Kate Langley Bosher - Kitty Canary
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Kate Langley Bosher >> Kitty Canary
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"Stop that automobile!" I waved to a man who was coming down the
street, and as he stopped I knelt and did the things Billy had made me
learn how to do the first year we went to camp. And seeing the poor,
tired soul had just fainted, and would come to in a minute, I spoke
quick to the man looking down at her, scared to death, as were the
children, who began to cry, and told him he wouldn't have a wife much
longer to be interfered with if he didn't come down from that horse he
thought he was riding and have some common sense.
"Don't you see she is worn out," I said, "and got nothing to go on
with? Everything has given out, and the next time she drops over in
this way she may never get up again." I was putting some water on her
face as I spoke, and, seeing her eyes begin to open a little, I called
to Mr. Everett, who had gotten out of his car and was on the porch, to
help Mr. Stafford put his wife in and take her to the hospital, and the
frightened husband for once did as he was told. I hopped in with her
and held her up and told Mr. Everett to drive like old Scratch, and he
drove. It was all over so quickly nobody knew what had happened.
It was like somebody being kidnapped and dragged off by highwaymen,
taking her away so hurriedly, but if it hadn't been done that way there
would have been endless talk and a thousand reasons why she couldn't
go; and if she hadn't she would have soon gone for good. Sometimes
somebody has to be high-handed, and even if that billy-goat of a
husband pretends to resent what I did his wife isn't resenting it, and
she is the one that counts. I always agree with her that it was such a
strange thing I happened to be there the day the note came. And also
she thinks it strange I decided so quickly to take her to the hospital,
when she had just said she couldn't go. I tell her I do a good many
things on the spur of the moment, and getting the men to pick her up
and hurry away with her was just another case of spur, and she shuts
her eyes when I say that and looks as if she is praying. The lucky
part was her fainting at the right time. Anyhow, she is at the
hospital, and that old rooster of hers is finding out a good many
things it took her absence from home for him to learn. I never expect
to get married. NEVER!
CHAPTER XXIII
I have just found out why Elizabeth and Whythe had their break. Miss
Bettie Simcoe told me. It took Miss Bettie some time to get at the
bottom of it, but Elizabeth told her last night, and this morning I was
given the information at the first moment Miss Bettie could get me to
herself.
Elizabeth was dead right in the stand she took, but her little spurt of
independence didn't last long, and she is now ready to give in when the
chance comes to give. Miss Bettie added that on her own account.
Whythe couldn't afford to be married, but that wasn't to interfere with
his marriage. He had expected to take Elizabeth to his mother's home
and plant her in it, but when he told her Elizabeth balked. She
preferred to stay with her aunt Susanna after her marriage to going to
Whythe's home, and when she so informed him he said things he
shouldn't, and then both sent off skyrockets and the whole thing went
up in the air. And then I came.
She has now changed her mind and is willing to follow her husband
wherever he leads. She is truly womanly, also she is still wearing the
ring of the beau with whom she sought to bring Whythe to terms, and to
please her worldly aunt. But she will return the ring when it is
proper to do so. She is waiting to find out.
Elizabeth had more sense than I gave her credit for in refusing to live
in the House of Eppes; but it's either live there or not live with
Whythe, and she evidently can't live without him. I'd hate love to
make me lose the little gumption I was born with, and even my little
knows no house is big enough for a son's wife and a mother-in-law and
three in-law sisters. It won't be a Home, Sweet Home, place when
Elizabeth enters the Eppes house, and it will be nip and tuck as to who
wins out, but that's not my business. I'm sorry for both sides, and
thankful I'm not related to either. Also, I will get out of the way as
soon as possible, but until the picnic there doesn't seem a possible
way.
There is nothing in life that is not over if life is long enough, and
my little love affair with Mr. Whythe Rives Eppes belongs to the past.
Elizabeth can have him any minute she wants, and unless actions do not
speak louder than words she wants him right away, and he her. I do not
see how she is possibly going to stand his teeth. Still, there are a
great many things I do not understand in life.
The picnic is over. By giving it I brought down a good deal of comment
and criticism on my brown and curly head, but it does not matter.
Nothing except sin really matters if we have sense enough to see it. I
invited everybody in Twickenham Town that I liked to the picnic, and
some few I didn't, the latter being relations of those I did. I don't
think a person ought to be punished for their relations, any more than
being held responsible for them, and so I included them, too. What I
was criticized for was asking to the picnic quite a number of people
who don't usually go to the same places at the same time the
Historicals go, and it made talk. That night Miss Araminta Armstrong,
on the quiet, told me she knew I meant to do right, but one had to use
judgment in life, and it wasn't well to put ideas in some people's
heads. I told her I knew it, knew certain kinds of heads couldn't take
in certain ideas, one of which was that people could enjoy friendliness
and outdoorness and a lunch they didn't have to prepare for themselves,
even if they were not high-born, and as the ones referred to did not
have contagious diseases their presence wouldn't prove dangerous and
the Ancestrals needn't be uneasy. Also I told her I didn't care for
judgment as much as I ought, and if human beings knew one another
better they might find they were not as unlike as they thought. She
didn't say anything more. Neither did any one else say anything to me.
To one another they said a good deal.
It was at the picnic I had a little talk with Whythe. We went down to
a stream under a big willow-tree, and he started on the usual, but I
told him he must not say anything more to me on that subject, and if he
were the man I thought him he would not allow Elizabeth to marry the
Compensator she was no more in love with than I was. Also, I said a
few more things that were pleasant for him to hear, such as Elizabeth's
heart was breaking (it was, as much as her kind of heart could break),
and I told him it was foolishness to ruin one's life because of a
misunderstanding, and that both had doubtless been in the wrong. And
incidentally I let drop that if, after years of preparation, I ever got
married I would have nothing to bring my husband but myself, as my
father had made up his mind that young people should make their own way
in life (he ought to have so made it up if he hasn't), and Whythe said
that cut no figure with him, and asked me point-blank if I did not love
him. It didn't sound polite to say no, and yet I couldn't truthfully
say yes, so I just sighed and shook my head. When he asked me if I
could give him no hope, I answered _no_ with such uncomplimentary
quickness that I had to cough to overcome it, and then I told him it
was impossible for a girl of Elizabeth's taste and training and
character, who had once loved such a man as he, to really care for any
one else. And the blackness in his face, caused by my unnecessary
emphasis, died out, and I saw he was agreeing with me concerning
Elizabeth, and that I would not have to insist on what I said being so.
A man's appetite for flattery is never poor, and usually it is hearty.
When we got up to go back to where lunch was being served Whythe had
quite a determined air about him. I told him if I could help in any
way to let me know. An hour later I saw him and Elizabeth going down
to the same stream and the same old willow tree.
When the time came to go home I pretended I had to see Florence Kensey
about something that was important, and in the confusion of getting the
people in the cars I managed to have Whythe put Elizabeth in his, and
told them to get away quick and I would come on with Mason Page. They
got. And the next day Elizabeth looked like some one who had been
unbandaged and was letting out breath that for a long time had been
held in. Also, she looked pinker and whiter than ever, and so Pure
that it was not possible for me to stay close to her, so I got away.
No longer Hurt and Misunderstood, she went about smiling in sweet
triumphantness that was not put in words, but oozed without them, and
her manner to me was one of deepest sympathy. Poor Whythe!
CHAPTER XXIV
There are some things not required of human nature to stand. Elizabeth
Hamilton Carter is one of them. I was glad to give her back her beau.
I felt truly Virginian in doing it, for Virginians always say, when
giving you something, that they don't want it; I certainly didn't want
Whythe. I wouldn't have known what to do with him after the summer was
over, and I was conscious of great relief in getting him off my hands
without further loss or trouble. I couldn't tell Elizabeth this, of
course, though there were times when it took a good deal of something I
did not know I had to keep from doing so. Also, it took more strength
to keep several other things to myself than I knew I possessed. It
took praying and the end of the sheet to do it, but I did it, and I'm
getting encouraged about K. C.
What encourages me is this: Two nights after the picnic Elizabeth came
to my room and asked if she might have a little talk with me, as she
felt she ought to. I told her she could, and she sat down and began.
Miss Susanna was back in her own quarters, the people from Florida
having gone, and I had just finished saying my prayers and was ready to
hop into bed when Elizabeth knocked at my door. I knew what was coming
from the look on her face and her manner of walking, and the way she
held her head.
If ever I write that book I am always thinking about I am going to put
Elizabeth in it as well as Miss Araminta Armstrong, and if I could get
some men to match them I would have some corking characters to begin
with. But no kind of pen-and-ink picture of Elizabeth would do her
justice. Her sweetness of speech when she is particularly nasty is
beyond the power of human portrayal. I got in bed quick when she said
she wanted to talk, because I was afraid I might have to hit something,
and the pillow was the only thing I could manage without sound. I put
it where I could give it a dig when politeness required control, and
told her to go ahead.
In her last sleep Elizabeth will pose. She took her seat near the
window where the moonlight could shine on her (she looked very pretty
in her pink-silk kimono, a hand-over from her rich aunt, and shabby but
becoming in color), and for a moment she didn't say anything, just
fooled with the pink ribbon on her hair. And then she said she had a
secret to tell me; said it so soft, with her head on the side, that I
had to ask her to speak louder please, and I got nearer the edge of the
bed. Elbow on it and chin in the palm of one hand, I prayed hard to be
polite in my own room, and reached out for an end of the sheet with the
other. Again I told her to go ahead. After a minute she went.
"You and Whythe have been such friends that I think you should be the
first to know that--"
"Have you and Whythe made up?" I stuck my bare foot over the edge of
the bed and wriggled it. "If you have you had better be married quick
and not take any more chances. I'm awfully glad if things are settled.
Have you bounced the other fellow yet?"
It was cruel in me to take out of her mouth what she was moistening her
lips to say, but I was sleepy and I didn't want details. She had no
idea of being cut out of saying what it was her determination to say,
however, considering I had been responsible for some unhappy days
during the past two months, and before she got through she had said all
she wanted me to hear. If it hadn't been for the pillow I would have
rolled out of bed. The nerve of her! The belief of her! And, oh, my
granny! the punishment, as she imagined, of me!
Before she left the room she told me she could no longer hold out
against Whythe's pleadings. Told me he had suffered so during the
summer she was uneasy about him, and, though he had tried to forget, it
had been useless, and, unable to endure it any longer, he had come to
her and told her he could stand no more, and if she did not promise to
marry him at once he would--he would-- Her voice trailed, but I said
nothing, the end of the sheet being stuffed into my mouth for
politeness' sake, and when her tears had been wiped away she began
again.
"It is hard to forgive Whythe, because you are so young, and he knows
how fascinating he is and how little experience you have had with young
men, but his father was a flirt before him" (poor Father! I thought of
the retribution that had come to him in Mother, and I pushed in more
sheet), "and it is natural in a man to seek amusement and entertainment
when he is suffering as Whythe was. I hope you will forgive him. It
is because he may have made you imagine things that were not so, and
because you have been so nice to him, that I thought you should be the
first to know."
I rolled back to the side of the bed facing her, from which I had
rolled the other way for safety, and took the end of the sheet out of
my mouth. "Have you told IT?" I asked. "It doesn't make any
difference about my knowing as I knew before you did, but something is
due that which you brought back with you. Have you told IT, Elizabeth?"
"Told who? I don't understand." She sat up. "I don't know who you
are talking about."
"Don't you?" I too sat up and swung my bare feet over the side of the
bed. "I am talking about the person to whom I read in the Twickenham
Town Sentinel that you were engaged. He dresses like a man, and he may
be one, but even if he isn't he deserves to be treated decently by the
lady who had promised to marry him. I suppose he knows." I nodded to
her hand, on which was the ring he had given her and which she had been
twirling as she talked. "That is, if you have had time to tell him."
"That is entirely my affair!" When not hurt or injured Elizabeth is
superior, and she added scorn to the tone of her voice, but stopped
fooling with the ring, which I know she hated to send back. "I see you
do not appreciate the confidence I am putting in you or the compliment
I am paying you by telling you first, and if that is the case I will
go." She made movement as if to get up, but she had no idea of going,
so I didn't notice it, but kept on swinging my feet, and then I asked
her if she had told Miss Susanna, and if she hadn't she ought to at
once, Miss Susanna being closely related and I nothing but a summer
boarder. And I said I hoped she would be married right away, as I
would love to be at the wedding, and if she would ask me to be one of
the bridesmaids I would be one with pleasure. But she wouldn't answer
me. Seeing she still had something to say, and wouldn't leave until
she said it, I put my feet back in bed and lay flat with my hands under
my head and my eyes shut, and when at last I was fixed and quiet she
began for a third time.
I don't remember a thing after that except a sort of monotone voice and
something about people talking about me because I had accepted Whythe's
attentions when everybody knew--I didn't hear what everybody knew, and
not until I did hear a sound at the door did I wake up good, and then I
jumped as if shot and asked her, half-asleep, if she were going to live
with Mother and Sister and Sister Edwina and Miss Lily Lou when she was
married, but she answered not. And since her midnight confession she
hath not opened her mouth unto me and her little lips get together when
she sees me coming, and from her friends I have learned that she is
deeply distressed at my treatment of her. And to her friends I have
said Rats! and so endeth the efforts at friendship which she imagined
she had made. I am never going to pretend to be friends with a person
who is not truthful, and whom I understand as I understand Elizabeth
Hamilton Carter. I don't like her, and though it is not necessary to
say so unless occasion requires, neither is it necessary to appear to
be what I am not. I like Whythe, and when I saw him a few days after
Elizabeth gave herself the satisfaction of communicating to me the
return of his tempted affections, I shook hands with him good and hard
and wished him all the happiness I knew there was little chance of his
getting. If I were a man and had to live in the house with a female
who shut her mouth tight every time she got mad and was continually
hurt and always sensitive, there would likely be in that house battle,
murder, or sudden death. Any kind of outspokenness is better to be
endured than silent offense.
CHAPTER XXV
This is the last day of August, and it is a day
Twickenham Town is going to remember for
a long time. I have done again that which I
should not have done, and I guess I had better go
home. I had expected to stay until the twenty-seventh
of September and return with Father, who
was to spend a week here with me, but he can't come.
I suppose it was the awful disappointment of
knowing Father couldn't come, and being so miserable
myself (not one line yet from that person named
William Spencer Sloane, who is probably married
to an elderly woman by this time), and because
of my sureness that no human being could be
depended on in time of temptation, especially
vigorous, aggressive temptations that come out
of the West, that I gave help where help seemed
to be needed, and now again I am in everybody's
mouth. Also my ankles are still a little sore from
the weight of the window being on them as I hung
out, but they are nearly well, and even if they
were not it would not matter. Two young hearts
are happy and a proud person is not, and the
blame is on me. That also doesn't matter. I am
soon going away.
The thing I did, which maybe I shouldn't have
done, was to help little Amy Frances Winston
get married. She is the property of her
grandmother, who is a very important part of
Twickenham Town. Having no parents or sisters or
brothers, and only enough money of her own for
her keep, and no spunk or spirit, she has gone on
for years loving an awfully nice chap named
Taylor French, with little chance of ever marrying
him, and then in hops this Miss Frisk, who asks
her why she doesn't quit fumbling and stop fearing,
and the thing is done.
There is nothing the matter with Taylor French
except he is not Ancestral. Mrs. Brandon, Amy's
grandmother, is diseased on the subject of
ancestry, and the first thing she asks about a man
is who is he. Knowing she would want to know
who I was, I mentioned to her one day that I
had never had any grandparents on either side
(living ones I meant), and that we were not
historic, and no member of our family had ever
been distinguished (for righteousness, though I
didn't use the word), and that we had made our
own way in life, which was true, for Father didn't
have a thing but what he was making when he
married Mother. I also told her I did not mind
in the least, and if I did I would try to remember
that Christ was a carpenter and St. Paul a
sail-maker, though I'd never care to be intimate
with St. Paul. And I told her I thought it was
yourself that counted most, after all, and not dead
people, though it must be nice to know somebody
in your family had been something if you were not.
All she said was, "Are you a suffragist?" When
I said I was and I hoped I didn't look as if I
were not, for I wouldn't like anybody to be
mistaken about it, she gave me a long look and left
the room.
She did not exactly draw her skirts aside with
her hand as she passed me, but she did it inwardly;
that is, I imagined she did from the expression
of her face, and the next day she must have
fumigated the house, for when I went by an awful
smell of sulphur was coming from it. She is a
low bender and bower in church at the mention
of a name belonging to one she believes a Prince
in disguise, who in another life will receive her
into His kingdom, and whom she professes to
follow in the expectation of being rewarded for so
doing, but her head is held high when she doesn't
care to see the lowly ones He came to give light
and life to. I don't mean she doesn't give old
clothes and food and sometimes a little wood to
old Mrs. Snicker, who can't move, from
rheumatism, but she would no more speak other than
stiffly to some of the people I know here than she
would go in for suffrage. She doesn't realize she
is a living woman. She thinks she is an Ancestor.
For years she has forbidden Taylor French to
come to her house, and Amy has to see him elsewhere.
She has seen a good deal of him lately, Amy
has. Taylor doesn't live in Twickenham Town
now. He is living in North Carolina and has a
good position, and is able to get married (I know
because I asked him), and any minute day or
night in the past eighteen months in which Amy
would have agreed he would have married her
and taken her away, but Amy wouldn't agree.
Things have been dragging along this way so
long that the nerves of both are frazzled out, and
there's nothing to hope for but death, and, of
course, it isn't respectful to think too hopefully
of death and a grandmother. And then I popped
in and gave things a little push and the curtain dropped.
The way it dropped was this. I mean the way
they got married. Taylor was in town the last
two weeks in August, and, as everybody invited
him to their parties, he and Amy managed to see
a good deal of each other (also the seeing wasn't
altogether at places where other people were
around). But she wasn't allowed to meet him
on the square or to receive letters from him
straight. And sometimes, if he wanted to say
something in a hurry, or send her candy or a new
book, or any of the usuals, he had to give a signal
by throwing pebbles on her window at night,
and then she would throw out a string and he
would tie the thing to it and she would haul
up, and the Personage, who was usually asleep,
would be none the wiser. The Personage is deaf,
which is a great help.
Well, one night three of the town girls and
myself, with a boy apiece, had been to see Amy,
and when we went up-stairs (just the girls) to
see a new hat a city cousin had sent her, we heard
a little tap at the west window. It had been
raining, which accounted for our being indoors
with the windows lowered, and when we heard
the tapping we were so excited we could hardly
breathe. It was fearfully thrilly, just like things
one reads about in books, and I told the girls
to put out the light quick, and when it was out
I went to the window and saw Taylor standing
in the shadow of a big tree. He signaled me to
drop the line, but when I threw the piece of
twine Amy gave me I threw it wrong and it got
caught in a broken piece of shingle on the edge
of the porch and hung there. I couldn't get it
back and Taylor couldn't get it down, and,
seeing it was necessary for something to be done, I
pushed aside the curtains (they were made of
striped calico, blue and white) and told the girls
I was going to lean out of the window on the roof
of the porch to get the string loose, and they
must hold on to my feet, for the roof sloped and
I might slip if they didn't. They tried to stop
me, and Amy wrung her hands, being very
nervous from living on a strain and loving in
secret, but I was out head foremost in a jiffy,
and all four made a grab for my feet and legs.
Being flat on my stomach, and having long arms,
I got the string off from the piece of shingle, and
just as I did it and threw it to Taylor I heard
a noise and a little cry from the girls, something
about, "Oh, my goodness! here she comes!" and
I knew what had happened.
"Pull the window down on my feet and let
go," I called, as loud as I dared, "and draw the
curtains so she won't see my shoes. If she asks
where I am, tell her I am outdoors. Quick!
Let it down!"
They got it down and drew the curtains just
as her Royal Highness walked in, and as she went
toward the window Katherine Hardy says that
never before had she prayed as she prayed that
minute, and then she thought of mice, which was
a quick answer. She gave a little scream and
jumped with her hands over her eyes and bumped
into the lady, who, being a woman first, was also
afraid of mice, and she moved, too. Seeing the
girls flying around, she told them to stop, told
them Maud Hendren's mother had telephoned
that she must come home at once and, not
missing me, owing to the girls moving about so
she wouldn't notice, she went out of the room,
skirts still held up, and the minute she was out
they rushed for the window and pulled me in.
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