CHAPTER IX
THE MYSTERY OF THE NAME
It being Saturday and market-day, Satira Pegrim had gone to Bridgetonwith 'Lisha Potts to look at furniture, for liberal as to matters oftime though Potts was as a wooer, he had told Satira on Christmas Daythat when a man reached fifty it was time he did something more aboutsettling down than talk of it. Satira, on the whole, had enjoyed a verypleasant courtship during the years of her reign at the post-office. Itis given to few women to attend the county fair for thirteen consecutiveyears at the expense of the same man without incurring furtherresponsibility.
She was now divided between conscientious motives about leaving herbrother until Poppea was able to keep house, and the fear lest 'Lishabecome discouraged and transfer his affections to Judith, daughter ofthe widow Baker. This veteran, having failed to secure a second spousefor herself, was now trying to checkmate in turn every available man inthe county for the benefit of her daughter. The Bakers lived almostopposite the Pegrim farm that 'Lisha leased, and well Satira knew thatnearness means a good deal, especially in winter, so she had consentedto look at furniture, saying demurely at the same time:--
"Of course, if you wish my housekeepin' 'xperience in trading, it'llpleasure me to give it, but if you want a woman that can rush intothings helterskelter and unthinkin', why not try Judy Baker?"
"No old maids for me, Satiry," he flung back, slapping his knees to giveemphasis to his words. "When I get spliced, it'll hev to be either ayoung woman or a widder, the last bespoke and preferred."
"Sakes alive! and what's Judy but a young woman? She's only turningtwenty-four."
"Age hasn't got a thing to do with it; there's old maids at twenty andwomen folks turning forty that though unmarried ain't, and is young."
"Oliver Gilbert, he hit them differences plumb on the head once't someyears back, when he was havin' considerable trouble in making folksunderstand that he wasn't calculatin' to take a second. Gilbert he'sread lots of unor'nary thoughts in books, and he says, says he: ''Lisha,there's three kinds o' females when it comes to considerin' matrimony:widders that understand us men through 'xperience; just plain nice womenfolks that know what's necessary about us by intooition, as the Lordmeant they should; and old maids that thinks they're dead wise, but allthey know's by suspicion. Now don't you take one of those last, 'causethey suspect so much more bad of us than we really are that their ideeis darned hard to live up tew!' Well, just at that time what I took to,was not gettin' married, but to the woods, and went in for trapping andlumbering for quite a spell.
"Judy Baker's terrible knowin' by suspicion. When she shakes hands,she'll jerk hern away before a man's really caught his grip, like shemost _knew_ he was goin' to squeeze it, which he, bein' I, hadn't nosuch idee. Then she looks mad, 'cause he, bein' I, didn't."
After this complete understanding, Satira Pegrim, who felt that inaddition to the trip of inspection 'Lisha deserved some more positiveencouragement, told him that if he would begin and mend the fence up atthe farm and reshingle the buildings, she would begin to sew her carpetrags and sheets, and that would give them both time to be ready byPoppea's sixteenth birthday--this being the earliest age in NewfieldCounty at which a well-brought-up girl could be expected to keep house,with a neighbor to accommodate in matter of washing and house cleaning.
'Lisha, jubilant over something so definite, not only bought tickets forChristy's Minstrels that chanced to be in Bridgeton that night, butinsisted that they two sup at the Railway Hotel as well. Hence Satira'sprolonged absence.
Thus it chanced that in two days after the night of Poppea's awakening,the post-office house, put in order from attic to porch, was left in hercharge, and in the afternoon she read Gilbert's record written in theold ledger, they two sitting together in the long kitchen where thefirst scene had been set.
As she read, Gilbert, from the south window, where he sat fitting andadjusting an intricate bit of clockwork, furtively watched the varyingcolor and expression of her face. After slowly reading his simple story,Poppea could not feel for a second that she was an unloved intruder, orfail herself to be filled anew with love for the old man who had openedhis door. Her quick intuition and rapidly developing mentality scannedbetween the lines, learning of many acts of self-sacrifice and devotionthat Gilbert believed locked securely in his own thoughts. It was the_why_ of it all that rankled: the circumstances, people, or both thathad made the charity necessary. When the girl thought of this, a steelyflash came from her eyes, and the will that had been latent, except forchildish bursts of impetuosity, set its signals at the corners of lipsand nostrils, making the watcher sigh.
"Well, perhaps she may need it to stiffen her up by and by, who knows,"said Gilbert to himself; "if only the Lord lets her always lovesomething harder than she hates something else."
Dear, patient Oliver Gilbert, in those few words he summed up thestruggle that Poppea must fight her way through in the next ten years.Would she be victor or vanquished? As a girl glides unconsciously intowomanhood, the mysteries that surround her are like the intangible, yetreal, mists of daybreak that may clear away before the purifying rays ofthe sun, or solidify into angry storm clouds to blot out the entire day.
In addition to these, over Poppea there hung what to her was a darkercloud,--the mystery of the name; and the only rays that could penetrateits shadow must come from the sun of love.
Presently Poppea closed the book, and after resting with her armsclasped about it for a moment, laid it on the table. Going to the windowwhere Gilbert was sitting, she stood behind him, stroking his hairgently and smoothing back one troublesome lock that kept falling overhis eyes. Then stooping and laying her cheek upon his, she whispered:--
"Daddy, please say that I need not go away anywhere to school. I canlearn a great deal more at the Academy if I try, and besides the FeltonAunties and Mr. Oldys lend me so many books, and they are going to havea French teacher next summer, and Miss Emmy has asked me to read withthem. I want to work hard at my music, so that by and by I can play anorgan perhaps, or sing in a Bridgeton choir. And I must help you in thepost-office. You've said so often lately that people are more carelessof their spelling than they used to be, and do not write the addresseswell, that I'm quite sure your eyes are getting tired. Please, Daddy? Itwill make things so much easier."
Gilbert paused a moment in order to control his eagerness to assent.
"I never wanted you to go away, child, but for your own good, andnow--it doesn't seem to me that I could bear it. Miss Emmy thinks,though, that you'd be better of a little change, and she's spoken withme about your going down to them next month to spend a fortnight or so,to see the city, hear some good singing, the Opery she calls it, andthings like that. Wouldn't you like it, Poppy? Yes, I thought so. Well,you go try your wings outside of Harley's Mills a bit, dearie. Mayhapyou'll think you've never tasted life before, but if you get homesickfor Daddy and the post-office, and feel peeky for a sight o' the riveragain and a sniff of the salt harbor wind that blows over Quality Hill,they'll be here, and all you've got to do is just to come right back."
* * * * *
A month later, Poppea was standing between the heavy crimson curtains ofone of the Feltons' parlor windows on Madison Avenue, overlooking theSquare. The sound of the traffic from the opposite side where FifthAvenue and Broadway meet and cross was deadened to a sullen roar by theheavy double windows except when the stages passed, and then for amoment the distinct sound of hoof and wheel was distinguishable.
Over in the park many children were playing, rolling hoops to and fro,or wheeling about on roller-skates, having a row of small wheels setlengthwise under the foot that made the sport as much a matter ofequipoise as ice skating.
Poppea longed to join them, to rush along and feel the air around herand facing the wind, meet it halfway. For an airing she went to driveevery day with the Felton ladies in the new landau which was lined withtufted blue satin, with little mirrors let into the side panels.Sometimes th
ey drove up Fifth Avenue to Central Park, through the eastdrive to the turn and back again, at a decorous and leisurely pace,Poppea and Mr. Esterbrook sitting opposite the ladies, who werecontinually bowing and smiling to those in other carriages that theypassed. Even as late as 1874 to 1876, all those who kept privateequipages were well known to one another, and if a stranger appeared inMrs. ---- barouche, the identity was soon revealed by the sending out ofcards for a more or less stately reception to meet the guest. Theinformal and irresponsible afternoon teas of the last two decades of thecentury, their chief motive, as voiced by the Autocrat, being to"gabble, gobble, and git," were as yet unconceived. Sometimes a party ofyoung folks on horseback, followed by an instructor, would come insight, winding among the trees that separate drive from bridlepath, andpass before Poppea, all eagerness, could really see them, for except onvery mild days the carriage windows were closed in spite of Miss Emmy'sprotestation that she never really breathed except in the open air. Thewindows of Madam Felton's coach had always been closed against the eastwinds of Boston fifty years before, and Miss Elizabeth felt that to dootherwise would be too much of an exhibition of change. If Miss Emmychose to sleep with her bedroom window open, that was a differentmatter; eccentric, of course, but inconspicuous.
One day Mr. Esterbrook had suggested that they two should leave thecarriage, walk back to the entrance gate and take a stage or a horse-carhome. How Poppea had enjoyed it. There had been enough wind to ripplethe water of the reservoir, and the gulls were flying over it, preparingto bed down for the night as they did on Moosatuck. Another time, theladies always being interested in everything concerning the good of thecity, had driven across the park and out the west side of it to seewhere the building of the Museum of Natural History was to be located,the laying of the corner-stone by President Grant having been set forthe following June. Continuing on over poorly paved streets or muddyroadways that ran between partly decayed country houses, or the shantiesof squatter settlements, they came within sight of the Hudson, makingtheir way northward through Manhattanville and Bloomingdale to a hillcalled Claremont, where there was a place of refreshment in an oldfarm-house.
The sight of the glorious river sweeping down between the high walls ofthe palisades, with shadowy suggestion of headlands and mountains, madethe young girl's breath come quick and short. She could not keep hereyes from the window and she spoke either in monosyllables or keptsilent. Could she, might she go out on the bank and see, not through theglass, and feel the wind that was bending the old tulip trees with therattling seed cups?
Alas, no; it was a place of public entertainment where one, especially ayoung lady, must be very careful to do nothing unusual. So, though MissEmmy looked as though she would not only have encouraged Poppea in herdesire but gone with her if it had not been so cruelly windy, theyturned their backs on the wonderful panorama, while Patrick sought aneasier, if less picturesque, way home.
He, in fact, scowled upon the whole trip to such an extent that it wasnot repeated. The horses, used to half a dozen miles at most, hadsweated unduly; the rim of one of the newly painted wheels had sunkbetween two cobbles and become badly scratched, while Patrick himselfhad been jolted to such an extent that he had been obliged, in order tokeep his seat, to adapt himself to circumstances and do something morethan sit on the box and hold the reins, a new condition which raised hisire. It may be said with truth that the tyrannical family coachman ofthe old regime in New York was the logical and fitting ancestor of thearbitrary chauffeur of to-day. The first, however, having only the "lamehorse" plea as his weapon; the other, any one of an endless series ofcomplicated intestinal diseases concealed in the corpulent tonneau.
Thus, after the first week, Poppea's exercise was limited to the correctwalk for girls of her age, up or down Fifth Avenue to Washington Square,or with Nora for attendant, dressed in the neat garb of a city maid,down Twenty-third Street and eastward to Gramercy Park, a key to whichexclusive enclosure had been given to the Misses Felton by one of theirmany friends in the surrounding houses. She often looked longingly atthe girls of her own age who walked in groups of twos and threes,chatting vivaciously, the maid following far enough away to be out ofsight if not out of mind. At home she had never felt lonely. Now, forthe first time, she realized that she had no real girl companions ofher own age.
This particular afternoon when she stood between the curtains, a hand oneach, looking alternately out into the square and then down the lengthof the three great rooms, divided by marble columns, their size furthermagnified by the vistas seen in the pier and mantel mirrors, she feltlike some wild thing at bay. The ladies had gone in the carriage toStaten Island to visit a distant relative who was ill, taking Nora withthem. Mr. Esterbrook had lunched as usual at his club, the Union League,only a few blocks further up the avenue, it having been his consideratecustom to leave the house to the ladies and their friends at mid-dayever since luncheon had taken the place of early dinner.
Poppea tried to open first a front and then a back window to get abreath of air, but without success. She was too wise now to refreshherself by sitting on the outer doorstep, since the doing of it, duringthe first week, had brought a very decided remonstrance from the usuallysympathetic Miss Emmy.
For a minute she was minded to get her hat and join the children in thesquare; then some street musicians with harp and violins struck upbefore the next house, riveting her attention. The playing was spiritedand the time good, though imperfect as to technique. The pent-up energyin Poppea began to surge and sway her body to the music. Stepping fromthe recessed window before the long mirror, where there was a spaceclear of furniture, she began to dance, not with set steps orcalculated gestures, merely letting the music lead her.
When she finally stopped, head forward, a sort of half-mocking courtesyto the looking-glass, laughing,--her good temper restored,--she wasstartled to see a reflection besides her own, that of a young man ofperhaps eight and twenty, of medium height, clean shaven at a time whenthis was uncommon, immaculate as to clothes, having an air of beingperfectly at ease in unusual surroundings that Poppea noticed even inher confusion.
Caleb had ushered him through the sliding door unthinkingly, for thecolored servitor was standing transfixed, one hand raised in warning,saying in the brief time that it took Poppea to prepare for flight:--
"Sho, I didn't know you was here, Miss Poppy; I 'lowed Marsa Esterbrookwas corned in."
Then in a confidential whisper to the caller as the girl slipped pasthim and flew rather than ran up the thickly padded stairs, he added:--
"It's jest Miss Poppy, a young missy from de country that Miss Emmythinks a mighty heap of. She was lonesome-like I reckon, and justa-dancin' to keep up her spirits. Do set down, Marsa Winslow; the ladiesshould shuah be back by now and they'll feel powerful bad to have missedyou. I well recomember your lady mother back in the old Boston time; sheand Miss Emmy was like two twins for standing up for each other.
"Oh, so you'se livin' in New York an' can drop in any time. I'll deliberyour message wif honah, sah, to the ladies' pleasure," and Caleb bowedthe young man out, laying the silver salver with the bit of pasteboardin a spot upon the hall table where it could not fail to attractattention. The card read, Bradish Winslow, The Loiterers' Club.
"I should like to meet that girl four or five years hence; she's awonderful bit of live color already," was Winslow's mental comment as hewent down the steps, hesitating at the foot whether he should go up ordown the avenue, or across the square.
Poppea, having gained her room, where the windows consisted of a singlesash, threw one of them wide open, and kneeling on the floor so that herchin rested on the sill, drew in a long, refreshing breath.
For a moment she wondered who the caller might be, and thought of herdancing with regret, but on the return of the Misses Felton they hadsuch a delightful bit of news to impart that she forgot even to ask hisname. The following week the opera of Lohengrin was to be sung,Christine Nilsson taking the part of Elsa for the last time in New
York.
No such voice, Miss Felton declared, had been heard in America, exceptpossibly that of Nilsson's countrywoman, Jenny Lind. To hear her wouldbe a musical education in itself for Poppea; so not only had a box beensecured for the night, but Stephen Latimer and his wife were coming tocomplete the party, in spite of the fact that there were some whothought the witnessing of all dramatic performances unclerical. Thatevening Miss Emmy played some fragments of the opera on the grand piano,promising Poppea that Stephen Latimer should explain its constructionand motive to her when he came.
For a few days Poppea forgot her desire to run away in thinking of theopera, and trying to pick out bits from the score, but its complicationbaffled her and she had to content herself with persuading Nora tocontinue their walk from Gramercy Park down Irving Place to FourteenthStreet that she might look at the outside of the Academy of Music thatwas her Mecca.
When the strain began again and she was once more longing for freedomand a five-mile walk up the bank of the Moosatuck, alone or with Hugh,the magic day came and with it the Latimers, Mrs. Stephen dimpling undera bewitching spring bonnet entirely of her own manufacture, a cherishedpossession. This, Miss Emmy told her playfully but firmly, she could_not_ wear to the opera, but that Bachmann should dress her hair whenshe came to do theirs.
"No matter what Stephen may say to-night, I'm going to dress you to suitmyself," said Miss Emmy. "This pink brocade with the silver trimmings,your hair loosened into a crown of puffs with the pink feather at theside, and the coral comb. The coral necklace and the white lace shawlfor shoulder drapery, if you think low neck a trifle too much for aclergyman's lady, and these white gloves topped with coral bands."
"I will wear the white gloves gladly," said Jeanne Latimer, looking ather two forefingers rather ruefully. One was roughened by the use of thevegetable knife, for the times had been hard and houseworkers scarce atHarley's Mills that winter; while the other was pricked deep from thesewing of harsh muslin for the clothing that some would otherwise havelacked. "But really, Miss Emmy, don't you think it would look morehonest if I wore my own gown?"
Miss Emmy laughingly acknowledged that perhaps it might, yet held herpoint with determination, and eight o'clock saw the party of sixgathered in the opera-box, their faces differing almost as much inexpression as the details of their clothing.
Jeanne Latimer and Miss Emmy were what might be called very much dressedwithout having overstepped the bounds of good taste. Miss Emmy wore paleblue satin with much fine lace and pearl ornaments; though pale in themorning, her color always grew somewhat hectic at night and helpedjustify a combination by far too young for her years.
While Jeanne Latimer enjoyed the novel sensation of wearing her gayattire, Miss Emmy's pleasure came from the conscious result of wearinghers. Miss Felton, who sat behind her sister, wore an almost straightrobe of black velvet; the point lace fichu crossed in front and fastenedby a heavy diamond brooch, her only ornament, covered all but her slimwhite throat. Her hair was parted in bandeaux and coiled at the back ofher head as usual, the only addition being two waxy white cameliastucked into the mass. During the last two years, however, a decidedthread of silver had woven itself among the dark coils. Talking in shortsentences to, rather than with, Mr. Esterbrook, who sat next her, shehad an anxious air and seemed to be striving to keep him awake, forscarcely had they been seated when an air of intense weariness came overhis elaborately dressed person, and he began to nod.
The remaining two of the party thus had the right-hand corner of the boxto themselves, Poppea, in her simple white summer muslin relieved by acherry sash, sitting in a low chair, with Stephen Latimer back of her.From the moment of their entrance, he had busied himself in explainingthe great building to her, from the arrangement of the seats, boxes, andorchestra, to the uses of the prompter's egg-shaped box. Music andcertain phases of human nature that he felt allied to the Divine werethe food for this man's dreams, and to-night he would have both verynear.
Presently the orchestra took their places, falling into silence at thetap of the leader's baton and the prelude to the first act began withthe high notes of the Grail motif, rising to a climax of trumpets andtrombones, then fading away to silence again. With a word here and thereto focus the story of the libretto, Latimer called Poppea's attention tothe new theme, where the Herald calls for a champion for the accusedgirl, the Elsa motif is voiced by the wood-wind instruments, andpresently Lohengrin appears in the boat drawn by the swan.
To Poppea the scene had the mystery of fairyland, but it was, at thesame time, her first glimpse of visible active romance, and through thescenes that followed came her primal realization of the love of man andwoman as separate from the friendship of girl and boy.
When Lohengrin sets the one condition for the marriage that Elsa shallnever ask him his name and Latimer explained the _Mystery of the Name_motif, Poppea with hands clasped in the folds of her gown sat withstrained eyes and parted lips scarcely breathing. Once heard, this motifnever left her ears, whether it was whispered by the wood-windinstruments, the horn, or proclaimed by the whole orchestra, as when inthe scene of the bridal chamber the knight calls Elsa passionately byname, but she, not knowing his, may not speak it, and so at last rebelsand demands to know.
As Latimer watched Poppea's face, he saw the change that fell upon it.The joy of music, color, and pageant faded from it, until, finally, whenthe boat, now guided by the Dove of the Grail, bears Lohengrin, itsknight, away and Elsa falls fainting, he saw Poppea's lips, from whichthe color had fled, frame rather than say:--
"She would not marry him because she did not know his name, and when atlast she knew it, he had to go away; suppose, oh, suppose--?" Poppeaturned her head from him, but Latimer, through the music and thedreaming, read the thought that had taken possession of her.
The Latimers returned to Harley's Mills the next afternoon, and Stephen,at his wife's instigation, asked Miss Emmy if Poppea might not accompanythem. "It's very hard for her, Stephen," she said; "she isn't in anatural frame of mind now at best, and all the new things she sees andfeels exaggerate it. I know how it is; last night, at first I loved myfine feathers and then they pricked like pins, and I thought, 'Oh!suppose I should have to wear them always and play a part and turn intosome one else and never go back to tell you what day of the week it is,Stevie, or play the organ and peel potatoes and make nighties for stiffold Mrs. Ricker, who scolds because it is so much trouble to wear andwash them!' It simply paralyzes me.
"I _know_ that Poppy feels, 'Suppose I should turn out to be somebodyelse, who was born to live indoors and be shut in by these doublewindows and never get back to Daddy and the post-office, and never anymore hunt for lady's-slippers and arbutus in the Moosatuck woods withHugh.'
"I never could understand why people's friends always try to get themaway from home if there's anything they want them to forget. At home Ican always keep a worry in one place and needn't go out of my way tolook at it, but when one is away, it may turn up unexpectedly at anycorner."
Miss Emmy, however, had replied: "Send Poppea home with you when she'sonly been here two weeks? Not a bit of it. The house hasn't been so gayin my memory, besides, I'm having Nora and the seamstress turn her outsuch a lot of pretty clothes. I'm sure, too, I'm giving her as nice atime as any girl could ask."
A few days later the roving mood returned, and would not be restrained.When the ladies had gone to a morning charitable meeting, leaving Poppeapractising some little ballads she had found in one of their many musicbooks, she slipped on her going-out things and, closing the front door,made her way quickly across the square to where the omnibus passed thatMr. Esterbrook had taken the day they two had left the carriage inCentral Park. Once in the park, she felt sure she could find her way tothat high bank overlooking the river, where she could feel the wind fromthe hills on her face and look at the water that was always coming,always passing, and yet never left one behind.
She had a small netted purse of dimes and nickels that Satira Pegrim hadgiven he
r on parting, with the admonition, "'Tain't but what they'llfeed and lodge you, Poppy, and more too; 'tisn't that, but mebbe you'dfancy an apple or a bit of spruce gum, and not be able to lay hand on itwithout buying, or need a penny for an organ monkey, for they do saythat all the organs that goes through here in summer heads for New Yorkin winter, and consequently monkeys must be plenty. There's 'busses inNew York, too, they say, and most like you'd like to make a change fromcarriage riding."
Thus equipped, Poppea paid her fare and stole into a corner, where sheremained until the omnibus reached the end of its route. Her walk upthrough the park to the northern outlet was easy, but after that, theother mile was broken and irregular; for though there were old countryhouses here and there, interspersed with newer buildings, the ground washilly, many shanties perched upon the rocks and huddled together in theopen fields.
Once she asked her way of a pleasant-faced woman at the gate of a large,brown building which proved to be an orphan asylum, and her informanttold her that the location was called Bloomingdale, that another largebuilding set in ample grounds that they could see to the northward wasthe asylum, and that if in going back she would walk down theBloomingdale Road (Broadway) a piece, she would find a stage that wouldtake her back through Manhattanville and Harlem into the heart of thecity. Also she cautioned Poppea not to loiter, for the water side was alonesome spot for girls.
At last the river was in sight. Getting her bearings, she crossed a lotwhere a friendly cow followed her, trying to lick the rough woollen ofher coat, and crawling between some rails, reached the bank that she hadremembered, sitting to rest upon a low stump, where had been laid lowone of a group of giant tulip trees.
The grandeur of it almost oppressed Poppea for a moment, then it seemedto compact itself and close up until the river became the Moosatuckwinding its way from the hill country down to the Mills, and then onwardthrough the marshes to the bay. There were not many boats upon it, butone was hers, built by 'Lisha Potts, and one was Hugh Oldys's, and theytwo were deciding which boat they should use, and whether both shouldrow or only Hugh, for often they rowed together. Then the second boatdisappeared, and Poppea rowed her boat, and in the stern sat Daddyfishing--Daddy, who seldom took a holiday. How young he looked when hecaught that fine big bass; what jolly stories he told, and how goodSatira Pegrim's basket lunch had tasted. This vision was vivid, andreminded Poppea that she was hungry.
Close in some bushes beside her a song-sparrow warbled his clear springditty, and the lump that had been gathering in her throat tightened andwould not be swallowed. Scrambling to her feet she took one final lookup and down before turning homeward, and, as she did so, her eyes fellupon a small marble shaft surmounted by an urn that stood not a dozenfeet from where she had been sitting.
There were several like it in the hill graveyard at home, but this couldnot be a graveyard with only a single stone. Going near she looked for aname or date, but found only these words, _Erected to an Amiable Child_.
Who was it? Was this another mystery of a name. Had the child none?
Waving her hand good-by to the great river, she retraced her stepstoward the Bloomingdale Road, and at that moment she heard in her ear,with bell-like clearness, the voice of Gilbert, calling to her as heoften did when she stayed out late in the bank garden below the orchard:"Come home, Poppy, it's lonesome for you out there by yourself; besides,Daddy needs you!" Yes, Daddy needed her; that must be the answer toeverything that troubled her.
The next day it was Poppea who asked if she might go home, and Miss Emmysaid yes.
Poppea of the Post-Office Page 9
