who was as ignorant of such a life as was her youthful
friend, received every statement in good faith, and anticipated good
days to come.
She looked once more at her muffins, made the tea, and then went into
the parlor to set the table for luncheon.
Palma went into her bedroom to overhaul trunks and bureau drawers, to
see what she could make of her scant wardrobe, in view of appearing
among strangers in West Virginia. She had but three suits—the superb
velvet dress given her by Mrs. Walling, which she thought could only be
worn on grand occasions, and must be quite useless in the mountain
farmhouse; the well-worn crimson cashmere now on her back, and in its
very last days; the fine India muslin, now fairly embroidered, not with
unnecessary fancy work, but with needful darns. These were all the
dresses Palma owned, if we except the old, faded blue gingham wrapper in
which Cleve had first found her in her garret.
“I must get Poley to sponge and press the crimson cashmere, and then
that will do to travel in, and with care it may last the rest of the
winter,” she said patiently, as she locked her trunk and her bureau
drawers and returned to her little parlor, where she sat down to work on
a doll’s dress, or what might have passed for such.
While thus engaged she sang a sweet nursery song that was a reminiscence
of her own infancy.
Presently Cleve came in, smiling.
“Well, dear,” he said, “I have paid the rent and given up the rooms,
though I had to pay another month’s rent in lieu of a month’s warning;
and I have settled every other outstanding bill except the milkman’s. I
could not find man or bill if I tried, I suppose.”
“No; there is no bill. We buy tickets, and pay cash, and we have seven
tickets left.”
“Then the man can have the benefit, for we go away to-day.”
“From the city?”
“No; from the flat. We will go to a hotel to-night, and go to Washington
to-morrow, en route for West Virginia. Can you pack up in that time?”
“I can pack up in an hour,” replied Palma.
As she spoke the hall boy knocked and entered the room, showing in a man
with a bundle.
“Ah! that is all right, thank you—that will do,” said Stuart as the man
set down the box and went away.
“It is my new business suit for winter wear in the mountain farmhouse.
What do you think of it, Palma?” he inquired, cutting the twine and
unpacking the box and shaking out a suit of brown beaver cloth,
consisting of double-breasted coat, vest and pantaloons.
“Oh! I think it is excellent. Such a rich, deep color, and such soft,
thick, warm material,” said the young wife appreciatingly.
“Yes, so it is—all that,” added Mrs. Pole, who was setting the tea urn
on the table. “But, la! what a blessing it is that women’s clothes grows
on ’em, like feathers do on to a bird, so they never has no trouble nor
expense to buy any.”
Stuart dropped his suit on the floor and looked at his wife in dismay,
noticed her faded, shabby cashmere dress, and became contrite for his
thoughtlessness.
Mrs. Pole said:
“Lunch is ready, ma’am,” and hurried out of the room.
“Don’t mind Poley, Cleve, dear. She is full of queer sayings, you know,”
said Palma conciliatingly. “Come now, and sit down to luncheon. Here are
some of her nice muffins.” And she took her seat at the table and began
to pour out the tea.
“I have been an idiot, and a very selfish idiot at that! providing
myself with a first-rate suit of clothes, and even displaying them to
your admiration, without once remembering that you also would require
raiment. I am obliged to the woman for bringing me to my senses,” said
Stuart as he took his seat opposite his wife and helped himself to a
muffin.
“Nonsense, Cleve! I have got a tongue in my head, and if I had wanted
anything would have asked you for it without hesitation,” replied Palma.
“I fear you would not have recognized any want, my dear; and I fear it
is true that some men are so thoughtless that they act as if women’s
clothes grew on them like the petals of a flower, and cost neither money
nor effort to renew. But I see now. Yes, dear rose of my life, I see
your petals are fading.”
No more was said until after luncheon, when Cleve put a fifty-dollar
note in Palma’s hand and said:
“Go out and get what is necessary for your comfort, my dear; and take
some lady friend with you, for I fear you have very little experience in
shopping.”
“Thank you, Cleve,” replied Palma, laughing; “but I shall take Poley.
She will be a better judge of what I need than any of our fine lady
friends.”
“Well, perhaps you are right,” admitted Stuart, and the discussion
ended.
When Mrs. Pole had cleared away the table and taken her own luncheon
Palma invited her to go on a shopping expedition; and they put on their
bonnets and outer garments and started. Palma’s was only the plush
jacket that belonged to her cashmere suit, and she shivered so much as
she walked that Mrs. Pole said:
“The very first thing that you must buy must be a heavy cloth coat. You
can get one for twenty dollars. I should prefer a Scotch plaid shawl,
but young people don’t wear such things now, only neat-fitting coats, or
sacques, or dolmans.”
They went down on Broadway and into store after store, trying where they
could find at once the cheapest and the best.
At length Palma was suited with a close-fitting heavy cloth coat that
not only satisfied herself but also Mrs. Pole.
“Now, then, as you like it so well, keep it on, child, and have your
plush jacket done up in a parcel and I will take it home,” said the good
woman.
And this was done.
But then they went to the suit department, where Palma selected an
olive-green pressed flannel dress for herself, and had to take off her
coat to try it on. Then she bought a beaver bonnet and a leather
hand-bag, and her shopping was complete.
Mrs. Pole, who had saved up the wages she had received, bought a very
heavy tartan shawl, two pairs of thick yarn stockings, a pair of stout
goat-skin boots, a pair of warm woolen gloves, and a thick green berege
veil, and felt herself provided for defense against the winter on the
mountain farm.
When they reached home they found Stuart waiting for them. He said:
“Pray do not trouble to get dinner this evening, as we can dine at the
hotel where we are to spend the night.”
“I am very glad of that, on Poley’s account for she is very tired. She
insisted on bringing home all our purchases herself, and just look how
she has loaded herself down!” said Palma, laughing, though, in fact, the
two heaviest items of the purchases, namely, Palma’s beaver cloth coat
and Poley’s tartan shawl, were worn home on the shoulders of the
respective owners.
“But I must beg you to pack up as soon as possible, and I will help you,
if you will show me how,” he answered.
“That would be an awful hindrance, sir! Just let me get my breath for a
minute and I’ll be all right. I am not tired one bit. And we’ll get
through the packing in a jiffy! It’s very easy to move when there’s no
furnitur’, and nothing but one’s clothes and things to pack,” said Mrs.
Pole, sitting down on the first chair, dropping her bundles on the
floor, and untying the broad plaid ribbon strings of her big black straw
bonnet.
She kept her word, for in five minutes she was on her feet again, and in
less than an hour the trunks were packed, locked and strapped.
Stuart wrote the labels and pasted them on the tops, and they stood
ready for the expressman.
Then the three put on their outer garments and turned to leave their
flat.
Palma paused and looked back half regretfully.
“Good-by, pretty little home,” she said. “We have been very happy in
you, but you must not mind our going away. We shall have to go away from
our bodies some of these days! But I hope you will have very pleasant
tenants always. Good-by.”
Stuart did not laugh at her, but Mrs. Pole did, and said as they went to
the elevator:
“If I didn’t know you as well as I do, child, I should really sometimes
think you were crazy!”
“Oh, Poley! don’t you know there is a soul in places and in things, as
well as there is in all other living creatures?” she answered.
Mrs. Pole did not reply, but thought within herself: “I do suppose as
there be some of the sensiblest people crazy in spots.”
They went down in the elevator; and what a misfit of words there is in
that sentence!
They found the janitor waiting in the office to see them off. Mr. Stuart
gave him the key of the vacated apartments, and they all shook hands
with him and left, with the request that he would see to the delivery of
their trunks to the expressman.
Then they walked down the street to the corner of the avenue where the
cars passed. Mr. Stuart hailed the first down one, and they boarded it.
They rode about the length of twenty blocks, got off and walked across
town to Broadway, and entered the office of the hotel that Stuart had
chosen for their sojourning place that night.
They were easily provided with rooms.
When Palma had taken off her bonnet in her chamber Mrs. Pole, who still
stood up in her street costume, said:
“Now, ma’am, if you please, I must leave you for a little while.”
“What, Poley dear! Is there any more shopping to do? Have you forgotten
anything?” demanded Palma.
“No, my child! But as we are to start to-morrow morning I must go and
take leave of my kinfolks to-night.”
“Oh, Poley! And they live away downtown somewhere! And—you can never go
alone!”
“Why not, child? I have been used to go alone all about the city all the
days of my life, even when I was a young woman, and nothing ever
happened to me, or even threatened to happen to me! And if nothing
didn’t in my youth, nothing ain’t like to do it in my age! Don’t be
uneasy, child! I’ll be back by ten o’clock, and one o’ my nephies will
see me here safe.”
“But won’t you wait until after dinner? Cleve says they keep a sumptuous
table here.”
“Then I hope you will get the good of it, my dear, but as for me, I must
hurry away. I’ll make up for missing of my dinner by eating a hearty
supper when I come back.”
“Take care, you must not risk a return of those horrid nights you had at
Lull’s, you know,” said Palma, with a sudden recollection of the
sleep-walking and magpie-hiding propensities that had been features of
those disturbed nights, though features that happily Mrs. Pole had never
suspected.
“Oh, don’t you be afraid! It was the cold, heavy pastry that did it at
Lull’s! There was no basket beggars to carry off the cold pie crusts and
puddin’s, and me and the girls used to eat ’em all up at night to keep
’em from being wasted on. And I never heard of their hurting anybody but
me, either. But don’t you be afraid. I shall eat nothing but the very
best of nutericious and digesterable food, like stewed oysters and
sich.”
“Very well, Poley. Eat what you will, so it shall agree with you. And
now don’t fail to invite your relations in my name as well as in your
own to come to Wolfscliff to see you next summer.”
“Thank you, ma’am, for reminding me again. Now I know you are in airnest
and I’ll be sure to invite them.”
“Why, Poley, I am always in earnest.”
“To be sure, I know you are, ma’am, dear child,” answered Mrs. Pole,
divided in her style of address, between her respect for her mistress
and her tenderness of her pet.
And then again she took leave and went out.
Cleve came out and escorted Palma down to dinner, where the many and
slow courses occupied them for more than an hour.
At ten o’clock Poley punctually made her appearance, and ate a hearty
supper of stewed oysters and brown stout with her nephew.
At eleven o’clock the whole party retired to rest.