WITH A POET
The city by the sea sung itself in Hanny's brain. The sweet, young,
beautiful wife, ruthlessly torn away, was somewhere in space, among the
stars perhaps, and not in the old graveyard. She was floating on and on
amidst all lovely things and divine fragrances. She could never grow
old; she would never want for anything. Ah, would she not want for the
mother and the poet who loved her?
An incident that had moved her strongly only a few weeks before, was a
strange bit of reminiscence that could hardly be called a story. Ben had
brought home a volume of De Quincey, and "Suspiria de Profundis" was
among the papers. The others were too intellectual to interest her; but
the touching, tender, immeasurable longing for the little sister gone
out of life, filled her inmost soul with an emotion so sacred she could
not talk it over with any one. This was akin to it.
Yet Hanny did not live in the clouds or in vague memories all the time.
Her father drove up the next day, and found she was not homesick; and
her mother was coming up the next week to spend the day; and everybody
was well. She had a great deal to tell him; and she seemed very merry.
He wasn't quite sure about the crabbing expedition; but Mrs. Odell said
there wasn't a mite of danger, for some of the big boys always went
along; and that it was a regular frolic for the children.
So Saturday they put on their oldest clothes. Hanny wore an outgrown
frock of Polly's. Mr. Odell said he would drive them down to the river,
which would save half the walk. He had some business in that direction.
He had the farm-waggon, and put some hay in the bottom, though he
insisted Hanny should sit on the seat with him. They stopped at Fordham,
and took in another relay; and the children were wild with the
unreasoning gladness of youth. Mr. Odell was in an uncommon good-humour,
and took them down the river quite a distance, to High Bridge, and then
up again, when they espied the boys and baskets and the net, which had a
long handle and looked to Hanny like a butterfly-net, only larger.
A motley crew they were. The boys had their trousers rolled above their
knees, and some of the girls took off their shoes and stockings and
waded about in the wet, sedgy grass. There was a little dock where the
boats were tied; and soon two of them were loosened and filled up with a
jolly crew. Big, cheerful Cousin Ben took charge of the little girl, and
would not allow the others to frighten her. Ann was quite a famous hand
on these expeditions.
They rowed out a short distance, and then began business. Oh, the
shrieks and laughter that came from the other boat, when some one dipped
up two hands full of water and dashed it over the others. And it is
strange how much you can make your hands hold at such a time. Hanny was
glad she was not in that boat, when they rocked it up and down. But most
of the children could swim, and they were not in the channel.
"Quick!" exclaimed Cousin Ann, and the net was held out in a twinkling,
Ann drew up a great green fellow with a frightful lot of legs, and he
dropped in the net. They dumped him into a basket, and covered him with
a piece of old fish-net; and the more he struggled to get out, the more
he entangled himself. Hanny felt rather glad he was not down her end of
the boat.
They had brilliant luck for a little while. Then the other boat shifted
about; they had not caught a single crab, and there were loud murmurs of
discontent. The others had the best place.
"You make such a racket you frighten them away," said Ben.
"Can they hear?" asked Hanny.
"I think about everything in this world can see and hear in some
fashion."
They certainly were dreadful looking. The laughter and the exclamations,
the disappointment at losing one, the funny conundrums the children
propounded to one another, and the limp appearance of the voyagers,
partly made amends for the sudden fright every time the great sprawling
things came up. Hanny would not even undertake the capture of one.
The crabs grew wise presently. Not one of them could be aroused to the
faintest curiosity concerning bait. Ben's boat had nineteen, the other
eleven. They rowed up to the little dock, and managed to get them all in
one basket. Jack showed Hanny how you could take hold of a crab, and
render him helpless. It certainly did look funny to see him struggling
with all his might and main, and his numerous legs. The two front ones
were very fierce.
"He could give you an awful pinch with them," said Jack; and he made
believe fling him at a group of girls, who scattered pellmell.
"I suppose the legs are oars, and help him swim," said Hanny.
"And help him grab his prey. He's a sort of savage fellow, and lives on
smaller folks."
Then Ben and Jack went to dig for clams. There were very nice clam and
oyster beds along the river then. There were not many people to disturb
them, and no sewage to starve them out.
Hanny thought planting oysters a very funny idea. They were put in their
beds like other babies.
The boys, and some of the girls, picked up the clams, until they had a
half-bushel basket full. Tony Creese, the black man who did odd jobs,
was to drive down for the "freight;" but he seemed in no hurry. Some of
the boys went in swimming; and Janey Odell did wish she had brought
another frock along. She could swim very well. They waded instead. Ben
walked up to a little bank that, having lain in the sun all day, was
warm and dry, and stretched himself out. Ann was too big to go "larking"
about with the girls, so she and Hanny, and one or two others, sat down
on the soft, sunburned turf.
How beautiful it all was! The sun was going down behind the New Jersey
hills. The little rise of ground between this and the Hudson shut out
the river; but it could not shut out the amethystine splendour. Back of
it all was heaven, to the child's faith. Miss Lois and her sister were
there, and old Mr. Bounett, and the poet's young wife, and ever so many
others. It was only the other side of the clouds, with their scarlet and
gold and green battlements. She could see the ships sailing into port.
She recalled "Pilgrim's Progress," and Christiana going across. In that
moment of ecstasy she could have gone herself.
Tony came down the road singing "Oh, Susannah;" Ben answered "Hillo!"
and shook himself like a great bear. The two baskets were put into the
waggon.
"Now you girls who are too delicate for a long walk, or too much worn
out by your day's toil, had better hop in. Ann, you go and keep an eye
on Hanny. Now who else?"
They were all pretty tired with their racing about, and the three
smallest ones were picked out, as there was but one horse. The others
formed the rear-guard, and marched on behind, with their arms about
each other. They were too tired for even the tempting game of "tag," or
the ambition of running races.
Mr. Odell was waiting at the uncle's, having come around the other way.
Supper was ready; but he thought they had better be "gettin' on," as
mother would wait supper for them.
Hanny was very tired, and went to bed immediately after the meal.
They had some splendid clam-fritters for breakfast. Ben had proposed to
divide the crabs; but Mr. Odell reckoned, "He'd go crabbing the first
leisure day," and was satisfied with part of the clams.
And then, unexpected delight, Stephen and Dolly and the two babies came
up to dinner. Little Stevie captured everybody, he was so merry and
cunning; and Polly wished they could keep him.
"When he gets to be a big boy, and has a school vacation, I'll be very
glad to send him up, I dare say," was the response.
"But, dear me, we'll be big too," said Polly; "and it won't be any fun."
Dolly told her little sister-in-law all the news, and what everybody was
doing. It seemed as if she had been away so long. Mother had spent a day
with Martha, which she had been promising to do ever since Martha was
married.
The little girl almost wanted to go home with them; but no one invited
her, and she would not have been so silly or ungracious as to plead
homesickness, for she really wasn't homesick a bit.
Then, on Tuesday, Joe came up with a letter from Daisy, who had gone to
some German baths, and was drinking water twice as horrid as that at
Saratoga. The things you had to eat were so very queer; but the music
everywhere was perfectly bewitching. Everything was so different. She
was taking lessons of a Fraeulein, and had to talk German at the table.
They had been through several churches, and one picture gallery that was
magnificent. A little withered-up old German was giving her some
painting lessons. If Hanny could only be there, she would be quite
content; yet she did think she loved America best.
Hanny was so delighted that her eyes shone, and her cheeks were pink as
a rose-leaf.
But Mrs. Odell said she could notice that her appetite was better, and
she was doing her best to fat her up a little, and make her look like a
country girl.
Mr. Odell took her about with him when he could. There were so many
beautiful places up and down the valley of the Bronx. They went up to
White Plains, and took everybody by surprise. Grandmother up there was
quite feeble now.
Then it happened, rather oddly, that when Cousin Jennie came down for
her, as there was no one scarcely at Fordham but the regular family,
Mrs. Odell was going to have a houseful of relatives from the West. She
just wished they had their new house at such times as these. She could
make a bed on the floor for Janey and Polly, and that would give her two
spare rooms.
The girls didn't feel so badly, as there were two Western cousins of
their age, and they would bring them up to Fordham.
The little girl was not at all tired of her pleasant hosts; but there
was a romantic side to the coming visit that she could not talk over
with Polly and Janey; and she was most famished for reading, as the
Odells were not of the intellectual sort. Mrs. Odell didn't like the
children to handle her parlour books, in their red morocco bindings,
that were spread around on the centre-table.
Hanny's favourite place at the Fordham house was up on the high piazza.
To be sure, it was sunny in the morning; but then Doctor Joe said
sunshine was good for her, and one corner soon grew shady. There was
some one passing up and down continually: the priests from St. John's
College, in their long black coats and queer hats, generally reading as
they walked; the labourers who worked on the railroad; the people going
to the station; and the girls out calling in the afternoons in their
pretty white gowns. There was no Jerome Park for stylish driving.
Indeed, it was a plain little country village, and most of the life
centred about the corner grocery and the blacksmith shop, where men
talked politics and the discovery of California, and discussed the
merits of the heroes of the Mexican War.
She sewed some patchwork for Cousin Jennie, who was making several
bed-quilts, and who had a lover,--a tall, bright-eyed young man who
drove a very handsome horse. Hanny felt quite wise on the subject of
lovers; and though no one said anything special, she understood what the
preparations meant.
"Now," Cousin Jennie said the next afternoon, "I am going up to Mr.
Poe's, to return some books and get others. Will you go along?"
Hanny was very glad. She had seen Mr. N. P. Willis and General Morris,
and some others, on the street; but that wasn't like going to their
houses. The dead young wife lent him a glamour of romance, to her
girlish imagination.
Mrs. Clemm sat on the farther end of the porch. It almost seemed as if
she had not stirred since Hanny caught the first glimpse of her. She
rose, a tall, rather thin woman with a sad, quiet face and a grave
smile; and the two had a little chat.
There was no hall to the house, at least the door opened into the front
room. A half closet stood at one side of the chimney, piled with books
and papers, an old sofa and some chairs, a table in the centre, strewn
with pamphlets and writing-materials, and the poet sitting beside it in
a melancholy pose, marking passages in a book.
He glanced up and spoke. The little girl had an impression of a pallid
face framed in dark, tumbled hair, and luminous eyes that seemed to be
of some other world in their abstracted light.
"You are quite welcome to any of the books, as you well know," said the
poet. "I am glad to have some one interested in them."
Then the white hand went on turning pages and making notes. The little
girl stood by the window, almost expecting the frail ghost to walk down
from the graveyard and enter the door again. Later on, she understood
the impression of weirdness, the almost ghostly stillness of the room;
and she found herself thinking over the poem that had so impressed her.
Fordham, in those days, was neither poetical nor intellectual. That a
man should starve on writing poetry, when there was other work to be
done in the world, seemed rather absurd. In some of the centres,
literature was becoming an honourable employment; but country places had
not emerged from the twilight of respect for brawn rather than brain.
Jennie made her selections, and expressed her obligation. The poet
nodded absently.
Mrs. Clemm rose, as they emerged from the door, and walked to the end of
the porch with them. There was something wonderfully pathetic in the
care-worn face, the reticent air, and gentle voice.
"I wonder if you have a few eggs to spare," she asked, in a hesitating
manner. "My poor Edgar's appetite is so wretched. He has had a bad
spell, and eats next to nothing."
"Yes, I can find you half-a-dozen, I know. Our hens are afflicted a
little with summer laziness," and Jennie smiled. "We have been baking
to-day, and I wish you would accept a loaf of bread. I'll send this
little cousin up with them."
"Oh, don't trouble! I will come down."
"I shall be glad to do it," said Hanny, with a gentle eagerness.
Cousin Jennie put the bread and the eggs,--she found seven,--and part of
a cake, in a little basket, and said, "Run along, Little Red Riding
Hood. There are no wolves to catch you."
They teased Cousin Jennie a little because the tall young man with
bright eyes was named Woolf.
Mrs. Clemm received the little girl's parcel with her usual quiet air,
and thanked her for coming. And before she could hunt up her ever-scanty
purse the child had said Good-evening, and vanished.
Hanny heard the "spells" rather rudely explained a day or two after, and
understood the melancholy shadow that hung about the house. People were
not any more delicate in gossiping about their neighbour's short-comings
then than now, when all the little faults and frailties of heroes are
paraded to the public gaze and comment.
But the exquisite care with which the mother watched over the son of her
heart, made her one of the little girl's heroines later on, when she
could fully appreciate the tender solicitude that tried to shield him
and save him from temptation, when possible, bearing her burthen with
such heroic dignity that she was fain to persuade her own soul that she
covered it from critical eyes. When one woman suffers bravely to the
death, amid untold privation, and another takes up the dropped burthen
with a devotion no anxiety can wear out, is it not proof that there must
have been some charm in the poet seen more clearly by those who loved
him?
There was a new book by Miss Macintosh among those they had brought
home; and this Hanny devoured eagerly, sitting on her high perch, while
the rest were busy in the household routine. In the afternoon, she read
aloud while the others sewed. Sometimes the Major came in to listen; but
he thought there were no novels written nowadays like "The Mysteries of
Udolpho," "The Children of the Abbey," and "The Vicar of Wakefield."
"Oh," said the little girl, "isn't this funny! We have the first volume
of 'The Grumbler' and the second of 'The Grandfather.' I don't believe I
can piece them together," with a bright, mirthful expression.
"And I picked those up myself. No; we are interested in the 'Grumbler'
now and must know what became of him."
They were English novels by a Miss Pickering, long since forgotten,
while less worthy ones are remembered.
"We'll walk up after supper and change them," continued Cousin Jennie.
But visitors came in shortly afterward to stay to supper. People were
not specially invited then; and the hostess did not expect to prepare a
feast on ordinary occasions. So Jennie said Hanny might go up alone, if
she didn't mind.
She started gladly, yet a sense of diffidence oppressed her as she stood
at the door, a half guilty consciousness, as if she had no right to the
secret Mrs. Clemm was trying so assiduously to hide.
The poet was pacing up and down the room; but his pallid face and
strange, shining eyes seemed looking out from some other world. Mrs.
Clemm sat by the window with a magazine in her hand.
Hanny preferred her request timidly.
"Oh, come in and hunt them up. Your cousin is quite welcome to anything.
Then there are some upstairs, though I brought down that pile over in
the corner this very morning."
The corner looked attractive. Hanny went thither, and knelt down on the
checked matting. There were two books of engravings containing portraits
of famous people, some old volumes of verse, some new ones, and
magazines.
The volumes she wanted were not among them. But she exhumed something
else that made her forget the slight, nervous man pacing up and down,
and the woman at the window. Turning the leaves of an old novel that had
lost one cover, she came across the name of one of her heroes, "Richard
of the Lion Heart." She had a passion, just then, for English history.
And there was Bulwer's "White Rose of England," in paper covers with a
Harper imprint.
"Could I take these beside?" she asked, with some hesitation.
He glanced over at them as he came to that end of the room.
"Those old novels? Yes. Do they let you read novels?"
"I read almost anything," and Hanny glanced up with rising colour. "But
there are not so many books up here--I live in New York," she added, by
way of explanation.
A half smile crossed his face, but its melancholy haunted the little
girl long afterward.
Then she went over to the closet, and soon found her missing volumes,
and uttered her gentle Good-afternoon. Mrs. Clemm had folded her sewing,
and came out on the porch where the water-pail stood empty, so she
started to the well.
"Please thank your cousin for her kindness," she said in a soft tone. "I
am glad she is fond of books."
The modern realistic school, or even the analytic school, would flout
Madame Cottin's old novel of "The Saracen" to-day. Perhaps in the year
two thousand the novels of to-day will be wondered at. The next morning,
the little girl was up in her eyrie in the corner of the porch, and
began her story. She was deeply interested in the Crusaders as well.
Richard, Saladin, and his noble and knightly brother Melek held her
spell-bound. She let the patchwork lie unheeded.
Queen Joan, Richard's sister, beautiful and unfortunate in her marriage,
almost a prisoner for years, rescued and taken to the Holy Land in
company with Berengaria, and treated with Oriental suavity and honour,
and loved by Melek Adel, indeed, almost married to him, though history
considers it only as one of the many feints of Eastern diplomacy, roused
all Hanny's youthful ardour. And Saladin's young nephew, taking
knighthood at Richard's hands on Easter morning, was so striking a
picture that the child could not understand why Turks and Christians
should be bitter enemies, when friendships like this could be cemented,
and apparently appreciated by men of such qualities.
She lost interest in the "Grumbler," and I am afraid her mind wandered
as she read aloud. She was really glad that for several days there were
no children to play with. She sat out of doors, and was pretty sure that
would answer Doctor Joe's requirements; and the Major took her out
driving, but she smuggled in her book. She was not quite so pale, though
that might have been due to sun-burn.
She had just finished her enchanting story one morning, and was glancing
idly down the hill, watching the toilers who bent over as if they were
carrying heavy loads, or drawing something behind them. Physical culture
had not yet been applied to the fine art of walking.
A barouche, drawn by two nodding horses, came slowly along. There were
four ladies in it; but one especially attracted the child. She wore a
gown of softest cerulean blue, a bonnet of blue crape with delicate pink
roses, and a large bow of airy tulle tied under her chin. Her long
ringlets, the fashion of the day, drooped about her lovely face, that
smiled and dimpled as she talked. Her hands were daintily gloved, and
one held her parasol up high so she could glance about. Hanny was quite
sure she espied her, for her companion leaned out and looked also.
She left the child in a daze as she went by. Hanny had a secret,
exultant consciousness that she had seen her ideal poet; then she smiled
and wondered if she could write poems. Dolly was quite as pretty, but
she couldn't; and Margaret was handsomer. She could not quite associate
the sad, abstracted man up the road with "Annabel Lee." What a puzzle it
all was!
She went downstairs presently, and was sitting on the area steps
watching Cousin Jennie iron, when the tall figure in her shabby black
hat and veil, which she invariably wore, came up the outer steps. Hanny
ran to open the gate.
Mrs. Clemm was always quietly dignified. It was the intangible good
breeding that distinguished her from the ordinary country-folk. She had
a small tin kettle in her hand, and her manner was apologetic.
"They had some unexpected visitors from the city, dear friends of
Eddie's" (she oftener called him that than any other name, and she often
said "My poor dear Eddie!"). "Could they spare her some milk, and a few
eggs? They had no milk at the store."
"With pleasure," said Jennie, who went to the milk-room, and cast a
glance around to see if there was not something else that would help out
the feast.
The little girl wanted to ask some questions, but she hesitated from
diffidence.
She wondered afterward how the quiet, almost listless woman could
concoct dainty feasts for these illustrious people out of her poverty;
for they were illustrious in their day. Were the wit and poesy and
knowledge the successive desserts, and bright gossip the sparkle of the
Barmecide wine? She thought of the little cottage, when she read of
Madame Scarron among the French wits.
She described them to Cousin Jennie when the tall black figure was going
slowly up the road.
"Yes, they have a good many visitors," said Jennie. "They did last
summer, when poor Mrs. Poe was alive."
"Was _she_ very beautiful?"
"Oh, child, beauty isn't everything!" and Jennie smiled. "Yes; it was
said she was. But she was so thin and pale. She used to sit out there on
the porch, wrapped in a white shawl, with his arm about her, or her head
resting on his shoulder. You see no one knew much about them then, and
they kept so to themselves. Then there is his unfortunate habit, that
you cannot help feeling ought not to belong to a person of his
intelligence. It is a great pity."
Hanny sighed. She was to know a great deal more about the world later
on, and the appreciation that was spread as a garment about the poet
when his life's fitful fever ended.
There was an influx of quite elderly people one afternoon; and Hanny,
gathering up some books, stole up to the little cottage, quite assured
no one would need her, or even miss her.
The corner of books had been "cleared up." In the wide fireplace, there
was a jar of feathery asparagus, and on the table a vase of flowers.
There were a number of pictures, Hanny noticed. She had hardly glanced
about the room before,--the plain, low-ceiled room to which people were
to make pilgrimages as time went on.
The poet sat by the table in a dreamy, indolent mood.
"Did you find what you wanted the other day?" he asked gently.
"Oh, yes! And I have read 'The Saracen.' It interested me so, I couldn't
leave it a moment. I didn't want to like Saladin so much; but I had to.
But I shall never give up Richard."
He smiled a little at that, kindly, cordially, and her heart warmed to
him. The pervasive eyes were so deep and beautiful! In spite of the
pallor and attenuation, the face had a rare charm.
"So Richard is your hero? Well, you will doubtless change your heroes a
good many times before you get through with life. I think I had a boy's
fancy for Saladin once. Yet heroes come to be quite common-place people
after all. I wonder if I have any more that you would like?"
Hanny said they had several books yet, and she was going down to West
Farms in a few days. She wanted to finish "The White Rose of England."
"History in romance,--I dare say that suits young people best."
She stood in a sort of vague uncertainty.
"Well?" in a voice of suggestive inquiry, as if she might ask him
anything.
"Oh!" she cried, summoning all her courage, and flushing as she did so,
"will you please tell me who the pretty lady in blue was, who came up
the other day in the carriage? She looked like a poet!"
He did laugh then, softly, as if laughing was a little strange.
"Is that your idea of a poet? Well, she _is_ one,--an airy, light-winged
poet with dainty conceits, and a charming woman, too. I must tell her
she captured you at sight. That is Frances Sargent Osgood. And beside
her sat Mrs. Gove Nichols, one of the new lights. Stay, I think I can
find a poem or two of Fanny Osgood's for you."
He hunted up two or three magazines. Hanny sat down on the door-sill; it
was so softly, so enchantingly bright out-of-doors, and the room a
little gloomy. She wanted to have a glimpse of sunshine, for Mrs. Osgood
looked as if she belonged to the brighter world.
They were dainty and bright. One was set to music afterward; and the
little girl learned to sing it very prettily:--
"I've something sweet to tell you,
And the secret you must keep,
For remember, if it isn't night,
I'm talking in my sleep."
Then they talked about poetry. I dare say he was amused at a little girl
whose ideal poem was "Genevieve," by Coleridge, and who knew
"Christobel," "The Ancient Mariner," and "The Lady of the Lake" half by
heart. When, in her young womanhood, she read some of his sharp,
scathing criticisms, she wondered at his sweetness that afternoon. With
a little more courage, she would have asked him what was really meant by
"the high-born kinsman;" but she did not know as it was quite proper to
talk to him about his own verses.
The wood-robins were singing in the tall trees, and the sun made dancing
shadows on the stoop that was always clean as a floor. Mrs. Clemm
brought her splint rocker out, and begged her to try it, and asked after
the cousins, sending thanks for the cake that she had found in her
basket, and the pot-cheese that had proved such a treat to her visitors.
She thanked Mrs. Clemm prettily for the chair, but said she must go
home. The poet nodded. He had taken up his pen then, and she wondered
what the spell was like that inspired a poem.
The next forenoon, they saw Mr. Poe going down to the station. Cousin
Jennie shook her head; and the stout old Major said, "It was a pity Mrs.
Clemm couldn't keep him at home steadily."
She was never to see him again; but when she heard of his tragic death,
her heart ached for the poor desolate mother.