Читать книгу People Like That - Kate Langley Bosher - Страница 4

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Kitty came to see me yesterday. Her mortification at my living in Scarborough Square is poignant. Not since she learned of my doing so has her amazement, her incredulity, her indignation and resentment, lessened in the least, but her curiosity is great and her affection sincere, and yesterday she yielded to both.

She was on her wedding journey when I left the house in which for many years we had lived together, and, knowing it would spoil her trip did I tell of what I had done, I did not tell. Two days ago she got back, and over the telephone I gave her my new address.

"But I can't understand—" During most of her visit Kitty was crying. She cries easily and well. "I can't take it in, can't even glimpse why you want to live in such a horrid old place. It's awful!"

"Oh no, it isn't. It's a very nice place. Look how the sun comes through those little panes of glass in those deep windows and chirps all over the floor. I never knew before how much company sunshine could be; how many different things it could do, until I came to Scarborough Square. This is a very interesting place, Kitty."

"It's fearful!" Kitty shuddered. "The sun shines much better on the Avenue, and you might as well be dead as live in this part of the town. When people ask me where you are I'm—"

"Ashamed to tell them?" I laughed. "Don't tell them, if the telling mortifies you. Those who object to visiting me in my new home will soon forget I'm living. Those to whom it does not matter where I live will find where I am without asking you. I wouldn't bother."

"But what must I say when people ask me why you've come down here? why you've made this awful change from living among the best people to living among these—I don't know what they are. Nobody knows."

"They are perfectly good people." I took a pin out of Kitty's hat and tried the latter at a different angle. "The man on the corner is named Crimm. He's a policeman. The girl next door makes cigarettes, and her friend around the corner works at the Nottingham Overall factory. The cigarette-girl has a beau who walks home with her every evening. He's delicate and can't take a job indoors. Just at present he's an assistant to the keeper of Cherry Hill Park."

Kitty stared at me as if not sure she heard aright. The tears in her big blue eyes disappeared and into them came incredulity. "Do you know them—the cigarette-girl, and the overall-girl, and the policeman?" Her voice was thin with dismay and unbelief. "Do you really know people like that?"

"I do." I laughed in the puzzled and protesting face, kissed it. "To every sort of people other people not of their sort are 'people like that.' Our customs and characteristics and habits of thought and manner of life separate us into our particular groups, but in many ways all people are dreadfully alike, Kitty. To the little cigarette-girl you're a 'person like that.' Did you ever wonder what she thought of you?"

"Why should I wonder? It doesn't matter what she thinks. I don't know her, never will know her. I can't understand why you want to know her, to know people who—"

"I want to know all sorts of people." Again I tilted Kitty's hat, held her off so as to get a better effect. "You see, I've wondered sometimes what they thought of us—these people who haven't had our chance. Points of view always interest me."

"What difference does it make what they think? You're the queerest person I've ever known! You aren't very religious. You never did go to church as much as I did. Are you going in for slums?"

"I am not. I wouldn't be a success at slumming. I'm not going in for anything except—"

"Except what?"

"My dear Kitty," I picked up the handkerchief she had dropped and put it on the table, "I wouldn't try to understand, if I were you, why people do things. Usually it's because they have to, or because they want to, and occasionally there are other reasons. I used to wonder, for instance, why certain people married each other. Often now, as I watch husbands and wives together, I still wonder if, unmarried, they would select each other again. I suppose you went to the Bertrands' dinner-dance last night?"

"I went, but I wish I hadn't. Billy didn't want to go, and we came away as soon as we could. Everybody asked about you. I haven't seen any one yet who doesn't think it very strange that you won't live with me. That beautiful little Marie Antoinette suite on the third floor is all fixed for you, and you could use the automobiles as much as you choose. It's wicked and cruel in you to do like this and not live with me. It looks so—"

"Peculiar." I nodded in the eyes as blue as a baby's. "But a person who isn't peculiar isn't much of a person. You see, I don't care for things which are already fixed for me. I like to do my own fixing. And I don't want to live in anybody else's home, not even yours, though you are dear to want me. I am grateful, but I prefer to live here. My present income would make an undignified affair of life among the friends of other days. I'd feel continually as if I were overboard and holding on to a slippery plank. Down here I'm independent. I have enough for my needs and something to give—. That's a good-looking hat you have on. Did you get it in Paris?"

Kitty shook her head. "New York." Otherwise she ignored my question. Hats usually interested her. She talked well concerning them, but to-day she would not be diverted from more insistent subjects.

"It must have cost a good deal to fix up this old house. Anywhere else it would look very well." Her eyes were missing no detail. "You'd make a pig-sty pretty, but it takes money—"

"Everything takes money. I sold two or three pieces of Aunt Matilda's jewelry for enough to put the house in order. She expected me to sell what I did not wish to keep. In her will was a note to that effect."

"She had more jewelry than any human being I ever saw." Into Kitty's face came dawning understanding. "It was the only way she could leave you any of—"

"Your father's money," I nodded. "Not until after her death did I understand why she used to take all of your father's gifts in jewelry. I know now."

"It was a good investment. I wish she'd bought twice as much. She had so little else to leave you," Kitty was looking at me speculatively. "How on earth are you going to live on a thousand dollars a year? Our servants cost us twice that. Billy says it's awful, but—"

"It is if you can't afford it. You can. I believe all people ought to spend every dollar they can afford, and not a cent they can't. That's what I do. Aunt Matilda thought I was impractical, but I'm fearfully prudent. I live within my income and I've deposited with a trust company, so I can't spend it, a sum of money quite large enough to care for me through a spell of illness in the greediest of hospitals, if I should be ill. And if I should die I'm prepared for all expenses. It's a mistake to think I don't look ahead. I thought once of having a stone put up in the cemetery so as to be sure I had not forgotten anything, but I guess that can wait."

Kitty, still staring at me, got up. "I never expect to understand you. Neither does father. He's mortified to death about your coming down here to live. He knows people are talking; so do I; and we don't know what to say."

"Oh, people always talk! And don't say anything. No one escapes criticism. It's human pastime to indulge in it. To prefer Scarborough Square to the Avenue may be queer, but at present I do prefer it. That's why I'm here. You can say that if you choose."

"You've got no business preferring it." Kitty snapped the buttons of her glove with tearful emphasis. "Mrs. Jamieson said last night that a person with eyes and eyelashes like yours had no right to live as you are living, with just an old woman to do things for you. She came down to see why you were here, but you wouldn't tell her. She can't understand any more than I can."

I kissed Kitty good-by, but I did not try to make her understand. I no longer try to make people understand things. Many of them can't. Kitty is a dear child, adorably blue-eyed and pink-cheeked, and possessed of an amount of worldly wisdom that is always amazing and at times distressing, but much that interests me has, so far, never interested her. Refusing to study, she has little education, but she has traveled a good deal, speaks excellent French, dances perfectly, dresses admirably, and has charming manners when she wishes. I love her very much, but I no longer feel it is my duty to live with her.

I am not living in Scarborough Square because I feel it is my duty to live here. Thank Heaven, I don't have to tell any one why I am here!