Читать книгу The Tenants: An Episode of the '80s - Mary S. Watts - Страница 5

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Mrs. Peters died rather suddenly the spring of the Centennial year. That, or the fact that hers was the first funeral I ever went to, has served to fix the date in my memory. Gwynne, who would be seventeen his next birthday, came home from college; Sam came home too, of course, but not from college. He never showed much aptitude for learning, nor stayed longer than six months in any of the numerous schools to which he was sent one after another. At the time of his mother's death he was away on a fishing-trip in Canada, they said. The boys came home, there was a gathering of the Gwynne clan; that sombre south parlour, dedicated to such ceremonies, was once more opened, the white covers came off the chairs, revealing them stark and stiff bluish rosewood and black horsehair. Otherwise the house seemed nowise different; it was never a cheerful place. We drove out to the funeral with Mrs. Oldham, who could not afford either to own or hire a carriage herself, and was always benevolently remembered by her friends on these occasions. In spite of, or it may be, because of a gift she had of rich and spicy talk, Mrs. Oldham was one of the people whom no one ever forgets or overlooks.

"Harriet Peters would be alive this minute," she remarked "if it hadn't been for Caroline. Taking care of Caroline just about killed Harriet. Think of having to live with that in the house all the time! I do think the Gwynnes are too funny; anybody else, any other set of people under the sun would have sent Caroline to an institution long ago. All these years they've talked about 'poor Carrie,' and made believe she was just an ordinary invalid, when everybody knew, and they knew they knew that she's as crazy as a loon." "Oh, no, she isn't that, you know, Kate," said my grandmother mildly. "She's just melancholy." "Fiddle-de-dee, what's the difference? She's as crazy as Arthur; they're all queer, you know it. The Peters boy, Sam, you know, is queer; Clara Vardaman told me so, she's known those children ever since they were born. What do you suppose they'll do with Caroline now? There's nobody left, particularly, to look after her; for all their sniffing around about 'poor Carrie,' they'll none of 'em take her, you'll see. I suppose Governor Gwynne's will must have made some provision for her—but then, nobody expected her to outlive all the others. People like that always live forever somehow." Here, as we passed another carriage, Mrs. Oldham's face, which had been wearing a very bright and lively expression, suddenly darkened to one of decent sadness, touched with satisfaction—that expression sacred to the sympathetic friends who gather about at funerals. We have all seen it, and, I dare say, worn it ourselves, more than once. Mrs. Oldham bowed gravely to the other vehicle, and immediately upon its passage, turned to my grandmother with a lightning vivacity. "That was Lulu Gwynne—Lulu Stevens, you know," she said. "How old she's beginning to look, isn't she?"

I remember listening to Mrs. Oldham with a shocked wonder; she would not greatly surprise nor offend me nowadays, I am afraid. I have gone a long way and witnessed funerals a-many since that day, and I have learned to know that she was no indifferent scoffer, but in her way, a good-hearted enough woman. She even cried a little at the funeral, perhaps recalling old times when she and Harriet were girls together; I thought her, so unsparing is youth, a hideous hypocrite—yet I cried heartily myself, although I did not care in the least for poor Mrs. Peters! But who, indeed, young or old, is not somewhat moved by the brave and sad and beautiful words of the Service? From my place I could look across at Gwynne sitting quietly with a weeping female Gwynne on either hand, and marvelled that he shed no tears. He stared sternly ahead; and I caught myself with shame noting that he seemed stronger, and was plainly outgrowing his clothes; his wrists stuck out distressingly, his feet were too large. And Sam—was Sam "queer"? He did nothing "queer" at the funeral at any rate. Doctor Vardaman was one of the pall-bearers. We all came away as cheerfully as if it had been a wedding, it seemed to my severe young mind; I did not know that everyone is always cheerful coming away from a funeral. The carriages trot; the hearse-driver pulls up at a wayside watering-trough; he is a merciful man and merciful to his beasts; by a remarkable coincidence there is a road-house somewhere in the background, whence he presently issues, and resumes the reins, wiping his mouth. He hails a friend: "Hi, Joe, want to ride?" "Don't care if I do." The pall-bearers exchange cigars and smoke in their carriage. There is a gentle rain beginning to fall; the shadows lengthen; people comment on the fact that the cemetery is a long, tiresome ride from town. And as we roll along, Mrs. Oldham enlivens the journey by sprightly guesses at what on earth will be done with all the things in the old Gwynne house.

She would probably have keenly appreciated my opportunities; for, being asked out to stay with Miss Vardaman—who, innocent old schemer that she was, undoubtedly had certain sentimental ends in view, regarding Gwynne and me—at about this time, I was a rather shy and reluctant witness to what Doctor Vardaman grimly denominated the division of the spoils. There was so much coming and going of Gwynnes visible from Miss Clara's sitting-room windows that that simple spinster, who passed her life in a monotony of neat and even pretty little duties, became feverishly excited. She forgot the canary, neglected the doctor's socks, let the rubber-plant in the dining-room languish for want of water while she gazed and speculated. It is true that on one occasion Miss Clara retreated from her conning-tower with a scared, serious face, and asked me, fluttering a little, please to lower the shade. "We oughtn't to seem to be staring, or to notice at all—it's awful—awful!" she said incoherently, and kept to the other side of the house the rest of the afternoon. A closed carriage drove into the park, and after a space, drove out again—that was all. But I knew they were taking poor Caroline Gwynne to "the place where they put mad people," that Sam had promised her so long ago. We wondered under our breaths whether it was Sam who had ordered it; whether the two boys had agreed or quarrelled; and what the other Gwynnes had said or done. The unspeakable isolation of insanity that converts a human being into a kind of dreadful chattel hung about Caroline; we did not dare to ask a question. Doctor Vardaman knew all about it, but—"I'm afraid to say anything to John," whispered Miss Clara. "He wouldn't tell anyhow, you know. Doctors never do. Poor Carrie! I knew her when we were both young, before—you know. But she never was quite like other girls. Poor Carrie! It's thirty years——"

By the next day, however, Miss Clara had recovered spirits and interest; and when a furniture-van slouched up Richmond Avenue, and turned in between the old brick pillars at the entrance to the park, she could contain herself no longer. "Mary, come here, do look—you don't seem to notice anything. That's Zimmermann's wagon, I know it, and I do believe that's young Charlie Gwynne, Horace's Charlie, you know, the little one, not Gilbert's Charlie, he's at Harvard, on the seat telling the driver where to go. Nobody ever knows the way out here. Now isn't that like Jennie Gwynne? She does just love to boss and manage everybody. I knew something was up when I saw her coming out every day—she's not so devoted to the boys as all that, you may be sure. She just wants to tell 'em what to do and how to do it, and which, and where, and when, and why—some people beat everything. Not but what Jennie is a good manager, I'll say that for her. I suppose they're going to divide the things—well, of course, they've got to be divided, but I do wonder if poor Gwynne will get anything worth having. The boy's so gentle and quiet, he won't ever think of speaking up, and saying, 'I ought to have that, Cousin Jennie.' It would be just like her to—there goes another wagon. Well, will you look? It's one of those nasty, dirty people, those Bulgarians that keep the second-hand shops down on Scioto Street—well, if that doesn't pass everything! The idea of selling anything out of Governor Gwynne's house to those people—Bulgarians! It's enough to make him turn in his grave."

The doctor, who was a very tall, lean man, laid down his book, arose, and gravely looked over his sister's head, out of the window at the procession.

"I don't think that's a Bulgarian, Clara," he observed solemnly.

"What, it isn't? Well, John Vardaman, your eyes are failing, that's all! There, I can see the name on his ramshackle old cart. Am—Am—Amirkhanian—there, now, what do you think of that?"

"I think he's an Armenian," said the doctor, with no abatement of his gravity. "I think they're all Armenians—Armenian Jews——"

"Oh, well, tease if you want to! Armenians or Bulgarians it's all one; those countries where the men wear petticoats, and everybody drinks sour milk—horrid! The idea of Jennie Gwynne clearing out the house for them! I don't see how the others can let her run things that way; I don't believe she knows anything about it. Do you suppose she has ever heard that those blue India-ware plant-tubs, those great big elegant things were intended to be given to Lucien's wife? Harriet herself told me she had found a memorandum of it in her father's desk."

"Well, she can't very well sell 'em to the Armenians," said Doctor Vardaman, with an air of profound consideration. "No Armenian that ever lived would want to drink his sour milk out of a plant-tub. And besides they have holes in the bottom, and he couldn't!"

"Oh, you may talk, John, but it's important for somebody to remember all these things. Jennie Hunter—Jennie Gwynne, I mean, ought to be told that somebody besides those two forlorn helpless boys knows about it, and she can't have everything her own way——"

"Better not interfere, Clara," said the doctor, really serious this time. And Miss Clara who knew very well herself that she ought not to interfere, was silenced for a while. All the morning she seethed, watching one van after another trudge away from the house, laden, apparently, with old mattresses, stove-pipes, and table-legs; for, such is the irony of circumstance, that, let a house be ever so richly supplied otherwise, these useful and universal but singularly uncomely articles always occupy the positions of most prominence on a furniture-wagon. Their view fed without appeasing the fire of Miss Clara's curiosity; she exhausted herself in conjecture. And Doctor Vardaman had not been gone half an hour on his afternoon's round of visits when she called me excitedly.

"Get your hat and coat; I'm going up there right away. You can't tell what Jennie Gwynne may be doing. I saw something sticking out of the back of the last wagon, and I won't be positive, of course, but it looked very much like the top of one of the mahogany posts to that big four-post bed in Harriet's room; they are solid mahogany, you know, Mary, carved all the way up with a kind of pineapple-shaped thing on the top. If Jennie Gwynne's gone and given away that bed that was poor Gwynne's own mother's, I just won't stand it, that's all! She won't stop till she's stripped the boys perfectly bare. What's that? Maybe it's being sent to storage? Oh, pshaw, she'd never do that, it's too handsome! For a minute I thought it was the bed in the spare-room, but I remember now that has helmets carved on top of the posts, not pineapples. Is my bonnet straight? You know, of course, Mary, I don't think Jennie would do anything dishonest," she added hastily, her kind old face suddenly perturbed. "I wouldn't for the world have you think I meant that. But she's always run everything and everybody. I don't believe Horace Gwynne dares to say his soul's his own—why, you know that, you've been there. Jennie just can't help it—she's always perfectly sure she's right, and she never will listen to anybody, or consider anybody else's opinion worth anything."

It occurred to me that, in that case, there was not much use of Miss Clara's rushing in with remonstrances, where much more angelically-minded persons than she might well have feared to tread; the Gwynnes were not a family to brook outside interference. But, being brought up in the seen-and-not-heard tradition, I passively followed in the old lady's wake. Miss Vardaman's bark was, I knew, a great deal worse than her bite; and I could hardly fancy her facing down that ready, cock-sure, and energetic little Mrs. Horace Gwynne. In fact, as we neared the house, it was obvious that Miss Clara's courage was going the road of Bob Acres'. She walked slower, commented casually on the beauty of the spring foliage, and paused in an uneasy hesitation when we caught sight of another lady—not Mrs. Horace Gwynne—descending the steps with a bundle in her arms.

"It's Lulu Stevens," she said in an undertone. "I didn't know she was out here. Cormorants! Harriet couldn't bear her."

"Do you suppose I'll ever get home with this thing?" Mrs. Stevens greeted us cheerily. The last time I had seen her had been at the funeral, where she listened as attentively as any of us to the great and awful words in which we are warned that man walketh in a vain shadow and disquieteth himself in vain; he heapeth up riches and cannot tell who shall gather them. "I came out on the cars—next time I'll take the carriage. It's the old French china punch-bowl—you know—the one that used to stand on top of the wine-cabinet in the dining-room. Cousin Jennie said she thought I might as well take it, she didn't believe anybody else wanted it. Cousin Jennie's the oldest, you know, and she has so much judgment. Those are those two old cut-glass decanters I just wrapped up and put inside. Goodness, it's as heavy as lead! You ought to see the house, Clara, you just ought to see it! It's cram-full of everything under the sun, I wouldn't have believed there was all the truck in it."

"It won't be there long, I think," said Miss Vardaman, with unnatural dryness, glaring at the punch-bowl.

"Well, I don't know," said Mrs. Stevens, quite unconscious of any sarcasm, which was the last thing in the world one would have looked for from Miss Clara Vardaman. "It'll take another week to clean it all out, I believe, though Cousin Jennie is awfully quick and thorough. The old garret is packed to the eaves, the things there haven't been touched for twenty-five years. You know poor Harriet never was much of a housekeeper. Just think, we found eighteen pairs of old shoes stuck away in a closet—eighteen! Some of 'em had rubbers to match. And there was that pair of crutches one of the boys had when he broke his leg, and a whole great pile of daguerreotypes taken in the year One—pretty near everybody in this town—oh, I know it's perfectly awful to laugh, but you can't help it to save you—old Mrs. Duval, you know, Clara, in a lace mantle, and corkscrew curls, and a thing like a tart on a band around her forehead! And some little girl that I think must be Sallie Gwynne in pantalettes with a poke-bonnet—oh, there're ever so many we can't place—there's nobody alive now that remembers 'em. There're two or three trunks of old clothes, and Donald Peters' old uniform and sword, and about a million medicine-bottles, and a set of false teeth—false teeth! Think of it! I'd as soon have expected to find a coffin-plate."

"What are they going to do with things like that?" asked Miss Clara, shamefacedly interested.

"Why, Cousin Jennie sent down to some of those second-hand people on Scioto Street. She says it's a great deal better to sell the things and get a little money for them that can be divided up among the heirs, than to try and give them away and have everybody dissatisfied. Cousin Jennie's so sensible."

"It's a shame," Miss Clara commented in a fierce whisper, as the other went off, radiantly. "That's that beautiful old punch-bowl with the deep gilt rim and wreath of roses. Daniel Webster's had punch out of that bowl. And I did so want Gwynne and you to have it in your house—that is, I—I—I had set my heart on Gwynne's having it, you know, my dear. Well," she added reflectively, making the best of the situation, "after all, a good many of the Gwynnes have taken to drink, so perhaps it's just as well. Only I don't believe Gwynne ever will. She didn't say a word about the Governor's law-library. Well, now, Gwynne's going to have that, or I'll know the reason why! I do think it would be an outrage to give those books to anybody but him—Governor Gwynne's only grandson—that is, of course, there's Sam. But if Jennie sets out in that high-handed way to give them to somebody else, I'll just let her know I'm here, that's all! Mercy, what a noise!"

There was an unusual colour in her cheeks as we climbed the steps; her lips moved, rehearsing the biting speeches with which she meant to confound Jennie Gwynne. That lady was upstairs superintending the removal of one of the enormous carved wardrobes with full-length mirrors in the doors; we could hear her shrill voice pitched high in command, and the men grunting and shoving. All the doors and windows were wide open, the daylight flaunted shamelessly about the grave, gloomy, reticent old house. A constant bickering of hammers filled the air; they were taking down and boxing the pictures. Half a dozen of the huge line-engravings that used to hang in an orderly row about the walls, "Signing of the Declaration" over one bookcase, "Sistine Madonna," over another, "Jason and Creusa," "C'est Moi; Scene in the Prison of the Conciergerie during the Reign of Terror"—all these artistic treasures, I say, were down and standing about the rooms awaiting their turn. The Governor's portrait leaned against the white marble mantel, and you might see the dust-webs festooning the space where it had hung. "Poor Harriet, she didn't know a thing about keeping house!" sighed Miss Clara, observing them. In the library all the books were piled on the floor, and there stood Gwynne, knee-deep amongst them, in his shirt-sleeves, looking a little helpless and worried. A youngster whom I recognised for one of the Lawrence children was playing on the floor in a corner with a quantity of those small square flat morocco cases decorated with a sort of bas-relief all over the outside, in which daguerreotypes were once enshrined. Mrs. Lawrence was haranguing Gwynne excitedly, yet in a subdued voice, with one wary eye on the stairs.

"Of course, I don't say that Cousin Jennie doesn't mean it all for the best, Gwynne, but if she would only consider a little! She's positively insisted on my taking the mahogany hat-rack with the deer's antlers mounted on it, you know—and even after I said to her, 'Why, Cousin Jennie, I'm sure its awfully nice of you to want me to have it, but I'd be afraid to put that thing in my house, the hall's so little, and the stairs come right down by the front door, so there's hardly any room, and I'd be afraid all the time the children would fall down the steps and put their eyes out on those prongs—it's a perfect death-trap!' Now, Gwynne, that's every word I said, and I didn't say it in a disagreeable way at all, I just said, 'Why, Cousin Jennie, I'd be afraid to take that thing in my house; and I told her on account of the children and all, just as nicely as I could, and she got just as mad as could be, and said she supposed I'd like to have the handsomest thing in the house, the dining-room set, or something like that, and you know, Gwynne, I never thought of such a thing, and I just wish you'd speak to her——"

"I'm sorry, Cousin Charlotte," said Gwynne, harassed and weary. "I—it's really none of my business, you know, the things belong to the estate, and I suppose Cousin Jennie's the best one to divide them—oh, Miss Clara!"

He broke off to come and shake hands eagerly; he was glad to see us, I think. He had grown tall, and older-looking; his voice plunged from unnatural heights to unexpected depths with a startling and, I dare say, rather ludicrous effect. Wouldn't we sit down? "It's—it's all mussed up," he said, casting an anxious glace around. He called to the carpenters to stop their racket; it was warm, wasn't it? He'd have Hannah get us something, some lemonade, wouldn't we like it? No, he wasn't busy, just packing books, he'd be glad to rest. Sam? Why—why—Sam had gone—had gone back to Canada, didn't we know it? There wasn't really anything for Sam to do, you know. Cousin Jennie was seeing to everything.

"Jennie has so much judgment, you know," Mrs. Lawrence put in. "We couldn't have anybody, any legal person coming in here to appraise and divide, that would be simply horrid—dear old Uncle Samuel's things. And Jennie is a perfectly ideal person—so sensible and just. But then we aren't the kind of family to have any fussing anyhow."

("Now wasn't that Gwynne all over?" said Miss Clara afterwards. "She'd just been giving Jennie Hail Columbia! But they might fight like cats and dogs among themselves, they'd never let an outsider know it. There's Gwynne Peters, the best boy that ever lived. He'd die rather than tell a lie, or take what didn't belong to him—and there he sat, just pleasantly smiling and pretending that everything was all right, when he was nearly worn out with the fuss and worry!")

Mrs. Horace Gwynne came downstairs in the rear of the leviathan wardrobe, ordering and exhorting. As the men staggered down the front steps with it, she turned into the library. "I suppose your Cousin Charlotte has been telling you about the hat-rack, Gwynne," she began in an acid voice. "All I have to say is—oh, how do you do, Miss Clara. Mercy, Charlotte, tell Marian to come away from those books! Come here to Cousin Jennie, dearie; what have you got there? Don't hurt that nice book."

"It ain't a nice book," said the child resentfully. "It's Revised Statutes of the State of Ohio—it says: 'Forcible entry does not c-o-n-con-s-t-i-constitute trespass.' What's 'forcible entry,' Cousin Gwynne?"

"Put it down, dear, never mind," said Mrs. Horace kindly. "I want Gwynne to have all his grandfather's library," she explained, turning to Miss Vardaman. "It's only right, you know. He's Governor Gwynne's only grandson—except Sam, of course. But I said to all the family in the beginning that Gwynne Peters should have those books, it would be outrageous to give them to anyone else."

Poor Miss Clara! I could have laughed at the blank expression with which she beheld this stealing of her thunder.

"I'm sure you're quite right, Jennie," she said tamely. "You've always had a great deal of judgment. Gwynne, dear, how did you get that great black bruise on your forehead?"

"I ran into something," Gwynne said, flushing.

"Oh, Cousin Gwynne, oh, what an awful story!" Marian piped in her sharp treble. "It's where Cousin Sam threw the boot at you when he got mad at you the other day. Cousin Sam had a queer spell, I heard Hannah say so."

"Marian!" cried her mother savagely.

"Hannah's getting into her dotage, and imagines things," said Mrs. Horace Gwynne, reddening to her forehead. "I don't know what we're going to do with the poor old thing——" They all talked on desperately. It was a ghastly moment for everybody. The skeleton rattled its grisly bones in the Gwynne family closet, and there was something foolishly and pitiably heroic in the gallant effort they made to silence that hideous activity. Mrs. Lawrence and Mrs. Horace, the one Gwynne by blood, the other by adoption, forgot their private feud in the common defence. To your tents, O Israel!

"You might look over those old daguerreotypes, Miss Clara," Mrs. Gwynne said. "Marian, run and get them for Miss Vardaman. I don't know who some of the people are, maybe you'll recognise them."

Gwynne opened a case. "This one is all going to pieces," he said, as the little pad of faded green brocade in the lid fell out; behind it was a slip of yellowed paper. "Oh, look here, it has 'John to Louise, June, 1839,' on it, 'John to Louise'—who was that, do you suppose?"

"Let me see it," said Miss Clara.

"Louise? Maybe that's Louise Andrews—she was a Gwynne, you know," said Mrs. Lawrence frowning in an effort of recollection. "I can't think of any other Louise. Is there a picture of her? She was a great beauty."

"Did you ever see her, Cousin Charlotte?"

"Goodness, no, she's been dead I don't know how long."

"I remember her," said Miss Vardaman. "I'm so much older than any of you. She married Leonard Andrews, she didn't live very long. Yes, she was very pretty. That's John's picture. Yes, I suppose it does look funny, but that's the way they all dressed, you know, in those days. They were engaged and then they quarrelled about something—oh, dear me, it's years and years ago."

"You'd better take that picture, Miss Clara," said Mrs. Horace Gwynne briskly. "Maybe Doctor Vardaman would like to have it, and—oh, I was going to speak to you about something. You know I'm managing everything and it's an awful responsibility; I've counted all the towels and sheets and measured all the pieces of goods I've found—nothing ought to be wasted or thrown away, you know. There're a whole lot of medicine-bottles upstairs, over three hundred—do you think the doctor could use them? They're very good bottles, you know, no corks of course—I thought maybe the doctor——"

"John wouldn't have any use for them, I thank you, Jennie," said Miss Clara, stiffening.

Gwynne's eyes met mine. "The wistaria on the dining-room porch is going to bloom, don't you want to see it?" said he, biting his lips.

We retreated to the wistaria, and both of us, propped against the dining-room wall, gave away to hysterical laughter, all the more violent because we must smother it. Gwynne's nerves, I think, were a little unstrung by all he had been through the last melancholy week. "I—I can't help it——" he gasped. "I know it's all wrong, but I can't help it. They're so funny!"

We were presently visited with retribution for our ungodly merriment; for, as we stood there, an Armenian—or Bulgarian—gentleman came around the corner of the house with a wheelbarrow heaped with the spoil of the garret, and after him another bearing on his shoulders our old hair-trunk. Hardly any hair was left upon it, now; but there it was long and low and round-topped with rows of brass nails black with verdigris. It was going away on the Armenian shoulders—going out of our lives forever like those childish days. Gwynne looked at me with a rather tremulous smile.

"'Ha, Saint Edward! Ha, Saint George!' exclaimed the Black Knight, cutting down a man at each invocation," he quoted. "Don't, Mary!" For I am ashamed to say that I sat down on the top step and cried openly, while the boy tried to comfort me.