miss keren said that she "did not know how to be ill." it was owing to this ignorance—which some people might have called pluck—that she did not succumb to the effect of the shock she had undergone.
as it was, she was able to get up every day and sit in the warmest corner of the patty-pans parlor, trying not to be any trouble to happie.
for happie found her hands full in the month that followed aunt keren's arrival. the tea-room saw her no more. if she had allowed herself to think about it she would have been sorry for this. she enjoyed what bob called for short "the six maidens," more and more, got on better with all sorts and conditions of women than margery did, and had the cheerful conviction that she was, of all the girls, the one most essential to the tea-room's success. but she did not allow herself to recognize her uneasiness in being so long away, for aunt keren wanted her, and there was little enough that any of the scollards could do to show their sense of loving gratitude to aunt keren.
happie was established as housekeeper and attendant, also as amanuensis to their guest, and there were not many minutes in the short february days in which she found time t[177]o regret anything. every morning she saw depart her mother and bob, together as always, and later margery, gretta and laura, sometimes with one, sometimes with both of the younger children. then, left alone, happie flew from one task to another till nightfall brought back the family to an orderly and prepared patty-pans and a tired happie who tried to keep the latter item out of sight.
aunt keren began to have visitors when people found out where she had taken refuge, elderly and impressive ladies who toiled up the three flights that led to the patty-pans, their furs hanging, their breath short, to present themselves at the door, pantingly reproachful in their tone as they asked for miss bradbury. miss bradbury's lawyer came, the insurance adjuster came, several times, and aunt keren had such heavy mails that happie daily sat down to the task of replying to her letters with dismay. most of these letters were appeals for help; for money for every imaginable charity, individual and collective, and for the weight of miss bradbury's name on boards and committees and lists of "patronesses." happie began to realize that aunt keren, for all her eccentricities of plain garments, must be known widely as a fountain of beneficence. as happie drew checks, under aunt keren's instruction, for her to sign, she began to see that miss keren could not be an elderly lady of straightened means, in which light the young scollards had always looked on her, for her donations in this month[178] alone were mounting up amazingly.
one afternoon the two keren-happuchs were at work on the elder's correspondence by two o'clock, lunch having been over and out of the way early because it was the day for polly and penny to go to dancing school, to which laura had taken them, remaining at home that morning for the purpose.
miss keren watched happie's absorbed face as she sealed the note in which she had gently refused the request of a young woman for help to go abroad and cultivate her genius for art, and drew up miss keren's check book to make out a check of ten dollars for coal and groceries to a family which was, it seemed, among her constant dependents.
"happie," said miss keren, so suddenly out of a silence of several minutes that the end of happie's figure nine, as she wrote the year date, went far below the line in the jump she gave, "happie, if you had an income, what would you do?"
happie looked at her adopted aunt unseeingly, as she considered. then she dimpled and laughed. "i should live on it, aunt keren," she said.
"live within it, if you wanted to be happy in reality, and not in name only," said miss keren. "what do you think you would do first if money, a fairly large income, fell into your hands?"
"first of all i should give motherums warning that she had to stop foreign corresponding for that firm down in town. then i should hunt up a house and set her in it, and n[179]ot let her do one thing but be dear and sweet and idle for an endless time. then i should buy margery lots of lovely things—she is so pretty! maybe i wouldn't, though, for i can see that she looks altogether too pretty in robert gaston's eyes now! but maybe i would, and then take her abroad where he couldn't see her. then i'd begin laura's musical education—that really is important. and get a splendid, life-size doll for penny, and lots of things for good little polly, and send them to a fine school—and for my dearest old bob—oh, i don't know! buy him a partnership in a great business, or something. why, aunt keren?"
miss keren had listened to happie's list of benefactions with a smile in her eyes. "for no reason, keren-happuch, my dear, except that your doing these things for me made me wonder how you would use money if you had it," she said. "and nothing for happie?"
"oh, i suppose i should buy her lots of things between times; every time i went out, probably. and i know i should buy her cases and cases of books," said happie, resuming her task. "but i'm sure i shall always have to grub along, because i don't mind doing it as much as most girls. i believe i've a contented mind, aunt keren."
"there is no doubt of that, my namesake, and you have no idea what a blessing it is. cultivate it all your life. it can be cultivated or lost, happie. dear me, the bell[180]! just when we were so comfortably settled for a long afternoon! it is some one for me, almost certainly. i must fly, happie, and you will ask the visitor to wait for me a few moments." aunt keren went through to her room, which had been bob's before her coming, and happie opened the door after she had hastily gathered up the scattered papers on which she had been at work. but she dropped aunt keren's check book in her hurry, and it lay in long black evidence on the lightest figure of the rug.
two ladies confronted happie as she obeyed the summons of the upper bell. they were handsomely clad, and there was something familiar in both faces, which, nevertheless, happie was sure that she had not seen before. with this haunting familiarity there was a certain hardness in the visitors' expression which was repellent. they were about the same age—well into their thirties—and carried their years with the jauntiness of intentional youth.
happie ushered them into the small parlor, which they seemed to fill in every corner, and asked whom she should say had come to see miss bradbury.
"say her nieces, miss helen and miss irene bradbury," said one of the two. "wait a moment, what is your name?"
"i am one of the daughters of miss bradbury's friend, mrs. scollard; the second one, happie," said happie. something antagonistic in this very different miss bradbury's manner kept her from saying that she was keren-happ[181]uch, named after the strangers' aunt.
"happie! then you are the one whom they called after aunt keren? is happie your abbreviation of keren-happuch?" asked miss irene bradbury.
"yes," said happie. "shall i call miss bradbury?"
"wait one moment," said miss irene bradbury very low. "i see that you are very young, but you are not a child, and there is something that i wish to say to you. miss bradbury's family are greatly annoyed by her taking refuge in this little harlem flat, after having already carried your entire family with her into the country for a summer that stretched out into half the year. it is extraordinary, the fancy that a woman of her usual sense and strength of mind has taken to people of this sort——"
"what sort, miss bradbury?" happie quietly interrupted her. "my grandmother was miss bradbury's dearest friend."
"people who are not her kindred," said miss irene bradbury, somewhat confused. "we understand your part of it—perhaps not your part since you are so young—but your mother's. we wish you to know, and to repeat to your mother, that we shall not allow her plans to succeed. if aunt keren should will away her fortune to you, to any of your family, we shall break the will, and we shall leave no means untried to prevent her continuing under your mother's influence. that is all. repeat what i have said to your mother, but you will not gain anything by repeating it to mis[182]s bradbury."
happie had turned white under these remarks, but she looked miss irene bradbury over from head to foot with a scorn she richly deserved.
"i shall certainly spare aunt keren the annoyance of knowing that one of her own nieces could insult her namesake in the home she has chosen to come to in her trouble," said happie. her naturally quick temper did not flare up, but in its stead burned a righteous indignation that made her young eyes rather awful, and miss bradbury quailed before them. "my mother—well, you do not know my mother, so there may be some excuse for you, though i can't imagine any. we have all thought miss bradbury poor, until now." happie's eye fell upon the check book, and miss helen's following it, she started to pick it up, but happie forestalled her. "pardon me, that is not for any one to see," she said. "there is nothing for me to reply to the insults you have heaped upon my mother and upon us all. if you have anything more to say, you will please tell your aunt your plan is to prevent her doing as she likes. and i don't envy you if you do tell her. i will send her in to see you, since you are here, and i don't want her to guess how badly you have behaved. she is not at all well. but while she is visiting us you will please not come here again to see her. if you come i shall not let you in."
[183]
happie walked out of the little room, head up, and with an air that was little less than regal. inwardly she was in a tumult. it was inconceivable that these two women could have stayed her in her own patty-pans parlor to subject her to such treatment! that they did not know her beautiful mother, to whom they imputed such baseness, hardly bettered it. what right had they so to suspect the daughter of miss bradbury's dearest friend?
"aunt keren, it is your two nieces, miss helen and miss irene bradbury. if you don't need my help i won't wait; i am in a wee hurry." happie steadied her voice to say this at miss keren's door, and scuttled away. she dared not risk letting miss keren see her tell-tale face, nor hear her voice in one avoidable word.
as soon as she heard miss keren go through the hall to the parlor happie flew to her own room and threw herself face downward on the bed. she pulled the pillows down over her head and burrowed further in under them. the tears that she had been holding back burst forth in a tropical tempest; wounded affection, pride, a cruel sense of injustice against which she was helpless, righteous wrath that her mother could be so misjudged, so outraged, combined to make the tears the bitterest that sunny happie had ever shed. she cried and cried, and, because she was suffocating herself to keep the sound of her crying down, she kicked her feet and dove further under the pillows till the chance of sweet sleep that night in that particular bed seemed very s[184]lender.
miss bradbury's nieces did not make a long call. if happie had not been in such violent contradiction to her nickname she might have discovered from the tones carried out through the little flat by its telescopic construction, that the call was not a particularly pleasant one. as the rustle of skirts and the fall of feet announced the fact that aunt keren was conducting her guests to the door, happie restrained her sobs and lay still, under the fear of being heard, in spite of her upheaval of the pillows.
"you have known me quite long enough, irene bradbury," aunt keren was saying in her clear-cut accent, and with a vigor of which she had not seemed capable since coming to the patty-pans, "to know that if you had set about defeating your own ends you could not have taken a surer method than the one you have employed this afternoon."
"i hope, aunt keren," retorted her niece with unmistakable temper, "that your physician is competent. a shock such as you have had requires more than ordinary skill. i should be glad to have him consult with my physician."
"i think mine is quite competent to pronounce on the effect of the shock," said miss keren. "it will be made perfectly clear to every one interested that i have sustained no real harm; i will see to that. don't trouble to come to see me again, irene. when i need you, i will [185]send for you."
happie triumphed as she heard this valedictory, and, throwing off her pillows, she sat up feeling better. then, as the door shut, and she heard aunt keren turn, she suddenly realized that she would be obliged to appear with the marks of her recent tempest upon her, and that aunt keren would ask an explanation of her unmistakable tears.
she jumped up, straightened her twisted garments with rapid pulls down, and shrugs up, wrenched her collar around from under her ear, crossed to the bowl, turned on the hot water and was wildly bathing her eyes when miss keren came to the door, and called: "happie, happie, child, what are you doing? i am ready to resume our pleasant duet, and, if you will, i should be glad to have you bring me a glass of hot milk, for i am tired."
"yes, auntie keren. go and sit down in the most restful place you can find, and the milk and i will be there in a few minutes," called happie, catching at anything that prolonged her time.
she could not delay longer than it took to heat the milk to the point when it was just ready to boil, and as she handed it to miss keren she saw that her keen eyes espied other cause than the gas range for happie's crimson cheeks and inflamed eyelids.
"sit down, keren-happuch," said the elder of that name, motioning to the footstool at her feet. happie obeyed, rather dreading what might be coming. miss bradbury touched [186]her eyelids lightly, and tipped up her chin with her fingers.
"what did they say to you, my unhappie?" she asked without an echo of her usual brisk and brusque manner. then, as happie hesitated for an answer at once truthful and not unpleasant, she added: "don't fence, my dear, and don't try to spare me. this is by no means the first time that i have encountered the unlovable qualities of my brother's daughters. did they suggest to you their doubt of singleness of motive in your mother's love for me?"
"they said horrible things!" declared happie, throwing away all reserve in letting herself speak. "horrible, brutal, false things, aunt keren! at first i was stunned, then i was furious, sort of deadly, still, white furious, aunt keren! and i told them—i don't know what i told them. only i know i told them not to come here to see you again, because i shouldn't let them in. i hope you don't mind! i suppose i should let them in if you wanted them."
"i certainly do not mind; you did quite right. it would be undignified to allow people under your roof who spoke ill of your mother," said aunt keren quietly. "happie——"
"aunt keren!" happie interrupted her passionately. "we never knew you had any money. as far as we thought about it at all, we thought you were rather poor. we have been setting aside part of the tea room money to pay our own rent, because we thought you ought [187]not to have given us that rent at christmas. you were just aunt keren to us; no one ever thinks about money, whether people that belong to them have it or not. but they said——"
"yes, my dear," aunt keren interrupted in her turn. "on the whole, don't tell me what they said. you are not quite right in saying that no one thinks of money in connection with his affections, but it is a pitiable creature that does. and those two nieces of mine are decidedly pitiable creatures. they had a sordid, vulgar mother, happie. my brother married most unfortunately. those two daughters of his have made an open onslaught upon my possessions, and they are wildly afraid that i shall will all that i have elsewhere. they have good reason for their fears. they would never use money kindly, wisely, properly. they have quite enough now for all purposes, which frees me from scruples as to my justice in doing what i please with what is my own, but their greed for more would never be satisfied while anything was beyond their reach. these are hideous truths, dear happie, but you will have to learn that there are people in the world different from your mother, and that plenty of unfortunate beings make for themselves an atmosphere that is far from the unworldly, simple and loving atmosphere of your little harlem patty-pans. you must be unceasingly thankful that when your mother was left almost destitute at your father's death, she had for you children something far more valuable than mone[188]y could have given."
"ah, yes, we know that!" cried happie. "but as well as we know it now, margery and i often say we shall appreciate it better when we are older and see more of the unpleasant side of life, at which we only peep while we are young."
"truer than you guess!" agreed miss keren briefly. "now, happie, listen to a story, a true story about one keren-happuch, with a second keren-happuch coming into the tale at the end. i am going to tell it to you because of what happened this afternoon. it will satisfy you forever as to my reasons for doing what i intend to do. don't interrupt me. for the first time in my life it tires me to talk, and it spoils a story to interrupt it. nearly fifty years ago the first of the two keren-happuchs was young, a girl of definite opinions, considerable will, of few and strong attachments; the kind of girl that can be superlatively happy or altogether miserable, and who is likely to make a bad matter of her life if things go contrary with her. this girl had a friend, the most beautiful, best girl that the sun ever shone upon, with every grace of mind and character, and with the crowning grace of all,—entire unselfishness and unconsciousness of self. her name was elizabeth vaughan, and she was your grandmother. one hears a good deal said of men's friendships and how no women are capable of equal love for each other, but i am certain david and jonathan were not more truly devoted than were these two girls of[189] a half century ago. keren-happuch worshiped elizabeth, and the tie was peculiarly tender on both sides. there came into keren-happuch's life a new interest after a while. it was when elizabeth was away, and there was nothing to divert this girl of natural strength of feeling from going with all her might with the tide that seemed to her the flood-tide of happiness. of course you can guess what the new interest was, for the girls were not quite twenty, and romance loves the second decade. it looked as though this foolish keren-happuch were going to sail into the port of bliss, but elizabeth came home. and then—why, no one could remember keren-happuch when elizabeth was about, and keren awoke from her dream to find it not hers, but elizabeth's. it is good to know that keren-happuch loved her friend no less that the love she had hoped was her own had turned to elizabeth. keren-happuch had common sense, i am glad to say, and she saw that only a blind man could have preferred herself. so she wept her little tear in private, as she hoped, but elizabeth saw its stain, and she tried to turn back to keren-happuch the love she had innocently diverted. that part of the story does not matter. each girl tried to bring about the happiness of the other, but elizabeth could not give to another what belonged to herself and she married roland spencer. keren-happuch rejoiced in their happiness, because she loved them both best of all the world, yet—well, one can rejoice through a heartache, happie, and it [190]is a matter for gratitude when heartache takes the form which allows such rejoicing. the best of this story is that there was no break in the triangle of an affection beyond ordinary human attachment. no change came to it through the marriage of elizabeth and the man she loved and who loved her, and whom keren-happuch loved but who did not love keren-happuch, not in that sense of the word love. to the end elizabeth spencer and her husband were the solitary keren-happuch's loyal friends. but keren-happuch knew at the beginning as well as she knows to-day that she was to be the solitary keren-happuch all her life. she never cared for life in just the same, glad, youthful way again, and she saw clearly that her happiness must be found in peace, and in conferring happiness, if she were able. so she grew into the crotchety, eccentric maiden lady whom you know, and it has been her whim to live much within her means in order to afford the luxury of giving what, after all, she did not need. by and by elizabeth and her husband both died. keren-happuch likes to believe that they know how faithfully she loves them still, and that in their daughter charlotte and their grandchildren, the little scollards, she recognizes her nearest of kin—indeed her only kin, for she has never been kin to her kindred. so you see, happie, why you are more than merely my namesake. you are the legacy to me of my more than sister, and the man i loved, and whom she married. i am a rich [191]woman, my dear. by and by, when i cannot use my money any longer i shall give it to you to use it for me, feeling sure that you will do with it as i would have done. for you are my heir; my child by the tie of my lifelong loneliness and by your blood. i have told you this to prove to you how ridiculous it is for my nieces to fancy that anything could divert me from my intention in regard to you, and to satisfy you that whatever i do for you, or for your mother or the other children, is done as if you were my own children.
"i have a plan to propose to you soon, but not now. and that is the end of my story! jump up, happie, and run away, for i'm tired of your chatter! what makes you such a little magpie? don't you know that an invalid should be kept quiet? yet you talk and talk! isn't it time to 'put the potatoes over,' as they say in our crestville?"
happie arose, understanding that her aunt keren wanted no comment from her on what she had just heard.
"i think it must be, auntie keren, dearest," she said. "you can rest while i take their jackets off. here is jeunesse dorée. he will keep you company and not talk as fast as i have done."
she lifted the yellow bit of purring affection into miss keren's lap, kissed her hard on the cheek and went quietly away. there was much to think of in the story she had just heard, much to move her as a young girl is alw[192]ays moved by an unhappy love story, but there was nothing to say to the revelation of the reason why the scollard family was the nearest of kin to this strong-hearted woman, nor any words in which to thank her for the intentions she had announced.
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