INCOGNITA
Philip and his father went away in early June. There were, of course,
many rumors about their plans, one being to the effect that the house on
Windy Hill might not be reopened for several years, in spite of the fact
that greenhouses and gardens were to be maintained as usual. One thing
alone was certain, that they were to spend the summer either on board
the yacht of a Mr. Challoner, John Angus's close business associate, or
at his house at one of the resorts on the Maine coast.
Poppea had seen very little of Philip since his father's return, for his
singing lessons had become more and more irregular, until they finally
ceased. Stephen Latimer, when he frankly asked John Angus the reason,
was met by the vague excuse that he had been so long away that he wished
his son's society; there was much to be arranged. Also Philip was tiring
of singing.
On the day before he was to leave, Poppea met Philip at the Feltons',
whither he had gone to say good-by. When she entered, he was in the
great, cool library, and the blinds being drawn to keep out the
afternoon sun, all the light in the room seemed focussed on his face
where he sat by the book-strewn table, his head resting on one hand. He
was so intensely quiet and so pale Poppea's heart went out to him more
than ever; that he was suffering pain not merely physical she was sure,
and equally so that she must not ask its cause.
Nora came into the room at that minute to say, "Miss Felton and Mr.
Esterbrook had gone to Bridgeton and would Miss Gilbert come upstairs?
Miss Emmy was suffering from a bad headache, and so Mr. Philip must
excuse her."
"Then I must tell you good-by and go home," Philip said to Poppea;
"Harvey is waiting for me with the chair, for somehow I'm rather tired
this week. Please come into the light and turn your face as I saw you in
the garden from the parapet the day, long ago, when you picked up the
little bird. There, that is it. I want to remember every line to take
with me, for I shall be so lonely."
"And I too, Philip. Look up at me and remember, that whatever is
worrying you worries me also, and let me halve it with you," and Poppea,
stooping, lifted his face and kissed him gently on the forehead.
The young man bent his head as if in reverence for an instant, then
raising it again to look Poppea in the eyes whispered, so far away his
voice sounded, "I shall not be lonely any more, for it seems as though
you must have called my mother's angel and she kissed me." And yet John
Angus could not understand, and would not had he been there.
* * * * *
The summer residents of Quality Hill had returned in full force,
increasing the work at the post-office so much that Poppea had but
little time to herself. Yet she was satisfied so long as everything ran
smoothly and no possible criticism could fall upon the postmaster; for
it was not only the income and certain fixed position that mattered so
much to Oliver Gilbert, but in and about the associations of his
appointment were woven the very elements of his patriotism and the
verbal contact with Lincoln that became more precious as time went on.
Of course Gilbert knew that the day would come when he must resign what
he called his trust, but that was not yet. In some respects he felt his
seventy years less than he had the weight of a lonely fifty. That his
conducting of the business might be unsatisfactory or the post-office
might be taken away from him had never troubled his thoughts even
remotely.
It was therefore a great surprise to both postmaster and mistress, when
one day, about the middle of June, a duly accredited government
inspector appeared one morning, and after going over the accounts and
putting many abrupt and, to those in charge, meaningless questions, took
a seat by the sorting shelf, opened a newspaper, and seemed prepared to
spend the day. The visit being all the more strange from the fact that
the usual but rather perfunctory official visit had been paid less than
two months before.
When noontime came and the official made no move to leave, Gilbert,
knowing that there was no suitable place of refreshment in town, with
old-time hospitality asked the stranger to join them at their mid-day
meal. The invitation was accepted, and the moment that the official left
his post behind the beehive, his entire manner changed; he talked and
laughed with Gilbert in a way that dismissed a growing apprehension,
complimented Satira Potts, who was substituting for the day, upon her
cooking, and kept his eyes fastened upon Poppea in a way that made her
color hotly and then turn rigid with resentment, saying that he had
heard Harley's Mills was a very quaint town, and that there was a pretty
walk by the river toward the hills. Wouldn't she be his guide that
afternoon?
Poppea, feeling that she must hold herself in check at any cost, replied
that she could not leave the office, but that Oliver Gilbert would
doubtless drive him about town with horse and chaise; then turning to
the old man, she urged him to go, as he had been out so little of late.
Poor Gilbert, entirely oblivious of the undercurrent, protested that he
could do all the office work required before night, saying in
good-hearted indiscretion, "Go you out, Poppy; the young gentleman will
enjoy the trip much better than with a half-deaf old codger like me."
For a moment Poppea struggled for words less abrupt than "I will not
go," with which to extricate herself from the net. Then Satira Potts
(who was Pegrim, and having once taught Poppea what she called her
manners never forgot it), grasping the situation, rose so suddenly from
the table that she scattered the crumbs that she had in her apron, and
said, "Poppy couldn't go with you noway, nohow, Mister--I don't think
you've mentioned your name. Our Newfield County girls don't take up
with strangers, and besides, even if they did, Miss Gilbert, holding
what might be called a public place, has got to draw the line even
shorter!"
Gilbert, who had raised his hand deprecatingly toward his, as he
considered, too officious sister, stopped short as he caught sight of
Poppea's face, while into the other man's eyes there flashed a glare of
rage which was far less offensive than the expression it replaced.
Getting up slowly with an affected yawn of boredom, he bit the end from
a cigar, lit it without asking leave, nodded curtly to the postmaster
and, picking up his bag of papers and hat, which he put on before
reaching the door, went on his way.
"Shoo! Scat!" said Satira Potts, who, following him closely, drove away
a stray cat from the porch and scattered the remaining crumbs in her
apron on the flagging for the birds.
For a minute Gilbert and Poppea sat looking at one another, then he
said: "I wonder why that smart Aleck dropped in here just now and hung
around so? Most likely missed connections in Bridgeton for somewhere
else and thought he'd pass the time and get a dinner. He wasn't mannered
like the regular inspector that's been here for three years past. It's
too bad he riled you so, Poppy; it's likely he thought he was being
polite and pleasuring of you."
It was well for his feeling of content that Gilbert did not look back,
for when Satira Potts returned to the kitchen, Poppea, who had left the
table for the window and was looking with eyes that did not see up
through the orchard to the back garden, wheeled suddenly, and, throwing
her arms about Satira's neck, began to sob with the broken-hearted
abandon of a child.
"There, there, dearie, that skate has gone flying, so don't you care. I
sensed right off the way he was squinting at you, and if only you hadn't
been born a lady baby, and so mustn't, I could have wished you'd slapped
his face."
All that afternoon and for many days, whenever Poppea paused in her work
in the office or in the bank garden, where the flowers seeded from the
garden above ran riot and needed much restraining, the thought, "I
wonder, oh, I wonder, who sent that man here?" came to her.
One day, as the insistence of the query was beginning to pass, Miss Emmy
sent for Poppea to come up to luncheon and hear the plans for the
afternoon and evening entertainment that the Felton ladies were in the
habit of giving each year, either at rose time or at midsummer. This
year, the season being late and also the roses, the twenty-first of
June, the summer equinox, was chosen; for, as time went on, the ladies
felt less like entertaining and keeping open house in the humid July
weather, though they did not yet acknowledge it even to one another. But
at sixty and sixty-two, why should not even those to whom that form of
tyranny known as duty to society is a law relax, and prepare to spend
the afternoon of life a little more naturally?
As for Mr. Esterbrook, at threescore and ten, relaxation of any kind
would be impossible. For the last dozen years, having practically ceased
to take manly exercise, he was propped by his rigid surroundings,
courteous formalities of the old school, and clothes to such a degree,
that had he sought to escape from them, collapse would have resulted,
and it would have been as impossible to collect him as water that
suddenly rebelled against the confines of its pail.
The ladies themselves could hardly have told when the thinning iron-gray
hair had been first subtly concealed, and then replaced by a wig of its
own exact shade; nor did they know that he had abandoned billiards at
the club in favor of whist or piquet, because following the course of
the red or white balls over the vivid green cloth with eyes slow to
focus had twice given him a fit of vertigo. As for riding, Oliver
Gilbert, hip-crippled as he was, could still throw himself across the
old white horse and follow the cow to its hill pasture, while the very
thought of riding made William Esterbrook dizzy; so wide apart is the
life natural from the life artificial.
The afternoon reception, Poppea found, was to be general, the Bridgeton
band supplying outdoor music; the evening function, an affair in costume
combined of music, dancing, and a half-dozen tableaux of the seasons. To
the latter the residents of the hill and their guests, together with the
Feltons' more intimate neighborhood acquaintances, were bidden.
Before leaving home, Poppea had resolved to decline Miss Emmy's
invitation to the evening party. Hugh being away and also Jeanne
Latimer, she was not in the mood for going among strangers, as they
would largely be. Then, too, a sense of depression had hung over her of
late, as she realized for the first time that the comparative luxury and
special privileges that her contact with the Feltons had surrounded her,
were not only not hers by right, but that at any time she must become,
at least in part, the financial protector of the man who had for twenty
years protected her.
Virtually she was living under false pretences when she went to the
Feltons and mingled with their guests. As a child it had been different;
now it must stop, and the sooner the better. She did not find it easy to
carry out her resolutions at once when she found that Miss Emmy took it
for granted that she would sing half a dozen of the songs that Stephen
Latimer said few others could sing so well, either from point of
phrasing or simple pathos. Besides, Miss Emmy argued, New York friends
would be there who might help her to turn her music to account, and as
for the costume, anything dainty and summerish would do. There was a
chest full of old muslins and flowered organdies in the attic from which
Poppea could surely select something, and Nora should help her fashion
it if she herself lacked time.
Under such circumstances how could Poppea refuse those who had made
music possible, as well as given all her education, even to the final
lessons in French pronunciation that made the Creole songs fall from her
lips in such perfection. So saying to herself, "only this once," she had
gone to the attic chest in question, and selected from it a soft green
muslin with embroidered fern fronds scattered over it, a relic of the
days when skirts were six yards full and further amplified by three
flounces; then declining Nora's help, she took it home to brood over.
As she went slowly down the stairs, the muslin gathered into a hasty
bundle, Miss Emmy called to her from her morning room where she was
sealing some invitations, the social secretary not, as yet, having
become an institution. As she waited for the notes, Poppea, glancing
idly about the room, caught sight of a colored print of Gainsborough's
Mrs. Robinson as Perdita, in her pretty furbelows. This gave her an idea
that once at home she quickly put into form with scissors, thread, and
needle.
To the muslin bodice, made a trifle low, frills falling from the half
sleeves, she added an open-fronted over-skirt, which, being caught back
below the waist, gave somewhat the appearance of the print. Then, other
matters calling her, she put the dress away until the day came for the
party. By this time she had forgotten how Perdita had arranged her hair,
and she had also discovered that the even green of the muslin looked
monotonous by lamplight. Ah me, what could she do? Mrs. Shandy, being
appealed to, with true bucolic British taste could suggest nothing but
"red ribbons, and plenty of them, to liven of yourself up, Miss."
Walking about the room at a loss how to proceed, Poppea picked up the
miniature of her "little mother" as she called her to herself, that
other Poppea with the wreath of fragile summer poppies in her hair. It
had become almost a habit, this looking at the picture in moments of
perplexity either serious or trivial, as though the laughing eyes and
parted lips could in some way respond. In this instance, the reply,
though indirect, was instantaneous.
"The poppies twisted in the hair and bunched at the neck; could anything
be better!" cried Poppea, "and the garden is full of the fall sown ones,
open and in bud. Frail as they are, if I pick buds this morning and put
them in water in the bright sun, they will be open by afternoon and keep
open if I do not let them see the dark. The leaves are the color of the
muslin, only of a lighter shade. Thank you, little mother!"
As Poppea dressed that evening, taking the flowers that she had
transferred from sun to lamplight to put in her hair when she arrived,
she again turned to the miniature, talking to it as if it were a person.
"You've stayed here by yourself too long," she said; "to-night you shall
go out and whisper to the people who will hear me sing and ask them to
be kind." Slipping the chain over her head, she let the locket hang half
veiled among the folds of drapery that crossed her bosom.
There was no one but Nora in the dressing-room at the Feltons' when
Poppea looked shyly in, and, seizing the chance, dropped music and light
shawl upon a chair to arrange the flowers. They adjusted themselves
easily to her coiled hair. In a half wreath with a great bunch at the
waist, so intangible did they seem in their cloud colors of rose, pink,
salmon, and flame fading back to white, that it was impossible to
believe that they would not flutter away from their perch like
butterflies.
"Look at that now! there isn't a dress here to-night'll touch yours,
dearie," said Nora, hands raised in honest admiration. "But I mistrust
them posies not to last long, gi'n you dance too hard."
"That's precisely it, Nora," said Poppea, a mischievous smile banishing
the little pathetic droop that her lips sometimes wore, and the opal
colors flashing from the black-lashed eyes. "I must not dance, but sing
my songs and disappear, else my finery will drop away as Cinderella's
did when the clock struck."
Downstairs among the maze of faces, she saw that of Stephen Latimer, and
motioning to him that she was there when needed, Poppea glanced
wistfully across the room, slipped through one of the long windows, then
drew into the shadows where she could see and not be seen, except as the
light fell now and then upon her eager face as she leaned forward to
watch the tableaux, dreading the time when she must step before so
fashionable and critical an audience.
Evidently, she had not been as wholly unobserved as she thought, for
Miss Emmy, who had reached the veranda through another window in company
with a youngish man, came toward her, saying:--
"Ah, here she is, Bradish, keeping quiet until her own time comes. Julia
dear" (Miss Emmy often used this name in formal society), "this is Mr.
Winslow, the son of my dearest Boston friend, who wishes to meet you. It
is the first time that we have been able to lure him into the country,
and we wish him to like it. Where is your shawl, child? It is quite
breezy here, and you mustn't risk your voice. Upstairs? No, don't go; I
will tell Nora to fetch it," and as Miss Emmy flitted away, her
shimmering silver costume, with a crescent and gold stars in her fluffy
light hair still guiltless of gray, caught and held the combined lights
of moon and lamp, helping to perfect the part of "Evening" for which she
was costumed.
For a moment after she had recognized Mr. Winslow's bow, Poppea
continued looking into the room. She wished that Miss Emmy had not
introduced her to this stranger; she did not care to talk, but to remain
quiet and alone. Then making an effort, she turned toward him to put the
orthodox query as to what character he represented, when before the
sentence was half framed, she realized that he wore conventional evening
dress, and her air of embarrassment turned to a smile when she saw the
half quizzical, half satirical expression of his cleanly shaven face.
"Confess that you not only did not look at me, but that you are rather
vexed at either being obliged to do so now or be rude," he said, placing
a chair with a dexterous turn of the wrist in the exact spot where she
could continue to look at the tableaux and yet be seated.
"I'm afraid that you are right, and yet I will not allow that I was even
almost rude to one of the Aunties' friends. It is this way; I am to sing
to-night before all these men and women from the city who know what
music means; I have only sung before here in the church for Mr. Latimer
or at some little musicals at Bridgeton. If I had to go into the room
now and be shut in among them all, I should simply run away. So I came
out here to find myself, and when Miss Emmy spoke your name, I was so
far away that I do not think I heard it. Pray forgive me." Something
about the direct simplicity of her excuse touched a new chord in
Winslow's perfectly controlled nature. This was not the simpering,
self-satisfied young woman of the small towns who usually, when taking
part in amateur social functions, keeps well in the limelight.
He drew up a second chair, saying quietly: "I understand so well that I
will either go away or stay and play watch-dog; which do you prefer? I
see two callow youths in there who are looking toward this window as
their only loophole of escape, but they will not come until I go."
"Then please stay," said Poppea, with a shimmer of a laugh, soothed into
perfect tranquillity by the self-possession of her companion,--a
condition that caused her much wonder when she afterward analyzed it.
Much clapping of hands announced the completion of the first group of
pictures, and the stringed quartet struck up a Strauss waltz, to the
compelling measure of which Poppea's fingers, hanging over the back of
the chair, tapped time.
"Are you fond of dancing?"
"Yes and no; there are times when it seems as if I must dance, but I do
not believe that I could ever dance to order."
"I have seen you somewhere before, but very long ago," he said abruptly.
"Yes, I remember your face. I have been thinking and thinking when and
where. Ah! now I have it!" Poppea exclaimed, flushing deeply, so that
even in the moonlight it rivalled the color of the flowers in her hair.
"Do you remember once calling upon the Felton ladies in New York one
afternoon and finding a half-wild girl dancing before the parlor
mirror?"
"By Jove! that's it, and you were the little girl! I can see it all
perfectly. I should judge that it was one of the times that you danced
because you must, was it not?"
"Oh, yes, the windows were so heavy that they would not open, and the
carpets so thick they held my feet, and I began to feel as though I were
in prison and should never get out, and so I danced to be sure that I
was alive."
"Do you know what I said to myself as you slid away behind the heavy
stair guards?"
"Probably that you wondered why the Feltons harbored such a barbarian."
"No, that I wished that I might meet you again six or seven years hence;
and you see I have my wish."
Noticing that Poppea seemed once more inclined to withdraw into herself,
Winslow dropped the personal tone that he had been forcing into the
conversation and sought more neutral ground in his next venture.
"If, as I understand, you have lived about here all your life, you can
give me some help in a little matter of business, that, combined with
pleasure, brought me here. I suppose, of course, that you know every
resident in the town?"
"Most surely, as well as almost every one who comes to or goes through
it;" Poppea was going to add, "because all news comes to the
post-office," but a sudden influence caused her to suppress the last
sentence.
"Very good, now I will explain my errand, if you have the patience to
listen, and I have confidence in asking that what I say will go no
further, because the matter concerns others rather than myself."
Poppea, nodding her head in assent, leaned forward, her lips slightly
parted in an attitude of undivided attention.
"A cousin of mine, a young New Yorker, who is working his way into
politics _via_ being secretary to the postmaster-general, was intrusted
to look up a matter in this vicinity during a week of vacation. Meeting
me at the club a couple of days ago and finding I was coming here, he
asked me to help him out by doing the investigating and letting him
spend his time in town.
"It seems that Postmaster Gilbert, here at Harley's Mills, is getting
rather old and doddering, and has for his assistant a young woman, a
foundling or something, that he has brought up. Complaints have been
coming in for the past year of the conduct of the office from a man who
is not only a prominent resident here, but one who has strong political
influence both in New York and Washington."
Poppea straightened herself, opened her lips to speak, but no sound
came; meanwhile Winslow, intent upon reciting the story word for word as
he had had it from his cousin, paid no heed.
"Under ordinary circumstances a change would possibly have been made on
the matter of age, but as the complainant is known to be a man of
violent prejudices and the appointment was one of the few now existing
made by Lincoln himself, extra trouble was taken in the matter.
Examinations showed the accounts to be all straight, and there the
affair halted on both sides.
"A month ago new complaints came from the same source in a different
key; the young woman, called by the fantastic name of Poppea, it seems,
was causing trouble among the youths of the town, and the complainant
did not hesitate to call her a dangerous adventuress. A special sent to
cast his eye over the ground brought back an unsatisfactory and garbled
account. Now my point is, can you from an outside and perhaps kinder
point of view set me straight upon this matter?"
It seemed to the woman sitting opposite that she had lived a lifetime
while Winslow was speaking; shame and courage, despair and pride, were
all struggling for the mastery, and courage, with the chance for
justification, won.
"Yes, I know them both, the postmaster and his daughter, as well as John
Angus, the man who has complained."
"Then his dislike is public property?"
"Most assuredly; he has harried Oliver Gilbert for years because he
would not sell him his homestead to round out his own land."
"Very good, a motive proven; that settles one point," said Winslow,
with legal brevity. "Now how about the girl?"
"That is--not, cannot be told in so few words," said Poppea, nerving
herself with a visible effort. "It is true that she was a foundling left
in a storm upon Oliver Gilbert's porch. He took her in for the sake of
his dead wife and baby Marygold. Then he grew to love her until he quite
forgot she was not his own, and she thought all the world of 'Daddy,' as
she had learned to call him. By and by as he grew older she naturally
helped him in the office until, as the business grew and she became of
age, she was appointed his assistant.
"She tried, oh, so hard, to work steadily and not forget her place, but
she could not help the fact that John Angus's son, a couple of years
younger and a cripple, who had no one to be kind to him, liked to talk
to her. She couldn't help being glad to find some one to help make up
for the sisters and brothers she had never known, for all the real kin
she had was an ivory miniature of a young woman with a wreath of poppies
in her hair, that hung about her neck on a gold chain the night she came
to Gilbert's. There was one word engraved upon the locket, 'Poppea' and
a date, '1850.' So they two practised singing together with Mr. Latimer
down at St. Luke's, Philip and she, and he made a bust of her, for he is
studying to be a sculptor. But John Angus did not understand, and though
no one but himself knows what he thought, it is bringing evil to Poppea,
for the last man they sent from Washington dared to insult her. Yet all
she asks is to be let work for her Daddy until his quarter century is
out and he resigns; for it would kill him if he thought that any one
could say anything against him or his that could take away the trust
that Lincoln gave him."
Poppea stopped, her hands twisting at a flower that had fallen to her
lap, and then looked quietly at Winslow as though waiting for his
answer. As for him, he was completely taken out of himself and his
acquired stoicism in regard to all things feminine. The spectacle of the
beautiful young woman pleading the cause with such unconscious dignity
swept him from his feet and made him feel until he tingled.
"Well?" she queried at last.
"You have made it as plain as if I had seen the whole business myself,
and I'm no end grateful for the trouble you've taken. This meeting seems
to have been quite providential for the post-office family; all I need
do is to take a look at them to-morrow and leave. Let me think quickly;
there is so much more I wanted to say to you. I see the musical dominie
coming our way, and they are drawing the curtains on the last tableau."
"Yes, it _was_ providential your coming, but there is one thing more to
be said, and I must say it before you go to the office to-morrow. Look
at this," and bending toward him, she held out the locket on its chain
that had lain concealed in the folds of her waist, pressing the spring
that opened it as she did so.
Winslow looked and then grew bewildered.
"Read," she said. "'Poppea, 1850.'"
"Then you are--Impossible!"
"Poppea of the post-office, whom you have heard accused, and have tried,
and, I hope, acquitted for her Daddy's sake." But the eyes that she
turned so bravely to meet his reassuring ones were full of tears that
could not be recalled.
"What a brute I have been," he said, standing with bent head.
Then Stephen Latimer came to lead her in.
"You will dance with me or at least speak to me afterward?" Winslow
managed to ask, instinctively expecting refusal after the ordeal she had
gone through.
"This is one of the nights I could not dance; in fact, I doubt if I ever
shall again."
Winslow sought out the darkest corner of the porch, where he was yet
within sound of her voice. Lighting a cigar, he gave himself over to an
uninterrupted train of musing, while those within who missed him thought
him merely escaping them after the manner of a man of the world, who,
having been courted for a decade by maids, wives, and widows, prefers
his own society.
After the final applause, which was unusually long and loud for such an
audience, had ceased, Winslow threaded his way rapidly through the rooms
in search of _Incognita_, as he called her to himself, but she was
nowhere to be found.
"The excitement of her success was too much for the dear child," said
Miss Emmy, taking his arm and switching him in the direction where he
cared least to go.
"I've sent Nora home with her in the coupé, for she looked really
overdone. Don't be so disappointed; you can go and inquire for her
to-morrow."
When Winslow broke away from his hostess at last, he wondered what had
happened to him. He had intended leaving in the morning if he had
completed his inquiry. Well, he would sleep on it; some impressions lose
their color the next day. But in the morning he resolved to telegraph
his cousin and put off going at least until another to-morrow.