People of the Whirlpool Part 2

No; I pulled you out of an old Broadway stage that had lost a wheel and keeled over into a pile of snow opposite father's office, when you were practically standing on your head. You didn't fuss, and I got to know you better in five minutes than any one could in five years of this rotten fuss and feathers.'

"'That was purely accidental, and I wish you wouldn't mention it so often,' said Cordelia, flushing; and so the conversation, at first playful, gradually working toward a painful dispute, went on, until my faithful Lucy came to escort me home, without our having our game of whist, that excuse for intelligent and silent companionship."

"January 25th.

"I dwelt on that little dinner episode, my dear Barbara, because in it you will find an answer to several questions I read between your lines.

Since my return I find that practically all my old friends have flown to what Archie Martin called 'a different roost,' or else failing, or having no desire so to do, have left the city altogether, leaving me very lonely. Not only those with daughters to bring out, but many of my spinster contemporaries are listed with the buds at b.a.l.l.s and dinner dances, and their gowns and jewels described. Ah, what a fatal memory for ages one has in regard to schoolmates! Josephine Ponsonby was but one cla.s.s behind us, and she is dancing away yet.

"The middle-aged French women who now, as always, hold their own in public life have better tact, and make the cultivation of some intellectual quality or political scheme at least the excuse for holding their salons, and not the mere excuse of rivalry in money spending.

"I find the very vocabulary altered--for _rest_ read _change_, for _sleep_ read _stimulation_, etc, _ad infin_.

"Born a clergyman's daughter of the old regime, I was always obliged to be more conservative than was really natural to my temperament; even so, I find myself at middle life with comfortable means (owing to that bit of rock and mud of grandma's on the old Bloomingdale road that father persistently kept through thick and thin), either obliged to compromise myself, alter my dress and habits, go to luncheons where the prelude is a c.o.c.ktail, and the after entertainment to play cards for money, contract bronchitis by buzzing at afternoon teas, make a vocation of charity, or--stay by myself,--these being the only forms of amus.e.m.e.nt left open, and none offering the intimate form of social intercourse I need.

"I did mission schools and parish visiting pretty thoroughly and conscientiously during forty years of my life,--on my return an ecclesiastical, also, as well as a social shock awaited me. St. Jacob's has been made a free church, and my special department has been given in charge of two newly adopted Deaconesses, 'both for the betterment of parish work and reaching of the poor.' So be it, but Heaven help those who are neither rich nor poor enough to be of consequence and yet are spiritually hungry.

"The church system is necessarily reduced to mathematics. The rector has office hours, so have the curates, and they will 'cheerfully come in response to any call.' It was pleasant to have one's pastor drop in now and then in a sympathetic sort of way, pleasant to have a chance to ask his advice without formally sending for him as if you wished to be prayed over! But everything has grown so big and mechanical that there is not time. The clergy in many high places are emanc.i.p.ating themselves from the Bible and preaching politics, history, fiction, local sensation, and what not, or lauding in print the moral qualities of a drama in which the friendship between Mary Magdalene and Judas Iscariot is dwelt on and the latter adjudged a patriot. I don't like it, and I don't like hurrying to church that I may secure my seat in the corner of our once family pew, where as a child I loved to think that the light that shone across my face from a particular star in one of the stained-gla.s.s windows was a special message to me. It all hurts, and I do not deny that I am bitter.

Those in charge of gathering in new souls should take heed how they ignore or trample on the old crop!

"So I attend to my household duties, marketing, take my exercise, and keep up my French and German; but when evening comes, no one rings the bell except some intoxicated person looking for one of the lodging houses opposite, and the silence is positively asphyxiating--if they would only play an accordion in the kitchen I should be grateful. I'm really thinking of offering the maids a piano and refreshments if they will give an 'at home' once a week, as the only men in the neighbourhood seem to be the butchers and grocery clerks and the police. There is an inordinate banging going on in the rear of the house, and I must break off to see what it _is_."

"January 3th.

"MY DEAR CHILD:--

"Your second question, regarding visiting you the coming season, was answering itself the other day when I was writing. Life here, except in winter, is becoming impossible to me. I have lost not only Josephus, but my back yard! The stable where they keep the pigeons has changed hands.

Yes, you were right,--he did haunt the place, the postman says; and I suppose they did not understand that he was merely playful, and not hungry, or who he was, else maybe he was too careless about sitting on the side fence by the street. I _could_ replace Josephus, but not the yard,--there are no more back yards to be had; their decadence is complete. I've closed my eyes for years to the ash heap my neighbour on the right kept in hers; also to the cast-off teeth that came over from the 'painless' dentist's on the left.

"When the great tenement flat ran up on the north, where I could, not so long ago, see the masts of the shipping in the Hudson, I sighed, and prayed that the tins and bottles that I gathered up each morning might not single me out when I was tying up my vines in the moonlight of early summer nights.

"Josephus resented these missiles, however, and his foolish habit of sitting on the low side fence under the ailantus tree then began. Next, I was obliged to give up growing roses, because, as you know, they are fresh-air lovers; and so much air and light was cut off by the high building that they yielded only leaves and worms. Still I struggled, and adapted myself to new conditions, and grew more of the stronger summer bedding plants.

"Five days ago I heard a banging and pounding. Only that morning Lucy had been told that the low, rambling carpenter's shop, that occupied a double lot along the 'street to the southwest, had been sold, and we anxiously waited developments. We were spared long suspense; for, on hearing the noise, and going to the little tea-room extension where I keep my winter plants, I saw a horde of men rapidly demolishing the shop, under directions of a superintendent, who was absolutely sitting on top of my honeysuckle trellis. After swallowing six times,--a trick father once taught me to cure explosive speech,--I went down and asked him if he could tell me to what use the lot was to be put. He replied: 'My job is only to clean it up; but the plans call for a twelve-story structure,--warehouse, I guess. But you needn't fret; it's to be fireproof.'

"'Fireproof! What do I care?' I cried, gazing around my poor garden--or rather I must have fairly snorted, for he looked down quickly and took in the situation at a glance, gave a whistle and added: 'I see, you'll be planted in; but, marm, that's what's got to happen in a pushing city--it don't stop even for graveyards, but just plants 'em in.'

"My afternoon sun gone. Not for one minute in the day will its light rest on my garden, and _finis_ is already written on it, and I see it an arid mud bank. I wonder if you can realize, you open-air Barbara, with your garden and fields and all s.p.a.ce around you, how a city-bred woman, to whom crowds are more vital than nature, still loves her back yard. I had a c.o.c.kney nature calendar planted in mine, that began with a bunch of snowdrops, ran through hot poppy days, and ended in a glow of chrysanthemums, but all the while I worked among these I felt the breath of civilization about me and the solid pavement under my feet.

"I believe that every woman primarily has concealed in the three rounded corners of her heart, waiting development, love of home, love of children, and love of nature, and my nature love has yet only developed to the size of a back yard.

"Yes, I will come to visit you at Oaklands gladly, though it's a poor compliment under the circ.u.mstances. The mother of twins should be gone _to_; but tremble! you may never get rid of me, for I may supplant Martha Corkle, the miraculous, in spoiling the boys."

"February 1st.

"One more question to answer and this budget of letters will go to the post with at least four stamps on it, for since you have yoked me to a stub pen and begged me not to criss-cross the sheets, my bills for stamps and stationery have increased.

"Sylvia Latham _is_ the daughter of your Bluff people. Her father's name is Sylvester Johns Latham, and he is a Wall Street broker and promoter, with a deal of money, and ability for pulling the wires, but not much liked socially, I should judge,--that is, outside of a certain commercial group.

"Mrs. Latham was, at the time of her marriage, a pretty southern girl, Vivian Carhart, with only a face for a fortune. In a way she is a beautiful woman now, has quite a social following, a gift for entertaining, and, I judge, unbounded vanity and ambition.

"Quite recently some apparently valueless western land, belonging to her people, has developed fabulous ore, and they say that she is now more opulent than her husband.

"They were pewholders at St. Jacob's for many years, until three seasons ago, when they moved from a side street near Washington Square to 'Millionaire Row,' on the east side of the Park. There are two children, Sylvia, the younger, and a son, Carhart, a fine-looking blond fellow when I knew him, but who got into some bad sc.r.a.pe the year after he left college,--a gambling debt, I think, that his father repudiated, and sent him to try ranch life in the West. There was a good deal of talk at the time, and it was said that the boy fell into bad company at his mother's own card table, and that it has caused a chilliness between Mr. and Mrs. Latham.

"However it may be, Sylvia, who is an unspoiled girl of the frank and intellectual type, tall, and radiant with warm-hearted health, was kept much away at boarding-school for three years, and then went to college for a special two years' course in literature. She had barely returned home when her mother, hearing that I was going abroad, asked me to take Sylvia with me, as she was deficient in languages, which would be a drawback to her social career.

"It seemed a trifle strange to me, as she was then nineteen, an age when most girls of her cla.s.s are brought out, and had been away for practically five years. But I took her gladly, and she has been a most lovable companion and friend. She called me Aunt, to overcome the formal Miss, and I wish she were my daughter. I'm only wondering if her high, unworldly standpoint, absorbed from wise teachers, and the halo that she has constructed from imagination and desire about her parents during the years of her separation from them, will not embarra.s.s them a little, now that she is at home for good.

"By the way, we met in England last spring a young sub-professor, Horace Bradford, a most unusual young man for nowadays, but of old New England stock. He was one of Sylvia's literature instructors at Rockcliffe College, and he joined our party during the month we spent in the Shakespeare country. It was his first trip, and, I take it, earned by great self-sacrifice; and his scholarly yet boyish enthusiasm added hugely to our enjoyment.

"He spoke constantly of his mother. Do you know her? She lives on the old place, which was a farm of the better cla.s.s, I take it, his father having been the local judge, tax collector, and general consulting factotum of his county. It is at Pine Ridge Centre, which, if I remember rightly, is not far from your town. I should like you to know him.

"I have only seen Sylvia twice since our return, but she lunches with me to-morrow. You and she should be fast friends, for she is of your ilk; and if this happens, I shall not regret the advent of the Whirlpool Colony in your beloved Oaklands as much as I do now.

"I am really beginning to look forward to my country visit, and am glad to see that some 'advance season' tops are spinning on the pavement in front of the house, and a game of marbles is in progress in my front yard itself, safe from the annoying skirts of pa.s.sers-by. For you should know, dear Madam Pan, that marbles and tops are the city's first spring sign.

"By the way, I am sure that Horace Bradford and Sylvia are keeping up a literary correspondence. They are perfectly suited to each other for any and every grade of friendship, yet from her family standpoint no one could be more unwelcome. He has no social backing; his mother is a religious little country woman, who doubtless says 'riz' and 'reckon,'

and he only has what he can earn by mental effort. But this is neither here nor there, and I'm sure you and I will have an interesting summer croon in spite of your qualms and resentment of the moneyed invasion.--Not another word, Lucy is waiting to take this to the post-box.

"Yours faithfully,

"LAVINIA DORMAN.

"P. S.--Josephus has just come back! Lean, and singed by hot ashes, I judge. I dread the shock to him when he knows about the yard!"

III

MARTIN CORTRIGHT'S LETTERS TO BARBARA AND DOCTOR RICHARD RUSSELL

"December 10, 19--.

"MY DEAR BARBARA:--

"You have often asked me to write you something of myself, my youth, but where shall I begin?

"I sometimes think that I must have been born facing backward, and a fatality has kept me walking in that direction ever since, so wide a s.p.a.ce there seems to be to-day between myself and those whose age shows them to be my contemporaries.

"My father, being a man of solid position both in commerce and society, and having a far greater admiration for men of art and letters than would have been tolerated by his wholly commercial Knickerbocker forbears, I, his youngest child and only son, grew up to man's estate among the set of contemporaries that formed his world, men of literary and social parts, whose like I may safely say, for none will contradict, are unknown to the rising generation of New Yorkers; for not only have types changed, but also the circ.u.mstances and appreciations under which the development of those types was possible.