For instance, he opened a cabinette which honestly held interesting things, not like Aunt Penelope’s, which has only six fancy fans and a lot of ancient scent-bottles and an autographed book of poems and such truck. His has really fascinating things in it, and it is, therefore, worth the dusting trouble. There were all sorts of books in it, written in different ways. I mean scrolls--simply yards of those, and an East Indian one written on reeds all strung together, and even one on a brick. We agreed that it would be frightful1 to have to scratch out a best seller with a chisel2. He said, “Think how your wrist would feel by the time your hero gets his best girl!” and I agreed. That brick was Assyrian. Then he had little tiny gods that the Egyptians buried with people. And he even had the toilet things of an ancient queen, and it had a tweezers3 in it, which led me to believe that even then they pulled out the extra eyebrows4 and made them skinny and beautiful, as women do to-day.
Evelyn has a woman come to do it each week, if she can’t get down to Elizabeth Varden’s. And she squawls--there are no other words for this--while it is being done. But her eyebrows are arched and beautifully shaped. I told Mr. Kempwood how she yelled, as I suggested the eyebrow5 theory. He laughed a good deal and said maybe I was right. Then he said I really oughtn’t to tell him things like that, and, although I didn’t see why I shouldn’t, I said I would not.
Then he asked me to sit down, and I did (and even I wanted to stay sitting, for his chairs are wonderfully sittable), after which he rang and we had tea, and since there were no plain bread and butter sandwiches I felt no obligation to eat any. I thanked Mr. Kempwood for omitting them, and I ate a good deal and enjoyed myself more than I have since reaching New York.
I told him a lot about Uncle Frank and Bradly-dear and even about Willy Jepson. And he asked me whether I thought I would marry Willy, and I said not if anyone else asked me. And then I had some more tea.
He asked me how old I was, at that point, and when I said sixteen, he was surprised. I don’t seem it. I know that. . . . That is one reason Amy never has room in the motor for me. I know I humiliate6 her by my lack of polish. Baseball doesn’t develop much beside muscle and quickness and a certain sort of flash judgment7, I have realized lately. But I shall acquire those other things in the three years, of which over a week has passed.
“Where’s the bracelet8 to-day, Natalie?” Mr. Kempwood asked, after looking at my arms. . . . I wore a gray silk which has short sleeves. It has broad white cuffs9 and a big flaring10 white collar, and is pretty. . . . I replied that I thought I wouldn’t wear it, for I knew no one would believe my story.
I said I was, decidedly.
“Know its history?” he asked.
“In a way,” I answered. “But not as well as I shall. . . . History has never interested me. I didn’t think things that happened to dead people vital, but lately----”
“Well,” he said, “they may not be vital; nothing but food and sleep really is, you know. But the things that have happened are interesting, because they make you think. Beside making you realize what helped to form the great country in which you live. Perhaps you haven’t seen History. Perhaps you’ve just said, ‘In 1776 Washington occupied the Jumel Mansion for some time’; or, ‘On Wednesday, July 3, 1833, Reverend Doctor Bogart married the celebrated12 Col. Burr and Madam Jumel, widow of the late Stephen Jumel,’ instead of seeing Washington step out of that door and stand on that porch. . . . Probably he watched the burning of New York from there. (A great many people think Nathan Hale started it. New York was then in the hands of the British, and many thought burning it was the thing to do. There are a good many things about Nathan Hale’s story that are still misty13. . . .) You repeat dates about a wedding instead of seeing a queer old woman, rouged14 and smirking15, come down the twisting stairs of the Jumel Mansion to meet her groom16, who was a tired old man, poor and aware that a gay youth doesn’t leave much precipitate17 for a comfortable old age. . . . He gained six thousand dollars by that marriage, and she--some more experience with the law, for she divorced him.”
Mr. Kempwood stopped and asked if he might smoke. I said yes, and after he lit a long cigarette, which he put in an interesting holder18, he went on with: “Can’t you see the old lady and the old man being married? The ceremony took place in the small parlour at the left as one enters. . . . Probably some servants looked on. Perhaps the room was lit by candles, dozens of them, flickering19 high, then low, and casting shadows. . . . My, what a house, what memories she put in it.” Mr. Kempwood paused, knocked off his ash, and then said: “Do you know houses have souls? They have the thoughts that their owners attach to their walls. Haven’t you seen lovely houses and heard people say: ‘Horrible place; I hate going there. . . . They are all so sarcastic20.’ You see--before one knows it--the house absorbs the spirit of the people who live in it, and one thinks of the home as horrible. Now, Madam Jumel (you won’t quite understand this, Natalie, and it’s difficult to explain) didn’t have much chance, and she wasn’t always good. In fact, she was far from it. And she came to this house, which had belonged to the Roger Morris family, who had kept it fine and splendid, and she turned it to a mad-house before she died, and left it in possession of three quarrelling sets of heirs, who dragged their claims through the courts for years and years, and whose descendants are still bickering22. For those who had lost felt that they had been cheated, and so they kept on bickering.”
“Don’t you think that a man who evades fighting leaves a stain?” I asked.
“Roger Morris?” said Mr. Kempwood.
I nodded.
“Yes, but if the reasons for his not fighting were sufficient, his evading23 it was right. . . . You see, his wife’s family, the Philipse, and the Robinsons--I believe the Robinsons had a country place still in existence at Dobbs Ferry, that has staged some interesting history, too--they all owned property,” he went on, “and if Captain Morris had sided with the King, where his sympathies probably lay, his property and that of all his connection might have been burned by the ‘Liberty Boys.’ . . . He had a family and a wife to care for. The Beverly Robinsons and their clan24 were not used to poverty. He could not drag them to it. We’ll say he left for that reason.”
“Why did they burn houses?” I asked.
“Because they thought their owners sympathized with England. . . . They must have had a good time!” Mr. Kempwood stopped and shook his head. “Imagine,” he said, “a mob of a hundred men, all carrying sticks and throwing stones and some of them swinging tin lanterns--from which gleamed the feeble light of candles. Probably they catcalled, sang, and whistled as they tramped along the street, and little girls in long quilted skirts ran after them, and little boys--in homespun breeches--joined the moving throng25, adding their shrill26 voices, whistles, sticks, and stones. Then perhaps they would pause before a house and call, ‘Master Benson, we’ll greet you immedjet’--and others, ‘Come forth27, yuh dog!’ while the wag of the crowd would sing a song of King George. Then perhaps a window would slide up, and a man who wore a nightcap would stick a head out and ask for mercy. . . . But I doubt whether he got it, for crowds are cruel. . . . Perhaps his wife and little girls would come out of the house, carrying what little they could, and crying. . . . And then the man, sullen28 and angered, would be put through a mock trial, for the benefit of the jeering29 crowd. . . . And back of him a house would blaze, and the things he had loved would vanish in smoke. . . . A fire looks pretty against a black night sky. The blazing red which vanishes in sullen smoke. . . . The light. . . . See it?”
I said I did.
“But they had to burn those houses, didn’t they?” I asked.
“No,” he answered; “George Washington didn’t want them to. They did more harm than good, for often they burned the houses of the innocent, and a mob spirit--uncontrolled--has no business in war. Anything is done better under direction of a man who sees things coolly and takes them quietly.”
I said I supposed this was so.
“What happened to the Jumel Mansion after the Roger Morris family left it?” I asked. “Did they come back?”
“No,” he answered. “The Philipse Manor30 was confiscated31 and sold with the Morris property, for these two families had gone back to England. . . . There was some mix-up about the income from the properties--war makes that, you know--and the heirs, I suppose, were glad to dispose of the place, for John Jacob Astor, seeing what is to-day called a ‘good buy,’ purchased the right of the heirs, with legal power to transfer, for twenty thousand pounds. . . . Later, the State of New York bought it from him for half a million dollars.
“From the close of the Revolution until Stephen Jumel bought the property, a period of nearly thirty years, the old house was, in turn, a humble32 farmhouse33 or an inn. . . . Stages began to go from Albany to New York in 1787, and of course they stopped at the inn. Changed horses, you know. . . . Can’t you see them dashing up in style, the whips cracking, the horses sweating, then the stop, and the ladies, all flounced and hooped34 of skirt, getting out to walk about and shake the stiffness from their bones? . . . Perhaps a gentleman would say, ‘Will madam do me the proud honour to sup with me?’ and perhaps they had fried chicken and mashed35 potato and pie--all on the table at once. And I’m sure the innkeeper’s wife frankly36 listened to their talk, for talk in those days took the place of newspapers, which even our country people get to-day. . . . Then after they’d ‘supped’ I think they’d go out and get in, the ladies most ‘genteel’ settling their skirts, and the gentlemen putting cushions back of them and murmuring something about the ‘glories of all blue skies paling beside the colour of their orbs21.’ . . . They did it that way, in those days, Natalie,” Mr. Kempwood ended.
I said I knew it, but that I’d rather have a man say right out if he liked me, that I preferred sensible frankness. Mr. Kempwood said he knew it and that he thought a man would try to be awfully37 square with me.
Then I said, “What next?” and he smiled and said:
“And--with a crack of a whip, they dashed off to New York, a large town, which lay some ten miles distant from the hamlet of Harlem Heights!”
“Did they go up to see the view, I wonder?”
Mr. Kempwood thought they did. . . . You can see miles from the little balcony at the top of the Jumel Mansion, and then, of course, further, for nothing was built up.
“Yes,” he said, “probably the beau bowed very low and said, ‘Will madam’--or mistress--‘honour me by going up the stairs to see the view from the top balcony, which is rumoured38 to be the most beauteous, and is of great renown39?’?”
And then we stood up and I put on my things. For we were going driving. We were through with history for that day. . . . But Mr. Kempwood had made me see it. . . . I could actually hear the creak of the old inn sign as it swung in the wind. . . . I could see the tired horses, and the little daughters of the innkeeper peeping around the big white posts. . . . For I am sure that they were bashful country children (quite like me) with no way to say what they felt. . . . Probably they were afraid of the grand ladies who travelled so “elegant” and who minced40 so daintily as they walked. And perhaps, as they sat around the fireplace at night, one would say: “Mother, I was in the room turning the loom41 and I heard the grand lady with the purple ostrich42 plumes43 talk. She was a-viewing the view. She said: ‘Laws, you bold man, I cannot believe one word you say!’ He said: ‘No rose in all of Heaven’s garden wears the bloom of your sweet cheek!’ What do you think of that, mother?” And then perhaps she would look in the fire and dream. . . . For even little country girls do that--if they can’t play baseball!
We had a lovely, lovely drive.
Mr. Kempwood was so kind to me, and he said he was going to take me every week. I could hardly believe it.
“I think you are very good to me,” I whispered. For I felt it so deeply that it was hard to say.
“I’m not,” he said. “I am being very good to myself. . . . I can’t tell you how much I enjoy this, Natalie. . . .”
I slipped my hand in his and squeezed it.
“Little person,” he said, “you are a dear!” And he smiled down at me, but he let go of my hand after two pats. Then, before I knew it, it was really late and time to get ready for dinner.
“I hate leaving you!” I said, as we stood in our small outer hall. He thanked me and said he felt that way about me. “But,” he said, “we’ll have another ride soon, and I’ll see you within a few days.”
But I couldn’t believe this; it seemed too good. However, I saw him the next evening, or, as they say in the North, afternoon. It was at the Jumel Mansion. . . . And I was the direct cause of it all, which makes me feel dreadfully. But how could I tell that that would happen and that I would make him get hurt?
It was terrible, but I am so thankful that it was no worse. I think of that all the time--for, if Mr. Kempwood had been killed, there is a spot in my heart that would never have healed. But--he wasn’t!
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1
frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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2
chisel
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| n.凿子；v.用凿子刻，雕，凿 | |
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tweezers
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| n.镊子 | |
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eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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eyebrow
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| n.眉毛，眉 | |
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humiliate
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| v.使羞辱，使丢脸[同]disgrace | |
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7
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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bracelet
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| n.手镯，臂镯 | |
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cuffs
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| n.袖口( cuff的名词复数 )v.掌打，拳打( cuff的第三人称单数 ) | |
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flaring
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| a.火焰摇曳的，过份艳丽的 | |
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mansion
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| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
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celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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misty
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| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
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rouged
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| 胭脂，口红( rouge的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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15
smirking
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| v.傻笑( smirk的现在分词 ) | |
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groom
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| vt.给（马、狗等）梳毛，照料，使...整洁 | |
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precipitate
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| adj.突如其来的；vt.使突然发生；n.沉淀物 | |
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holder
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| n.持有者，占有者；(台，架等)支持物 | |
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flickering
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| adj.闪烁的，摇曳的，一闪一闪的 | |
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sarcastic
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| adj.讥讽的，讽刺的，嘲弄的 | |
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orbs
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| abbr.off-reservation boarding school 在校寄宿学校n.球，天体，圆形物( orb的名词复数 ) | |
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bickering
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| v.争吵( bicker的现在分词 )；口角；（水等）作潺潺声；闪烁 | |
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evading
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| 逃避( evade的现在分词 )； 避开； 回避； 想不出 | |
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clan
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| n.氏族，部落，宗族，家族，宗派 | |
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throng
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| n.人群，群众；v.拥挤，群集 | |
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shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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jeering
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| adj.嘲弄的，揶揄的v.嘲笑( jeer的现在分词 ) | |
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manor
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| n.庄园，领地 | |
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confiscated
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| 没收，充公( confiscate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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farmhouse
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| n.农场住宅（尤指主要住房） | |
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hooped
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| adj.以环作装饰的；带横纹的；带有环的 | |
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mashed
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| a.捣烂的 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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rumoured
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| adj.谣传的；传说的；风 | |
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renown
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| n.声誉，名望 | |
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minced
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| v.切碎( mince的过去式和过去分词 )；剁碎；绞碎；用绞肉机绞（食物，尤指肉） | |
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loom
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| n.织布机，织机；v.隐现，(危险、忧虑等)迫近 | |
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42
ostrich
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| n.鸵鸟 | |
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plumes
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| 羽毛( plume的名词复数 )； 羽毛饰； 羽毛状物； 升上空中的羽状物 | |
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