AT ELMHURST
If there had been any latent doubts in the minds of Margaret's friends
as to her force of character they were dispelled in the weeks that
followed. She had come back from the hospital wasted in flesh but
resolute of soul. Her period of convalescence had been a season of
gathering strength for a protracted effort. She would waste no force
after this in beating her wings against restraining bars. It almost
seemed to Mrs. Pennybacker as she watched her that she had had a new
birth. Her whole nature was deepened and broadened. Even her interview
with Mr. De Jarnette did not daunt her.
"I have been too impatient," she said once. "I can see now how I have
injured my cause by injudicious haste. If I had not run off with Philip
I might have him now. I know Judge Kirtley thinks that prejudiced my
cause, and you know what the Judge said."
"Still, it was instinct."
"Yes, but I find that this is a thing about which I must use more than
instinct. Oh, I am going to try to be very prudent and very patient. I
don't want to do anything that will lose me one point."
"Margaret," said Mrs. Pennybacker, plainly, "you are losing more than a
point in refusing the opportunity that Richard De Jarnette puts in your
hands. A whole day instead of an hour is a great gain. If you take my
advice you will not only accept that offer but you will thank him
personally or by letter for it."
"I cannot," Margaret said passionately, the prudence and patience she
had felt so sure of cast to the winds. "I will not be indebted to him
for one thing. Even for the sake of being with Philip I cannot do it."
"You are very foolish. It means more than being with Philip."
"How could it possibly help me in any other way?"
"There is a principle of human nature involved in it. This is a kindness
that Richard De Jarnette meant to do you,--you will acknowledge that?"
"Ye-s, but--"
"Well, a kindness done always disposes the heart of the person doing it
toward the person to whom it is done."
"I don't want his heart disposed toward me!" cried the girl. "He is a
cruel, despotic man. I hate him and I want to hate him!"
Mrs. Pennybacker looked at her over the top of her glasses.
"Patience has hardly had her perfect work with you yet, Margaret," she
observed, dryly.
It was true, as Margaret had said, that she did not want any favors at
Mr. De Jarnette's hands. She was angry with him for placing her under
obligation in the matter of the carriage: angry at herself for allowing
him to do it: and angry and hurt both at Mrs. Pennybacker's censure.
They ought to know how she would feel, she told herself, with that
isolation of soul which comes to us when our nearest friends fail to
understand.
But when she found herself the next morning at the little country
station a mile and a half from Elmhurst in a drizzling rain, saw a
solitary carriage in waiting, and heard a respectful voice that belonged
to a past age saying, as a respectful hat was raised from a grizzled old
head, "Is you de lady wha's goin' to Elmhurst, ma'am?" she could not but
acknowledge to herself that her brother-in-law knew more about
conditions than she did and had thoughtfully prepared for them.
"Yaas 'm," the old driver explained as she stepped into the carriage,
"Marse Richard he say you'd be comin' out pretty _cornstant_ fur a while
an' I was to keep de carriage up dem days so's you could have it
whenuver you say de word. He 'low you'd mos' likely not want it tell
evenin'."
"I shall want it in about an hour," she said, with a sinking sense of
the shortness of the time, "to meet the noon train." Then she clenched
her hands in a swift fierce anger that this man should be able to impose
restrictions upon her movements.
When she reached the house and got Philip in her arms she was almost
sorry she had committed herself. How quickly the time was flying!
She had hoped that the child would not be unhappy, but she was mortally
afraid of his ceasing to mourn for her. Her illness had kept her away so
long, and he was so young! Mammy Cely with intuitive tact dilated upon
the scenes of those first few nights when he had refused to be
comforted, and it was all as manna to her hungry soul. Then Philip,
expecting commendation, said "But I don't cwy any more, mama. Unker
Wichard bwings me candy, and he says I'm a good little boy now."
"Philip," she cried despairingly, "don't you care for mama as you did at
first? Don't you still want her at night?"
It seemed to her she could not bear it.
"Why, yes, mama," the child said wonderingly, "but you said I must be
bwave."
She caught him to her arms in a passion of jealousy. After all, bravery
was an unnatural virtue in a child.
"Oh, Mammy Cely," she begged when at last she tore herself away from
him, "_don't_ let him forget me!"
"I aint gwineter let him forgit you, Miss Margaret--don't you worry!
_Whenever I think of Cass_ I gwinter call you to that chile's
'membrance. Yaas 'm, I is so!"
And on this assurance she was forced to rest.
Twice a week the court had said. Those visits came to be Margaret's meat
and drink. To the child as time went by they were only an incident in
his daily life. He had settled into the every-day routine of the place,
lonely sometimes, but finding in Mammy Cely and Uncle Tobe companions
very much to his taste. Every old negro of the ancient school is an
Uncle Remus to some child, and Uncle Tobe was no exception. He and his
wife, Aunt Dicey, lived in one of the cabins behind the house as they
had done before the war. They had been pensioners of Richard De
Jarnette's through all the years of his residence in Washington. Now
that he had come back to Elmhurst with his little nephew, they fell into
line as cook and coachman. The old carriage, so long unused, was brought
out for Margaret's special use, Uncle Tobe furbishing it up for the
occasion with tremulous eagerness. It seemed to him almost like a
revival of the old days when "Miss Julia" had to be driven around.
They were all very kind to the child. He fed the chickens and hunted for
eggs, and played with the gourds that Aunt Dicey still planted and
hoarded. She always had pomegranates too that she took from some
mysterious place about her bed. But he liked the gourds best, because
they were of so many different sizes that he could play they were almost
anything.
He followed Mammy Cely about incessantly through the day and as evening
came on would run down through the lawn with the big elm trees in it to
meet his Uncle Richard. Mr. De Jarnette fell into the habit of looking
for the solitary little figure perched on the post of the big gate. When
he saw him Philip would sing out, "Hello, Unker Wichard!" and then,
dropping to the ground, would tug manfully to open the gate which
Richard by a sleight-of-hand performance most remarkable to Philip,
could open from his horse. It was such a manifest mortification to the
child not to be able to do this from the ground that Mr. De Jarnette
sent Uncle Tobe down one day to remedy the sagging so that the feat
could be accomplished. Then Philip's joy and pride knew no bounds, and
when the gate was opened with much tugging and blowing, Richard would
lean down and lift the child in front of him for a canter up the road.
He came to look forward to it with almost as much pleasure as Philip
did. He could remember when Victor did the same thing.
The day Margaret came Mammy Cely had shown her Philip's room, a great
gloomy unattractive apartment, whose windows like those of the library
below were carefully curtained from the light.
"A horrible room for a child!" Margaret had exclaimed. "It looks like a
prison."
Mammy was deeply disappointed. For her part she could see nothing the
matter with the room. It was exactly as her Miss Julia had left it. It
had never been changed even by the second Mrs. De Jarnette. And it was
scrupulously clean. She had herself painted the hearth that morning with
a preparation of brickdust and milk laid on with a rag, which was
supposed in her day to put the finishing touch to an apartment with an
open fireplace.
"A child ought to have cheerful surroundings and light," Margaret had
said, pushing back the heavy curtain. "And this paper! It is enough to
give him the horrors."
Mammy Cely had never thought any of these things about the room, but the
next morning she spoke to Mr. De Jarnette as he was starting to town.
"Marse Richard, is it ever occurred to yo' mind that Philip's room ain't
no fittin' place fur him to stay?"
"No," said Mr. De Jarnette, in surprise. "What is the matter with it?"
"That room's too sorrowful lookin' fur a chile, Marse Richard. Hit ought
to have some sort of hilarious paper on the walls, and tarletan curtains
or somethin' that will let in the sunshine. Yaas, sir. Chil'n needs
light, jes' like plants."
Mr. De Jarnette listened without replying, but he turned back and went
to Philip's room.
It certainly was rather a gloomy place, he reflected, though he had
never thought of it before. The Brussels carpet was big-figured and dark
and worn, the moths having consumed a yard or so around the edge. Loving
darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil they had found
here a congenial home. Mammy had seen to it that the curtains were
closely drawn. He groped his way across the room and shook them
impatiently, remembering that a child needed light. They gave out a
musty smell. Then he looked at the walls. The paper certainly could not
be called hilarious.
He looked around the room with a growing discontent and uncertainty of
himself. Strange that an old negro should have thought of all this. He
could see now that it was no place for a child. But he had been into
that room time and again and it had never occurred to _him_. Women
seemed to have a sort of instinct for these things.
He made no comment when he came down, nor did Mammy Cely. Being wise in
her generation she left her seed to germinate. But he said to her one
morning a week or two later, "Get the things moved out of Philip's room.
I am going to have some work done in it. The men will be out to-day."
The painters and paper-hangers were hardly through when a load of
furniture came out from Washington. Mr. De Jarnette being in doubt as to
the exact amount of hilarity that the good of a child demanded, had gone
to a decorator and put the matter in his hands; then to a furniture
store, telling the proprietor that he wanted suitable furniture and
drapery for a child's room which must be light and cheerful. The bedroom
suit already in it was solid mahogany and almost priceless as an
antique, but Mr. De Jarnette gave him _carte blanche_, and the dealer
naturally made the most of his opportunity.
There was a scurrying around at Elmhurst that last day as there had not
been since the advent of the second Mrs. De Jarnette. Mammy Cely was
bent upon having all in readiness by the time Philip's mother came. Mr.
De Jarnette apparently did not know that Philip had a mother. He had
never asked any questions about her comings or her goings. What he was
doing was for Philip.
When Margaret came Mammy Cely took her with great pride to the room. In
view of her disapproval before there was every reason to expect approval
now. And then the room itself commanded it.
On the walls morning-glories climbed over a neutral ground, clustering
thick over a trellis at the top where an occasional butterfly and
humming bird poised as if just ready to fly. The dark stained woodwork
had given place to an ivory white. A pretty matting was on the floor and
over this a cheery rug in such colors as a child might like, while the
four great windows were hung with simple muslin curtains draped high to
let in the autumn light.
Margaret stood just inside the room and surveyed it all--the little
white bed, the diminutive dresser and chiffonier of bird's eye maple
where last week had been the heavy mahogany--even a set of shelves which
held Philip's rapidly accumulating treasures.
"And see, mama, my little wocking chair that Unker Wichard bwinged me,"
said Philip.
She turned away with mouth so stern that Mammy Cely asked anxiously,
"Didn't they fix it right, Miss Margaret?" Somehow the room had not been
the success she had hoped.
The human heart is full of strange contradictions. As she looked at all
these things--just what she herself would have chosen for a child's
room--there came to Margaret a fierce anger that he, her enemy, should
have done it. He was trying to worm himself into the child's
affections,--trying to buy his love. She had gone home the week before
telling of that gloomy room and hugging to her soul this grievance.
Robbed of it, she felt defrauded.
A sudden thought struck her. "Did you tell Mr. De Jarnette what I said?"
"No, _ma'am_," declared Mammy Cely, not doubting that what she said was
Gospel truth. "I ain't tole him nothin' 'tall 'bout what you said. I
jes' mentioned to him that the room was sorter mournful, an' that was
enough. Miss Margaret, honey, it look to me lak Marse Richard's tryin'
to do what's right by this chile--"
"Bring me his clothes," said Margaret, coldly. "I'll put them in the
drawers myself." She did not mean to be unkind, but she was consumed
with jealousy.
But before she had disposed of the things in the various drawers she
felt ashamed of this unworthy feeling.
"I am glad it is changed," she said. "It was very--" She could not bring
herself to say kind or good or thoughtful. But Mammy Cely supplied the
word. "He's mighty good to him, Miss Margaret--ain't he, honey?"
"Yes," said Philip. "He bwings me candy. And every night I go down to
meet him. _I_ can open the big gate now." And Margaret's heart felt
another twinge.
"Mama's brought you something, darling. A dear little baby to hang on
the wall. He will be company for you."
It was a Madonna picture--a Bodenhausen with the flowing tresses and the
deep, sad eyes. Philip was full of interest in the baby.
"He's thes been havin' a bath," he explained, and Mammy Cely who had
little knowledge of art but much of nature, commented, "Jes' look at the
creases in the little laig! Aint that natch'el?"
"That is the way mama used to hold you, darling, when you were a dear
helpless little baby. I am going to hang it over there in front of the
bed so you can see it the first thing in the morning."
"It looks like you, mama," he said thoughtfully. "It's got the smile of
you."
The smile of the Bodenhausen is very sad.
She caught him passionately to her arms.
"Does it look to you like mama? Then every morning when you look at it
you must say, 'That is mama and little Philip.'"
"I will," he promised eagerly. "And I'll show it to Unker Wichard."
"Philip!... Philip!" She felt that he was slipping away from her. "Oh,
Mammy Cely, make him remember me!"
"I will, Miss Margaret!" the old woman declared, and to Philip's
mystification they were both in tears. "The baby in that picture is
white and my baby was black, but somehow the crease in that little laig
make me think of Cass. _I_ ain't gwineter let him furgit you. No 'm!"
In their interest in the picture and all it stood for they forgot the
time till Aunt Dicey announced dinner. Margaret looked at her watch in
dismay. The noon train was gone.
"Go on down to dinner, Miss Margaret," insisted Mammy Cely. "Look to me
lak you're cuttin' off yo' nose to spite yo' face. Marse Richard ain't
never ast once does you stay. And he ain't gwineter. He jes fix it so
you kin and then leave you free. That's Marse Richard's way. He ain't no
talker. Why, honey, fum the day he come and foun' Philip gone he ain't
never once mention to me yo' catnippin' that chile. No 'm, he ain't!"
"I don't want any dinner," said Margaret. "I think Mr. De Jarnette's
bread would choke me."
"Miss Margaret, honey, that's foolishness! Nothin' ain't gwine choke you
after you make up yo' min' to it. Sho's you born, chile, you kin swaller
a heap er things in this world you think you can't!"
"I guess that's so," said Margaret. "I used to think--" Then with sudden
helplessness--"I don't know what I think nowadays. Well--I'll stay." And
when she sat down to the cosy meal with Philip across from her and Mammy
Cely in beaming attendance, she wondered that she could ever have been
so blind as not to see that this gave her an advantage that an hour's
stay never could. How much easier to keep herself in Philip's
remembrance if she sat thus with him every time she came.... Surely
Richard De Jarnette could not have thought of this.