A Little Girl of Long Ago 10 – Douglas · Verses Across
Literature · Historical Fiction
A Little Girl of Long Ago 10With a Poet
18
Literature · Historical Fiction
A Little Girl of Long Ago 10
With a Poet
DouglasEnglish
The city by the sea sung itself in Hanny's brain. The sweet, young, beautiful wife, ruthlessly torn away, was somewhere in space, among the stars perhaps, and not in the old graveyard. She was floating on and on amidst all lovely things and divine fragrances. She could never grow old; she would never want for anything. Ah, would she not want for the mother and the poet who loved her?
An incident that had moved her strongly only a few weeks before, was a strange bit of reminiscence that could hardly be called a story. Ben had brought home a volume of De Quincey, and "Suspiria de Profundis" was among the papers. The others were too intellectual to interest her; but the touching, tender, immeasurable longing for the little sister gone out of life, filled her inmost soul with an emotion so sacred she could not talk it over with any one. This was akin to it.
Yet Hanny did not live in the clouds or in vague memories all the time. Her father drove up the next day, and found she was not homesick; and her mother was coming up the next week to spend the day; and everybody was well. She had a great deal to tell him; and she seemed very merry. He wasn't quite sure about the crabbing expedition; but Mrs. Odell said there wasn't a mite of danger, for some of the big boys always went along; and that it was a regular frolic for the children.
So Saturday they put on their oldest clothes. Hanny wore an outgrown frock of Polly's. Mr. Odell said he would drive them down to the river, which would save half the walk. He had some business in that direction.
He had the farm-waggon, and put some hay in the bottom, though he insisted Hanny should sit on the seat with him. They stopped at Fordham, and took in another relay; and the children were wild with the unreasoning gladness of youth. Mr. Odell was in an uncommon good-humour, and took them down the river quite a distance, to High Bridge, and then up again, when they espied the boys and baskets and the net, which had a long handle and looked to Hanny like a butterfly-net, only larger.
A motley crew they were. The boys had their trousers rolled above their knees, and some of the girls took off their shoes and stockings and waded about in the wet, sedgy grass. There was a little dock where the boats were tied; and soon two of them were loosened and filled up with a jolly crew. Big, cheerful Cousin Ben took charge of the little girl, and would not allow the others to frighten her. Ann was quite a famous hand on these expeditions.
They rowed out a short distance, and then began business. Oh, the shrieks and laughter that came from the other boat, when some one dipped up two hands full of water and dashed it over the others. And it is strange how much you can make your hands hold at such a time. Hanny was glad she was not in that boat, when they rocked it up and down. But most of the children could swim, and they were not in the channel.
"Quick!" exclaimed Cousin Ann, and the net was held out in a twinkling, Ann drew up a great green fellow with a frightful lot of legs, and he dropped in the net. They dumped him into a basket, and covered him with a piece of old fish-net; and the more he struggled to get out, the more he entangled himself. Hanny felt rather glad he was not down her end of the boat.
They had brilliant luck for a little while. Then the other boat shifted about; they had not caught a single crab, and there were loud murmurs of discontent. The others had the best place.
"You make such a racket you frighten them away," said Ben.
"Can they hear?" asked Hanny.
"I think about everything in this world can see and hear in some fashion."
They certainly were dreadful looking. The laughter and the exclamations, the disappointment at losing one, the funny conundrums the children propounded to one another, and the limp appearance of the voyagers, partly made amends for the sudden fright every time the great sprawling things came up. Hanny would not even undertake the capture of one.
The crabs grew wise presently. Not one of them could be aroused to the faintest curiosity concerning bait. Ben's boat had nineteen, the other eleven. They rowed up to the little dock, and managed to get them all in one basket. Jack showed Hanny how you could take hold of a crab, and render him helpless. It certainly did look funny to see him struggling with all his might and main, and his numerous legs. The two front ones were very fierce.
"He could give you an awful pinch with them," said Jack; and he made believe fling him at a group of girls, who scattered pellmell.
"I suppose the legs are oars, and help him swim," said Hanny.
"And help him grab his prey. He's a sort of savage fellow, and lives on smaller folks."
Then Ben and Jack went to dig for clams. There were very nice clam and oyster beds along the river then. There were not many people to disturb them, and no sewage to starve them out.
Hanny thought planting oysters a very funny idea. They were put in their beds like other babies.
The boys, and some of the girls, picked up the clams, until they had a half-bushel basket full. Tony Creese, the black man who did odd jobs, was to drive down for the "freight;" but he seemed in no hurry. Some of the boys went in swimming; and Janey Odell did wish she had brought another frock along. She could swim very well. They waded instead. Ben walked up to a little bank that, having lain in the sun all day, was warm and dry, and stretched himself out. Ann was too big to go "larking" about with the girls, so she and Hanny, and one or two others, sat down on the soft, sunburned turf.
How beautiful it all was! The sun was going down behind the New Jersey hills. The little rise of ground between this and the Hudson shut out the river; but it could not shut out the amethystine splendour. Back of it all was heaven, to the child's faith. Miss Lois and her sister were there, and old Mr. Bounett, and the poet's young wife, and ever so many others. It was only the other side of the clouds, with their scarlet and gold and green battlements. She could see the ships sailing into port. She recalled "Pilgrim's Progress," and Christiana going across. In that moment of ecstasy she could have gone herself.
Tony came down the road singing "Oh, Susannah;" Ben answered "Hillo!" and shook himself like a great bear. The two baskets were put into the waggon.
"Now you girls who are too delicate for a long walk, or too much worn out by your day's toil, had better hop in. Ann, you go and keep an eye on Hanny. Now who else?"
They were all pretty tired with their racing about, and the three smallest ones were picked out, as there was but one horse. The others formed the rear-guard, and marched on behind, with their arms about each other. They were too tired for even the tempting game of "tag," or the ambition of running races.
Mr. Odell was waiting at the uncle's, having come around the other way. Supper was ready; but he thought they had better be "gettin' on," as mother would wait supper for them.
Hanny was very tired, and went to bed immediately after the meal.
They had some splendid clam-fritters for breakfast. Ben had proposed to divide the crabs; but Mr. Odell reckoned, "He'd go crabbing the first leisure day," and was satisfied with part of the clams.
And then, unexpected delight, Stephen and Dolly and the two babies came up to dinner. Little Stevie captured everybody, he was so merry and cunning; and Polly wished they could keep him.
"When he gets to be a big boy, and has a school vacation, I'll be very glad to send him up, I dare say," was the response.
"But, dear me, we'll be big too," said Polly; "and it won't be any fun."
Dolly told her little sister-in-law all the news, and what everybody was doing. It seemed as if she had been away so long. Mother had spent a day with Martha, which she had been promising to do ever since Martha was married.
The little girl almost wanted to go home with them; but no one invited her, and she would not have been so silly or ungracious as to plead homesickness, for she really wasn't homesick a bit.
Then, on Tuesday, Joe came up with a letter from Daisy, who had gone to some German baths, and was drinking water twice as horrid as that at Saratoga. The things you had to eat were so very queer; but the music everywhere was perfectly bewitching. Everything was so different. She was taking lessons of a Fraeulein, and had to talk German at the table. They had been through several churches, and one picture gallery that was magnificent. A little withered-up old German was giving her some painting lessons. If Hanny could only be there, she would be quite content; yet she did think she loved America best.
Hanny was so delighted that her eyes shone, and her cheeks were pink as a rose-leaf.
But Mrs. Odell said she could notice that her appetite was better, and she was doing her best to fat her up a little, and make her look like a country girl.
Mr. Odell took her about with him when he could. There were so many beautiful places up and down the valley of the Bronx. They went up to White Plains, and took everybody by surprise. Grandmother up there was quite feeble now.
Then it happened, rather oddly, that when Cousin Jennie came down for her, as there was no one scarcely at Fordham but the regular family, Mrs. Odell was going to have a houseful of relatives from the West. She just wished they had their new house at such times as these. She could make a bed on the floor for Janey and Polly, and that would give her two spare rooms.
The girls didn't feel so badly, as there were two Western cousins of their age, and they would bring them up to Fordham.
The little girl was not at all tired of her pleasant hosts; but there was a romantic side to the coming visit that she could not talk over with Polly and Janey; and she was most famished for reading, as the Odells were not of the intellectual sort. Mrs. Odell didn't like the children to handle her parlour books, in their red morocco bindings, that were spread around on the centre-table.
Hanny's favourite place at the Fordham house was up on the high piazza. To be sure, it was sunny in the morning; but then Doctor Joe said sunshine was good for her, and one corner soon grew shady. There was some one passing up and down continually: the priests from St. John's College, in their long black coats and queer hats, generally reading as they walked; the labourers who worked on the railroad; the people going to the station; and the girls out calling in the afternoons in their pretty white gowns. There was no Jerome Park for stylish driving. Indeed, it was a plain little country village, and most of the life centred about the corner grocery and the blacksmith shop, where men talked politics and the discovery of California, and discussed the merits of the heroes of the Mexican War.
She sewed some patchwork for Cousin Jennie, who was making several bed-quilts, and who had a lover,--a tall, bright-eyed young man who drove a very handsome horse. Hanny felt quite wise on the subject of lovers; and though no one said anything special, she understood what the preparations meant.
"Now," Cousin Jennie said the next afternoon, "I am going up to Mr. Poe's, to return some books and get others. Will you go along?"
Hanny was very glad. She had seen Mr. N. P. Willis and General Morris, and some others, on the street; but that wasn't like going to their houses. The dead young wife lent him a glamour of romance, to her girlish imagination.
Mrs. Clemm sat on the farther end of the porch. It almost seemed as if she had not stirred since Hanny caught the first glimpse of her. She rose, a tall, rather thin woman with a sad, quiet face and a grave smile; and the two had a little chat.
There was no hall to the house, at least the door opened into the front room. A half closet stood at one side of the chimney, piled with books and papers, an old sofa and some chairs, a table in the centre, strewn with pamphlets and writing-materials, and the poet sitting beside it in a melancholy pose, marking passages in a book.
He glanced up and spoke. The little girl had an impression of a pallid face framed in dark, tumbled hair, and luminous eyes that seemed to be of some other world in their abstracted light.
"You are quite welcome to any of the books, as you well know," said the poet. "I am glad to have some one interested in them."
Then the white hand went on turning pages and making notes. The little girl stood by the window, almost expecting the frail ghost to walk down from the graveyard and enter the door again. Later on, she understood the impression of weirdness, the almost ghostly stillness of the room; and she found herself thinking over the poem that had so impressed her.
Fordham, in those days, was neither poetical nor intellectual. That a man should starve on writing poetry, when there was other work to be done in the world, seemed rather absurd. In some of the centres, literature was becoming an honourable employment; but country places had not emerged from the twilight of respect for brawn rather than brain.
Jennie made her selections, and expressed her obligation. The poet nodded absently.
Mrs. Clemm rose, as they emerged from the door, and walked to the end of the porch with them. There was something wonderfully pathetic in the care-worn face, the reticent air, and gentle voice.
"I wonder if you have a few eggs to spare," she asked, in a hesitating manner. "My poor Edgar's appetite is so wretched. He has had a bad spell, and eats next to nothing."
"Yes, I can find you half-a-dozen, I know. Our hens are afflicted a little with summer laziness," and Jennie smiled. "We have been baking to-day, and I wish you would accept a loaf of bread. I'll send this little cousin up with them."
"Oh, don't trouble! I will come down."
"I shall be glad to do it," said Hanny, with a gentle eagerness.
Cousin Jennie put the bread and the eggs,--she found seven,--and part of a cake, in a little basket, and said, "Run along, Little Red Riding Hood. There are no wolves to catch you."
They teased Cousin Jennie a little because the tall young man with bright eyes was named Woolf.
Mrs. Clemm received the little girl's parcel with her usual quiet air, and thanked her for coming. And before she could hunt up her ever-scanty purse the child had said Good-evening, and vanished.
Hanny heard the "spells" rather rudely explained a day or two after, and understood the melancholy shadow that hung about the house. People were not any more delicate in gossiping about their neighbour's short-comings then than now, when all the little faults and frailties of heroes are paraded to the public gaze and comment.
But the exquisite care with which the mother watched over the son of her heart, made her one of the little girl's heroines later on, when she could fully appreciate the tender solicitude that tried to shield him and save him from temptation, when possible, bearing her burthen with such heroic dignity that she was fain to persuade her own soul that she covered it from critical eyes. When one woman suffers bravely to the death, amid untold privation, and another takes up the dropped burthen with a devotion no anxiety can wear out, is it not proof that there must have been some charm in the poet seen more clearly by those who loved him?
There was a new book by Miss Macintosh among those they had brought home; and this Hanny devoured eagerly, sitting on her high perch, while the rest were busy in the household routine. In the afternoon, she read aloud while the others sewed. Sometimes the Major came in to listen; but he thought there were no novels written nowadays like "The Mysteries of Udolpho," "The Children of the Abbey," and "The Vicar of Wakefield."
"Oh," said the little girl, "isn't this funny! We have the first volume of 'The Grumbler' and the second of 'The Grandfather.' I don't believe I can piece them together," with a bright, mirthful expression.
"And I picked those up myself. No; we are interested in the 'Grumbler' now and must know what became of him."
They were English novels by a Miss Pickering, long since forgotten, while less worthy ones are remembered.
"We'll walk up after supper and change them," continued Cousin Jennie.
But visitors came in shortly afterward to stay to supper. People were not specially invited then; and the hostess did not expect to prepare a feast on ordinary occasions. So Jennie said Hanny might go up alone, if she didn't mind.
She started gladly, yet a sense of diffidence oppressed her as she stood at the door, a half guilty consciousness, as if she had no right to the secret Mrs. Clemm was trying so assiduously to hide.
The poet was pacing up and down the room; but his pallid face and strange, shining eyes seemed looking out from some other world. Mrs. Clemm sat by the window with a magazine in her hand.
Hanny preferred her request timidly.
"Oh, come in and hunt them up. Your cousin is quite welcome to anything. Then there are some upstairs, though I brought down that pile over in the corner this very morning."
The corner looked attractive. Hanny went thither, and knelt down on the checked matting. There were two books of engravings containing portraits of famous people, some old volumes of verse, some new ones, and magazines.
The volumes she wanted were not among them. But she exhumed something else that made her forget the slight, nervous man pacing up and down, and the woman at the window. Turning the leaves of an old novel that had lost one cover, she came across the name of one of her heroes, "Richard of the Lion Heart." She had a passion, just then, for English history. And there was Bulwer's "White Rose of England," in paper covers with a Harper imprint.
"Could I take these beside?" she asked, with some hesitation.
He glanced over at them as he came to that end of the room.
"Those old novels? Yes. Do they let you read novels?"
"I read almost anything," and Hanny glanced up with rising colour. "But there are not so many books up here--I live in New York," she added, by way of explanation.
A half smile crossed his face, but its melancholy haunted the little girl long afterward.
Then she went over to the closet, and soon found her missing volumes, and uttered her gentle Good-afternoon. Mrs. Clemm had folded her sewing, and came out on the porch where the water-pail stood empty, so she started to the well.
"Please thank your cousin for her kindness," she said in a soft tone. "I am glad she is fond of books."
The modern realistic school, or even the analytic school, would flout Madame Cottin's old novel of "The Saracen" to-day. Perhaps in the year two thousand the novels of to-day will be wondered at. The next morning, the little girl was up in her eyrie in the corner of the porch, and began her story. She was deeply interested in the Crusaders as well. Richard, Saladin, and his noble and knightly brother Melek held her spell-bound. She let the patchwork lie unheeded.
Queen Joan, Richard's sister, beautiful and unfortunate in her marriage, almost a prisoner for years, rescued and taken to the Holy Land in company with Berengaria, and treated with Oriental suavity and honour, and loved by Melek Adel, indeed, almost married to him, though history considers it only as one of the many feints of Eastern diplomacy, roused all Hanny's youthful ardour. And Saladin's young nephew, taking knighthood at Richard's hands on Easter morning, was so striking a picture that the child could not understand why Turks and Christians should be bitter enemies, when friendships like this could be cemented, and apparently appreciated by men of such qualities.
She lost interest in the "Grumbler," and I am afraid her mind wandered as she read aloud. She was really glad that for several days there were no children to play with. She sat out of doors, and was pretty sure that would answer Doctor Joe's requirements; and the Major took her out driving, but she smuggled in her book. She was not quite so pale, though that might have been due to sun-burn.
She had just finished her enchanting story one morning, and was glancing idly down the hill, watching the toilers who bent over as if they were carrying heavy loads, or drawing something behind them. Physical culture had not yet been applied to the fine art of walking.
A barouche, drawn by two nodding horses, came slowly along. There were four ladies in it; but one especially attracted the child. She wore a gown of softest cerulean blue, a bonnet of blue crape with delicate pink roses, and a large bow of airy tulle tied under her chin. Her long ringlets, the fashion of the day, drooped about her lovely face, that smiled and dimpled as she talked. Her hands were daintily gloved, and one held her parasol up high so she could glance about. Hanny was quite sure she espied her, for her companion leaned out and looked also.
She left the child in a daze as she went by. Hanny had a secret, exultant consciousness that she had seen her ideal poet; then she smiled and wondered if she could write poems. Dolly was quite as pretty, but she couldn't; and Margaret was handsomer. She could not quite associate the sad, abstracted man up the road with "Annabel Lee." What a puzzle it all was!
She went downstairs presently, and was sitting on the area steps watching Cousin Jennie iron, when the tall figure in her shabby black hat and veil, which she invariably wore, came up the outer steps. Hanny ran to open the gate.
Mrs. Clemm was always quietly dignified. It was the intangible good breeding that distinguished her from the ordinary country-folk. She had a small tin kettle in her hand, and her manner was apologetic.
"They had some unexpected visitors from the city, dear friends of Eddie's" (she oftener called him that than any other name, and she often said "My poor dear Eddie!"). "Could they spare her some milk, and a few eggs? They had no milk at the store."
"With pleasure," said Jennie, who went to the milk-room, and cast a glance around to see if there was not something else that would help out the feast.
The little girl wanted to ask some questions, but she hesitated from diffidence.
She wondered afterward how the quiet, almost listless woman could concoct dainty feasts for these illustrious people out of her poverty; for they were illustrious in their day. Were the wit and poesy and knowledge the successive desserts, and bright gossip the sparkle of the Barmecide wine? She thought of the little cottage, when she read of Madame Scarron among the French wits.
She described them to Cousin Jennie when the tall black figure was going slowly up the road.
"Yes, they have a good many visitors," said Jennie. "They did last summer, when poor Mrs. Poe was alive."
"Was she very beautiful?"
"Oh, child, beauty isn't everything!" and Jennie smiled. "Yes; it was said she was. But she was so thin and pale. She used to sit out there on the porch, wrapped in a white shawl, with his arm about her, or her head resting on his shoulder. You see no one knew much about them then, and they kept so to themselves. Then there is his unfortunate habit, that you cannot help feeling ought not to belong to a person of his intelligence. It is a great pity."
Hanny sighed. She was to know a great deal more about the world later on, and the appreciation that was spread as a garment about the poet when his life's fitful fever ended.
There was an influx of quite elderly people one afternoon; and Hanny, gathering up some books, stole up to the little cottage, quite assured no one would need her, or even miss her.
The corner of books had been "cleared up." In the wide fireplace, there was a jar of feathery asparagus, and on the table a vase of flowers. There were a number of pictures, Hanny noticed. She had hardly glanced about the room before,--the plain, low-ceiled room to which people were to make pilgrimages as time went on.
The poet sat by the table in a dreamy, indolent mood.
"Did you find what you wanted the other day?" he asked gently.
"Oh, yes! And I have read 'The Saracen.' It interested me so, I couldn't leave it a moment. I didn't want to like Saladin so much; but I had to. But I shall never give up Richard."
He smiled a little at that, kindly, cordially, and her heart warmed to him. The pervasive eyes were so deep and beautiful! In spite of the pallor and attenuation, the face had a rare charm.
"So Richard is your hero? Well, you will doubtless change your heroes a good many times before you get through with life. I think I had a boy's fancy for Saladin once. Yet heroes come to be quite common-place people after all. I wonder if I have any more that you would like?"
Hanny said they had several books yet, and she was going down to West Farms in a few days. She wanted to finish "The White Rose of England."
"History in romance,--I dare say that suits young people best."
She stood in a sort of vague uncertainty.
"Well?" in a voice of suggestive inquiry, as if she might ask him anything.
"Oh!" she cried, summoning all her courage, and flushing as she did so, "will you please tell me who the pretty lady in blue was, who came up the other day in the carriage? She looked like a poet!"
He did laugh then, softly, as if laughing was a little strange.
"Is that your idea of a poet? Well, she is one,--an airy, light-winged poet with dainty conceits, and a charming woman, too. I must tell her she captured you at sight. That is Frances Sargent Osgood. And beside her sat Mrs. Gove Nichols, one of the new lights. Stay, I think I can find a poem or two of Fanny Osgood's for you."
He hunted up two or three magazines. Hanny sat down on the door-sill; it was so softly, so enchantingly bright out-of-doors, and the room a little gloomy. She wanted to have a glimpse of sunshine, for Mrs. Osgood looked as if she belonged to the brighter world.
They were dainty and bright. One was set to music afterward; and the little girl learned to sing it very prettily:--
"I've something sweet to tell you,
And the secret you must keep,
For remember, if it isn't night,
I'm talking in my sleep."
Then they talked about poetry. I dare say he was amused at a little girl whose ideal poem was "Genevieve," by Coleridge, and who knew "Christobel," "The Ancient Mariner," and "The Lady of the Lake" half by heart. When, in her young womanhood, she read some of his sharp, scathing criticisms, she wondered at his sweetness that afternoon. With a little more courage, she would have asked him what was really meant by "the high-born kinsman;" but she did not know as it was quite proper to talk to him about his own verses.
The wood-robins were singing in the tall trees, and the sun made dancing shadows on the stoop that was always clean as a floor. Mrs. Clemm brought her splint rocker out, and begged her to try it, and asked after the cousins, sending thanks for the cake that she had found in her basket, and the pot-cheese that had proved such a treat to her visitors.
She thanked Mrs. Clemm prettily for the chair, but said she must go home. The poet nodded. He had taken up his pen then, and she wondered what the spell was like that inspired a poem.
The next forenoon, they saw Mr. Poe going down to the station. Cousin Jennie shook her head; and the stout old Major said, "It was a pity Mrs. Clemm couldn't keep him at home steadily."
She was never to see him again; but when she heard of his tragic death, her heart ached for the poor desolate mother.
