OUT-OF-THE-WAY CORNERS
If the outside was gloomy, it had a queer, disorderly, and rather
cheerful aspect within, for the sun was pouring a flood of gold in one
window where it happened to strike a spot between two trees. And Frank
Forrester was by no means melancholy to-day. He shook hands cordially
with Mr. Whitney, and welcomed the rest of the party with the utmost
affability,--a fine-looking Englishman with a picturesque air, due
largely to his rather long hair, which fell about his forehead and neck
in a tumbled manner, suggesting a tendency to curls.
"These young people may like to look over my curiosities, while we have
our talk," he said. "Take a cigar, and I'll bring a bottle of wine.
Won't you join us, Doctor? Here, young folks, are curiosities from
everywhere."
He ushered them into a small room that was library and everything by
turns. There were trophies of hunting expeditions, some rare birds
stuffed and mounted, looking so alive Hanny would not have been
surprised if they had suddenly begun to warble; books in every stage of
dilapidation, some of them quite rare copies, Ben found; portfolios of
old engravings; curious weapons; foreign wraps; Grecian and Turkish bits
of pottery; and the odd things we call bric-a-brac nowadays.
Delia began to make some notes. Ben laughed a little. Interviewing was
not such a fine art then; and people were considered greater subjects of
interest than their belongings. But Delia was saving up things for
stories which she meant to write as she found time.
Doctor Joe had come in here with the young people, leaving the two
friends to discuss their business. He, too, found much to interest him;
and he was amused at Delia's running comments, some of them very bright
indeed. She was quite a spur to Ben, he found; and he was surprised at
the varied stock of knowledge Ben had accumulated.
It did not seem as if they had explored half, when Mr. Whitney opened
the door.
"Young folks, we must be going, if we expect to reach home that very
same night, like the old woman with her pig," he said.
"Are you talked out?" asked Delia, archly; "for we haven't half looked
through things."
"I want your brother to stay and have some supper with me. I'm my own
housekeeper now; but I think we could manage."
"What fun it would be," said Delia. "As there are no stores, we should
have to start at the foundation of things."
"I have a loaf of bread, and some cold mutton, and eggs, I think, and
tea and coffee. Come, you had better accept my hospitality."
"I must be home in the early evening," remarked Doctor Joe.
"And Hanny's not to stay out after dark," appended Ben.
"We are going down to Cockloft Hall," explained Mr. Whitney. "I am sorry
we cannot accept."
"Then you must bring your happy family again. If they are fond of
curiosities, the old house could entertain them all day long."
"And if they are fond of adventures, which they are, they might put you
to the test," said Delia, daringly.
Herbert laughed at the vivacious tone.
"Then you'd have to find me in the mood. In that respect, I am
variable."
"Do you have a mood for each day? Then your friends could be sure--"
"A good idea, like the ladies' reception-days. Must I put on the card,
Serious, Jolly, Adventurous, etc.?"
"And supernatural. I should come on the ghost days. For if ever a ghost
walked out of its earthy habitation, I should think it would be here.
Did you ever see a ghost, Mr. Herbert?"
"I have seen some queer things. But these up here," nodding his head,
"seem a very well behaved community. I can't say that they have troubled
me; and I've come down the road at twelve or so at night. Perhaps my
imagination is not vivid enough in that line. Have you ever seen a
ghost, Miss Whitney?"
"No, I have not, except the ghosts of my imagination. I can shut my eyes
now, and see them come trooping down that lonely road by twos and
threes."
Herbert laughed again. "A vivid imagination is worth a good deal at
times," he said. "There ought to be a ghost-walk about here; and next
time you come over, we'll arrange one so perfectly that he shall defy
detection. I'll walk a bit with you, if I am not a ghost."
When he put on his wide-brimmed, rather high-crowned hat, he looked more
Spanish than English. They went through another room that opened on a
porch, and, from thence, through the garden, or an attempt at one that
did not betoken signal success.
The cemetery sloped down from a high hill that was such a thicket of
woods it hid all indications of the City of the Dead. The placid river,
in which there was only a gentle tide up here, lapped the shores with a
little murmur as it came up from the bay. The green, irregular shore
opposite showed here and there a house. The wood-robins were beginning
their vespers already. Hanny thought them the sweetest singers she had
ever heard.
Just here there was a terraced garden-spot and an old house adorned with
all kinds of blossoming shrubbery.
"You see we two are guardians of the place, at either end. Miss
Whitney, this house could tell some interesting tales of the bygone
time; but the glory is departing. In a few years the city will stretch
out and invade our solitude."
A wild spot of ground it was below, hilly, gravelly, sloping sharply
down to the river. But people were beginning to take advantage of the
shore-edge for business. There were shops, and a foundry stretching out
smoky, dingy arms in various directions.
They said their good-byes here, as they were in sight of the old
Gouverneur mansion. And no one guessed then that a tragedy of love and
desperation to madness was soon to follow, and that in the dreary old
house "Frank Forrester" was to lie, slain by his own hand, that he waved
so jauntily to them as he bade them "Come again."
They scrambled up the small ascent, and sprang over the wall. Here was
where the Nine Worthies used to come for their merry-making in their
exuberant youth, and, as one of their number said afterward, "enlivened
the solitude by their mad-cap pranks and juvenile orgies." The house had
not been much modernised up to that period. Its young owner, Mr. Kemble,
who was the Patroon of the merry company, still held it. They found the
old honeydew cherry-tree standing; but some of its long-armed branches
were going to decay. The odd, octagonal summer-house had not then fallen
down.
They went up to the old room in the south-western angle, the green
moreen chamber, as it had been called, where the Nine Worthies used to
congregate, and where Irving concocted some choice bits of fun for the
Salamagundi Club. And here was the great drawing-room where they
disposed themselves to sociable naps on Sunday afternoons, the
vine-covered porch on which they sat and smoked starlit evenings, and
the grassy lawn over which they rambled. And now Mr. Washington Irving
had been minister to Spain, and the guest of noted people in England and
on the continent. He had won fame in more than one line, and hosts of
appreciative readers.
Hanny could hardly realise it all, as she thought of the still handsome
though rather delicate man, past middle life, gracious and dignified and
kindly, sitting on his own porch at Sunnyside. She couldn't help going
back to her first love, the old "Knickerbocker History" that seemed so
real to her, even now.
The hand of improvement touched Cockloft Hall shortly after. The old
summer-house was taken down; the famous cherry-tree, where the robins
sang and reared their young for so many generations, succumbed to old
age and wintry blasts; but she was glad she had seen it in its romantic
halo.
They were not far from the upper railroad station then,--the old Morris
and Essex that had stirred up the country people mightily when it first
went thundering through quiet vales, and screaming out at little
way-stations. They were just in time for a train. The sun had dropped
down behind the Orange Mountain, though the whole west was alive with
changeful gold and scarlet, melting to fainter tints, changing to
indescribable hues and visionary islands floating in seas of amber and
chrysoprase.
Hanny was quite tired, and leaned her head on Joe's shoulder. Ben and
Delia were in front, and Mr. Whitney in the seat behind. They kept up an
animated conversation, and thought it had been a delightful afternoon.
"And I feel like quoting a bit out of a letter of the Poet Gray," said
Ben. "'Do you not think a man may be the wiser, I had almost said
better, for going a hundred or two miles?' We have gone a tenth or so of
that, and I feel ever so much richer as well as wiser. How is it with
you, little Hanny?"
"I've been to the land of heroes," she replied, with a soft smile. "I
shall insist that Jim must honour New Jersey in the future."
"Bravo!" said Mr. Whitney. "And there are many more heroes in it, and I
think some heroines, that we must hunt up at a leisure day. There was
Ann Halsted of Elizabethtown, who saw the British foraging expedition
coming over from Staten Island, where the ship lay at anchor; and,
donning a suit of her father's clothes, and taking an old musket, she
went down to the only road they could come up, and blazed away at them
with such intrepidity that the red-coats were alarmed lest a whole squad
might be quartered there, and retreated in haste. It was said when
Washington heard of it, he toasted the young lady. And there were the
brave women of Valley Forge."
"And Moll Pitcher, don't forget her," put in Ben. "We in New York don't
own quite everything."
They went rumbling into the tunnel, and Hanny started. She was used to
the Harlem tunnel; but this came upon her unexpectedly.
"And there are three considerable tunnels," laughed Delia. "Yet there
are people who believe the State is one vast sandy plain, and that the
agricultural products are solely watermelons and peaches. Some one
always stands ready to believe ridiculous things."
"Hereafter, we will take up the cudgels for New Jersey," declared Ben.
"I am hungry as a bear! That rye bread was splendid, wasn't it! We must
ask mother to make some, Joe."
Mr. Whitney begged them to stop to tea; but Doctor Joe thought they had
better get home. They were late, of course; but Mrs. Underhill had a
nice supper for them.
When Jim heard about Captain Alden, he half wished he had gone.
"But I had to come in and save the day, or we should have been beaten
out of sight, so I was of some use," he announced.
Mrs. Underhill was put on her mettle by hearing about Mrs. Alden's rye
bread; and the very next week she made some quite as splendid.
Hanny displayed her sprig of hawthorn,--real hawthorn.
"Are you sure it isn't artificial?" asked Jim, teasingly.
"An artificial branch can't grow," she said indignantly.
The next week at school, the girls' compositions had to be read aloud;
and Hanny wrote about her tour, which received the highest commendation.
Delia came up to get the story of the man who had been on board the
slave ship. She had a sketch of her own under way, and she wanted to
make it very thrilling.
"And I shall have to give you half the money for it," she said
laughingly.
It had a rather amusing hitch about its acceptance. The editor of the
paper to which it was offered liked it extremely for its vigourous
treatment, but begged her to use a masculine name, or simply initials,
because it didn't sound like a young girl's story.
She told this over with great gusto, and showed her check for twenty
dollars. But Mr. Underhill magnanimously refused to accept the half of
it.
"I don't approve of so much mannishness in a girl," Mrs. Underhill said
decisively. In her heart she wished Ben did not like her so well. But
they really were more like two boys than lovers.
She took every occasion to make sharp little comments. Delia was rather
careless in her attire; and while she dressed her heroines in the styles
of their period, or in good taste, if they were modern, she had a rather
mismatched look herself, except when she wore white, which she nearly
always did evenings at home.
And she made home a really delightful place. She was quite ambitious for
reception evenings. Mrs. Osgood was holding them for a literary circle.
Of course she could not aim at anything as elegant as that; but
newspaper men, young and old, were in the habit of dropping in upon Mr.
Whitney quite informally. About ten, they might be asked down to the
dining-room, where there was a dainty little spread, sometimes a Welsh
rarebit that Dele could concoct to perfection. To be sure, they smoked
the room blue; and Mr. Whitney often brought out a bottle of wine, as
was the custom then; true, he waited until Delia and Nora had gone
upstairs, and taken some of the younger men. Delia had made a strong
protest against it, in her humourous way.
"I don't so much mind you old fellows, who, if you haven't sense enough
not to addle your brains, never will have. But the young men oughtn't
have the temptation thrust in their way. They think it looks smart and
manly; and they make themselves so silly that I'm like a lump of ice to
some of them. I like clear-brained people."
So upstairs they had music and recitations. Every young man of any
elocutionary ability felt himself empowered to recite "The Raven," that
much admired and sharply discussed poem by the Poet Poe, whose
melancholy end still created much interest. Critical spirit ran high.
One party could see only a morbid faculty heightened by opium and
intoxicants; others found the spirit of true and fine genius in many of
his efforts, and believed the circumstances of his life had been against
him.
Ben was reading one evening in Doctor Joe's cosy library, enjoying the
most capacious arm-chair, and improvising a foot-rest out of one not
quite so luxurious. The Doctor had been making out bills, and feeling
quite encouraged, perhaps lighter-hearted than he would when he had
waited a year for the payment of some of them.
"Joe," began his brother, abruptly, "what do you suppose makes mother so
bitter about Delia Whitney?"
"Bitter?" repeated Joe, in the tone of indecision people often use when
a proposition or question takes them by surprise.
"Yes. We all used to be so nice and jolly together, and Delia likes us
all so much. Hanny has such good times down there, with the old lady who
sings such pretty old-fashioned songs, if her voice is rather cracked
and tremulous; and Nora is bright and entertaining. But the other day
mother wouldn't let her go; and she was dreadfully disappointed; and
mother is not as cordial to Delia as she used to be. Dele spoke of it."
Ben looked straight at his brother, out of the frankest of eyes. It was
Joe who changed colour.
"I hate things to go crosswise. And when something keeps you just a
little ruffled up all the time--"
Ben drew his brows. Was he really unconscious of the trouble?
"You go there a good deal, you know. Some of the men are not quite the
company a young fellow should choose, mother thinks."
That was begging the main issue, of course.
"I don't see much of the older men. They're mostly smoking downstairs,
and I don't care a bit for that. But their talk is often worth listening
to. People who just keep in one little round have no idea how rich the
world is growing intellectually, scientifically; and on what broad lines
it is being laid."
"It is not the men altogether. Ben, you don't go anywhere else. Perhaps
it would be wisdom to enlarge your acquaintance among girls, young
ladies," and Joe gave a short laugh that betrayed the effort.
"I don't care a penny for girls in general," said Ben, with elderly
gravity. "Delia sometimes asks them in; and we seldom have as good a
time. She's a host in herself; and I've always liked her."
"You haven't had a very wide experience. And you are too young to make
up your mind about--anything."
Ben started up suddenly and flushed. What a fine, strong, solid face he
had! It wasn't the face of one turned about with every wind of doctrine;
it was not as handsome as Jim's bid fair to be, but it had hardly a weak
or selfish line in it. Ben had always been such a good, generous, steady
boy.
"You don't mean," he began with a little gasp,--"Joe, you can't think
that mother--that any one would object if the time came for me to--to
marry Delia?"
"You are too young to think of such things, Ben," said his brother,
gently.
"Why--I've been thinking of it ever since Mr. Theodore came home. We
were talking one time about going to Europe--"
"Are you really engaged, Ben?"
The young fellow laughed and blushed.
"Well--I suppose not exactly," he answered slowly. "We've never come to
that boshy stuff you find now and then in stories. But we know all about
each other's plans; and we like so many of the same things; and we
always feel so comfortable together, not a bit as if we were trigged up
in Sunday clothes. I don't think she's the most beautiful girl in the
world; but she has lovely eyes, and I've never seen a handsome girl I
have liked as well. Steve chose his own wife, and so did John.
Cleanthe's a splendid housekeeper; but she doesn't have time to read a
newspaper. Dolly's well informed, and has something fresh to talk about.
But it seems to me Margaret is always caring about society and
etiquette, and who is in our set, and a hundred things that bore me.
Phil has all his life been used to style, so Margaret's just the one for
him. And why shouldn't I have just the one for me?"
Joe laughed heartily then.
"I'd wait a year or two," he answered drily. "You are not out of your
time; and it is an unwise thing to take the responsibilities of life too
early. Delia may fancy some one else."
"Oh, no, she won't," replied Ben, confidently. "We just suit. I can't
explain it to you, Joe; but it is one of the things that seem to come
about without any talking. Are some things ordained? I should be awful
sorry to have mother object to it; but I know Dolly would stand by us
when the time came."
"Well--don't hurry; and, Ben, take the little comments patiently. If
mother was convinced that it was for your happiness, she would consent.
We all know there are unwise marriages, unhappy ones, as well."
"Oh, we're not in any hurry! You see, Delia is really needed at home.
The old aunt is awfully fond of her. And she's so interested in her
stories. We have such fun planning them out; and she does some capital
little sketches."
Joe nodded in a friendly manner, as if he did not altogether disapprove.
But there was a belief that literary women could not make good wives.
People quoted Lady Bulwer and Lady Byron; and yet right in the city were
women of literary proclivities living happily with their husbands.
And Joe had found careless, fretful, indifferent wives and poor
housekeepers among women who could not even have written a coherent
account-book. Come to think, he liked Delia a good deal himself. And if
she wasn't such a great worker, she did have the art of making a
cheerful, attractive home, and putting everybody at ease.
The new woman and cooking-schools were in the far future. Every mother,
if she knew enough, trained her daughter to make a good wife, to buy
properly, to cook appetisingly if not always hygienically, to make her
husband's shirts, and do the general family sewing, to keep her house
orderly, to fight moths and mice, and to give company teas with the best
china and the finest tablecloth.
To be sure there was a little seething of unrest. Mrs. Bloomer had put
forth a new costume that shocked the feminine world, though they were
complaining of the weight of heavy skirts and the various devices for
distending them. Lucretia Mott and some other really fine women were
advocating the wider education of the sex. Women were being brought to
the fore as teachers in schools, and higher institutions were being
discussed. There was a Mrs. Bishop who had preached; there were women
who lectured on various subjects.
The sewing-machine was making its way; and the argument in its favour
was that it would save a woman's strength and give her more leisure. But
employment of any kind out of the house _was_ considered derogatory
unless one had no father or brother to supply her needs.
Still, the old simple life was going out of date. There was more style;
and some leaders of opinion professed to be shocked at the extravagance
of the day. There was a sudden influx of people up-town. There were new
stores and offices. One wondered where all the people came from. But New
York had taken rapid strides in her merchant-marine. The fastest vessels
in the China trade went out of her ports. The time to both California
and China was shortened by the flying clippers. The gold of that
wonderful land of Ophir was the magic ring that one had only to rub, if
he could get hold of it, and work wonders.
But the little girl went on her quiet way. They were finding friends in
the new neighbourhood; yet Daisy Jasper could not be superseded. Every
letter was carefully treasured; and, oh, how many things she found to
say in return.
They kept up the intimacy with the Deans, though Josephine seemed almost
a young woman. Mr. Reed enjoyed the pleasant home wonderfully. Charles
spent much of his leisure over music, of which he was passionately fond.
He and Jim were not so intimate. Jim was going with a gayer lot of young
fellows, while Charles was seriously considering his life-plans.