A FRIEND
Monrepos, January 28.
_Carin_, _darling_:
Thank you for all your letters. You are very good to me. No matter how
careless I am about writing, you never forget, you dear! And now I think
I am to send you congratulations because you are engaged to that fine
Vance Grévy. Truly, I think him one of the most interesting young men I
have ever known. Moreover, he looks good, and true, and firm and
enduring. Oh, little Carin, my own yellow-headed one, be very happy with
him! I send you a thousand kisses and ten thousand good wishes, and I
want you to know that if ever, ever I can do anything for you, I want to
be allowed to do it. Please find something for me to do. You must not
be so happy that you will forget me. I have always known there was a
jealous streak in my disposition, and I am feeling it right now.
You say you have your ring? Your engagement ring! It’s not like other
engagement rings? How nice! A pink pearl. Well, pearls suit you just
as they do your darling mother.
I am so glad that she and your father like your Vance. Oh, fortunate
girl! Always beautiful things happen to you. That, of course, is just
as it ought to be. I hope they will keep right on happening to you all
through life.
But, once more, in your happiness, do not forget your Azalea. For she is
not very happy. No, though now she has much money and some friends—you,
always, and Barbara and Annie Laurie, not to mention others—yet she is
sad. Things are wrong—quite wrong.
I told you I was coming over here to visit Miss Delight Ravanel at her
quaint old home, which she calls “Monrepos.” Aunt Lorena was quite
willing I should come. She and I had a frank talk together, and now I
understand many things that I did not before.
“I am going to ask you, Aunt Lorena,” I said to her, “if you _truly_ like
me. You mustn’t be polite, please, because that would not help me at
all. You asked me to come here, and I came, and you have been very kind,
and I have done the best I could. But lately there has been a change.
You—you have not looked at me quite the way you used. Or at any rate,
the understanding between us is not perfect. So let us speak out and say
what we really think.”
A silly woman would have been disagreeable, probably, at having a young
girl speak this way, but Aunt Lorena is not silly, and she is not
disagreeable.
“Azalea,” she said quietly, “I truly like you. I am, indeed, happily
surprised in you. I like you better as a house companion than I thought
I could like any woman. For, to tell the truth, I am not a social
person. If I have not looked at you in quite the old way, it is because
I feel conscious of the complications that have arisen. I do not
believe, Azalea, in trying to influence the life of another in the way
that your grandmother has tried to influence your life. It is not right.
I believe that everyone should be free in this world, so far as possible,
and your grandmother has taken your freedom away from you.”
“Yes,” I said, “she has. But she meant to be wise and kind for me. I
loved her, Aunt Lorena, and I always shall.”
“Are you willing to abide by the terms of her will? Are you willing to
marry the man your uncle approves of—the man who will, according to your
grandmother’s idea, bring credit to the family?”
She looked so intense and sympathetic that I couldn’t help laughing.
“I am willing to marry just one man,” I found courage to say. “I hope
uncle will approve of him.”
“If you mean Keefe O’Connor,” she said in her high voice, “you will see
that your hopes are not realized. Your uncle likes him very much
personally, but your grandmother did not. Or at least, she did not
approve of having him enter the Knox family. It was to keep him from
doing so that she made her will as she did. She told your uncle that.”
Carin, was it very bad of me to laugh again. “Then,” I said, “I shall
have to let the fortune go, Aunt Lorena.”
She lifted both of her thin white hands in warning.
“That is very easy for you to say, my dear, very easy indeed. You are
young and do not know the value of money and of position and of an estate
like this. It is the feeling that you do not realize these things, that
made it necessary for your uncle and myself to ask Mr. O’Connor to—to
absent himself—until you have had time to make up your mind. We want you
to travel and to see the world. We want you to meet people and to have a
chance to compare this one with that. But when we insist upon all this,
it may seem to you as if we were opposing you and setting ourselves
against your happiness, whereas, above everything else, we want to do
what is for your best interest.”
She looked more solemn than ever.
“You are going against your own heart, Auntie,” I told her. “It is that
which makes you seem so changed. Oh, don’t think about it at all. Just
treat me the way you did at first. Love me, love me! Somehow, the other
matter will straighten itself out. We have troubles enough without
bringing any on ourselves.”
But she wouldn’t take the matter lightly. She seemed very much
depressed. Uncle was very sad, too, partly on account of the loss of his
mother, partly because he was made to act the part of a ‘stern guardian,’
when it is not in keeping with his nature. I feel sure he tried to
dissuade grandmother from doing what she did, but he did not succeed. I
think, myself, that if people at Mallowbanks had more to do they would be
a great deal happier.
Well, anyway, I kept my promise to my nice twenty-seventh cousin, Miss
Ravanel, and came away over to her, and was put in a quaint, bare, sunny
room, and here I have been for almost a week. My chocolate is sent up to
my bed in the morning; Miss Ravanel does not appear until ten. Then we
meet in the morning room and she embroiders while I read “Lorna Doone” to
her. She has been in England in the Lorna Doone country, and she
interrupts the reading to tell me about what she has seen. It is very
interesting. But, Oh, Carin, it is as if I were listening to something
afar off, and as if the bright fire burning in the grate, the pale
sunshine on the pines, the little room with its fantastic chintz, were
all a dream.
It does not seem real at all to me. Is it because I am always thinking
of something else?
Did I do well, Carin, to give up my life with Mother McBirney, my little
busy, useful, struggling life, and to come here among my relatives, who
are, after all, strangers? Yes, yes, I know that for a time I felt at
ease with them, that to be among my own people brought me great delight.
But now, suddenly, I seem useless and stripped of all that made life
rich.
* * * * * * * * *
Carin, I have just been reading this over, and I never read anything more
dismal. You remember that song of Jean Ingelow’s where the dove sat on
the mast and mourned and mourned and mourned. Well, I sound precisely
like that ridiculous dove.
I know if you were here you would give me a piece of your mind. So would
Keefe. So would Annie Laurie. Actually I am glad none of you is here.
Mercy me, how you would scold me!
It has occurred to me during the last minute and a half that I haven’t
been treating my tremendously nice little hostess very well. And how
good she has been to me!
I am going to reform. I shall ask her if she’ll not go walking—she loves
to walk—and I shall suggest visiting old Mrs. Treadway, whom Miss Ravanel
likes to look after.
Carin, forgive me for being such a dolorous creature. And you so happy,
too! I wanted to do something for you, and I go and throw cold water on
your sparkling day with a sighing, moaning letter. Shame on me.
_I love you_,
_Azalea_.
* * * * *
Monrepos, February 1st.
_Carin girl_:
So you are to be at Lee for the spring vacation. What fun! Of course I
shall try to get there. I feel as if I must see you. And do you really
mean to tell me that you want me to go to Europe with you, Carin? How
wonderful that would be. But I couldn’t, could I? If I go at all I must
go with Uncle David and Aunt Lorena. So that’s settled.
What do you think Miss Ravanel and I have been doing? Making dresses.
She needed some and there didn’t seem to be anybody at hand to make them,
and so I said to please let me try. At first she thought I would make a
botch of them. But not at all. Mother McBirney taught me to be very
particular, and I have a sort of a “touch” as you and Annie Laurie always
said. The dresses, which are for spring, are really very nice. She said
she never had any that really suited her so well.
While we sewed, she told me many things about her life. I was quite
right; she did love my Uncle David when she was a girl and he was a young
man, but when Aunt Lorena came back from boarding school, he fell
terribly in love with her and went to Miss Ravanel and told her, and she
bade him do whatever his heart prompted.
“You’re not going to hate me, are you, Delight?” he asked her.
“Hate you?” she said. “Why should I hate you? I want you to be very
happy and mean to be happy myself.”
“You will marry someone much more worthy of you than I am,” he assured
her. She said that was as might be. She hoped she would love someone
again. But she never did, Carin. All of her life she has had to see her
kin leaving her, either to go to some other part of the country, or into
the family vault, and never once has she met anyone she could care for.
But she says she has been quite happy after all.
“I love life,” she told me. “I like to watch the seasons roll around,
and I enjoy each one as it comes. I am never tired of walking about my
woods and my garden, and it amuses me to care for my old house. I enjoy
my books, my music and my thoughts. Sometimes I am glad that I never
married. I have fallen into very quiet ways, and it would disturb me to
have anyone about, except someone like yourself, Azalea.”
When I see her, so shy and dainty and content, going about her little
duties and hospitalities, I am glad, too, that she did not marry. She is
like a little domestic nun. I like her the way she is.
Uncle and Aunt Lorena called this morning to ask me when I was coming
home, and I told them I would come any time they liked, and they wanted
me to go with them at once, but Miss Ravanel begged that I might stay
over one Sunday more. She wants to teach me to make Washington pie, and
we both want to finish “Lorna Doone.” So I am staying. I’m much
happier. This is just a line to tell you.
_Your own_
_Azalea_.
* * * * *
Mallowbanks, February 10.
_Dearest Carin_:
We are getting ready to go to England. Aunt Lorena is having a charming
outfit made for me. Now that she and I really understand each other, we
are getting along together beautifully. You see, she is a frank,
straight-forward, fair-minded woman and she couldn’t enjoy herself while
she thought I was not being fairly treated. But now that I know
everything, and that she sees I have the courage to make my choice, she
feels better about it all.
I wish you could see my new clothes. They are delightful, and so
becoming! They are very practical too. We are not going to take
quantities of things, because it would only bother us. But I have my
traveling suit of Scotch cloth in a small blue and green plaid, and a hat
of blue silk braid trimmed with green, and a steamer rug and coat that
look well with it; and then two little silks for dinner, nights when we
are stopping at any rather fashionable places—one of old rose, and the
other of dove color. The pink will be for gay moods, the dove color for
pensive ones. Then there is my street suit of tan with shoes and gloves
to suit, and the cleverest hat you ever saw, with two big tawny
chrysanthemums on it. I don’t seem to be very good at describing
clothes, but really, as I said at the beginning, these things are
charming.
Then to think of seeing England! Me, Azalea! I don’t believe it. I
cannot bring myself to see that it can possibly be true.
Carin, that reminds me: Why don’t you ask Annie Laurie to go abroad with
you? Do you know, I think she would do it. I remember hearing your
mother say to her, years and years ago, that some day she and Annie
Laurie would be together in Europe, listening to great music. And why
not? Annie Laurie could easily afford it. Sam Disbrow is through with
school now, and he could look after Annie Laurie’s dairy. Propose it,
do. Perhaps we could all meet over there.
I must run down to see Mother McBirney before I go. Father McBirney is
almost well and hopes to reach home in March to do the plowing. He will
get someone to help him of course, for Jim is to stay on at school. I
have placed a certain sum in the bank for Jim—enough to last him till he
has graduated if he is careful. And Jim _is_ careful. I made up my mind
that whatever happened, I was going to see that Jim got what he wanted in
the way of an education. He really is wonderfully bright and learns so
fast that I don’t see how he can remember all that he crams into his
head.
Keefe doesn’t write. That was a part of the bargain that he made with
Uncle David—that he was not to write.
But I write to him.
Is that terribly bold?
But you wouldn’t think so if you could see the letters. Anyway,
sometimes they aren’t letters. They are just envelopes with little poems
in them that I find in the magazines or newspapers and the like. Of
course, sometimes I write a poem, too. About daffodils, you know, or
sunsets, or rainy days. Never anything sentimental. Not at all. Or
personal. I wouldn’t be personal. I merely remind Keefe that I am
alive. A couple of violets in a blank sheet of paper will do that
nicely. Aunt Lorena knows. She doesn’t approve. Not quite, that is.
She says it is foolish. So since then I’ve only been sending little
drawings—pictures of people who call, and one of the Grévy’s parrot, and
another of some geese I saw flying north. They are such bad drawings
that they are quite sure to annoy Keefe. I pointed out their badness to
Aunt Lorena.
“Wouldn’t it be a good idea to annoy him?” I asked. “Now just look at
this sketch of a cat which I mean to send him. That cat will make him
furious. I tried to foreshorten it, but I seem to have performed a
surgical operation on it instead.”
“He’ll have you arrested for cruelty to animals,” she agreed. “But
really, Azalea, I wish you would keep perfectly silent. This young man
does not write to you. Are you doing what is dignified?”
“Aunt Lorena,” I said, shaking my finger at her, “my own private opinion
is that he is writing to me every night of his life, and filing the
letters away for future reference.”
Aunt Lorena lifted her eyebrows very, very high. I smiled.
“What are you laughing at, Azalea?” she asked sharply.
“At your Gothic eyebrows, dearest Auntie,” I said. Then I kissed her.
“Don’t ask me to be too dignified,” I begged. “I’m only Azalea.”
“Azalea Knox is a very pleasing and interesting young woman of a good
deal of importance in the world, if she would only realize it,” she said.
I looked at her a moment.
“She’s not so very, very happy,” I said. The tears came in her eyes, and
her eyebrows were not pointed at all. Really, Aunt Lorena is a dear.
You just have to break through her crust. The only trouble is that the
crust grows over, and you have to keep breaking through. It makes you
feel a little like an Eskimo, fishing.
“I am truly sorry,” she said. “But I think if she is a really obedient
and patient girl that some day she will be very happy, and that she will
thank the friends who now seem to her to be afflicting her.”
We didn’t say anything for a few minutes.
Then I ventured:
“Then you really think I ought not to send anything to Keefe? Not even
this terrible drawing of a cat? Not even to make him laugh and—and hold
me in contempt?”
She laughed at that.
“Not for any reason at all,” she said.
“Then, Aunt Lorena, let me send word just once more—only once. It will
be the end.”
“The end?”
“I will never direct another envelope of any sort to him till he writes
to me. If he has given his word, he will not do that until—”
“Until?” Her eyebrows were Gothic arches again.
“Until we find, beyond all question, that we cannot live apart.”
“Piffle,” she said. “One can live without anyone. It is a mere question
of making up one’s mind.”
I sent Keefe the terrible little picture of the cat.
“Keefe,” I wrote him, “please excuse me for being a bold-faced minx. I
must be one, or I wouldn’t have sent you poems and violets and things.
Kindly observe this drawing of a cat. It is a cat, I don’t care what you
say. She looks as I feel, somewhat cramped. But she is a good cat, and
I am a good, obedient girl. I shall waste no more stamps on you. I am
going to England, and I am commanded to be very happy. So, since I am
obedient, pray think of me as being not only happy but gay.”
I signed my name to it—just “Azalea”—and sent it off. Now I shall write
no more.
_Farewell_,
_Azalea_.
P.S. I wish you could see my traveling veil. It looks like a peacock’s
breast. Clothes are nice, aren’t they? I never realized before how nice
they are.