III
My Aunt Lydia and I arrived at the Jersey City station on the day before Christmas—a soft, grey December morning, with a little snow falling. Myra Henshawe was there to meet us; very handsome, I thought, as she came walking rapidly up the platform, her plump figure swathed in furs,—a fur hat on her head, with a single narrow garnet feather sticking out behind, like the pages’ caps in old story-books. She was not alone. She was attended by a tall, elegant young man in a blue-grey ulster. He had one arm through hers, and in the other hand he carried a walking-stick.
“This is Ewan Gray,” said Mrs. Henshawe, after she had embraced us. “Doubtless you have seen him play in Chicago. He is meeting an early train, too, so we planned to salute the morn together, and left Oswald to breakfast alone.”
The young man took our hand-luggage and walked beside me to the ferryboat, asking polite questions about our trip. He was a Scotchman, of an old theatrical family, a handsome fellow, with a broad, fair-skinned face, sand-coloured hair and moustache, and fine grey eyes, deep-set and melancholy, with black lashes. He took us up to the deck of the ferry, and then Mrs. Henshawe told him he had better leave us. “You must be there when Esther’s train gets in—and remember, you are to bring her to dine with us to-morrow night. There will be no one else.”
“Thank you, Myra.” He stood looking down at her with a grateful, almost humble expression, holding his soft hat against his breast, while the snow-flakes fell about his head. “And may I call in for a few moments to-night, to show you something?”
She laughed as if his request pleased her. “Something for her, I expect? Can’t you trust your own judgment?”
“You know I never do,” he said, as if that were an old story.
She gave him a little push. “Do put your hat on, or you'll greet Esther with a sneeze. Run along.”
She watched him anxiously as he walked away, and groaned: “Oh, the deliberation of him! If I could only make him hurry once. You’ll hear all about him later, Nellie. You’ll have to see a good deal of him, but you won’t find it a hardship, I trust!”
The boat was pulling out, and I was straining my eyes to catch, through the fine, reluctant snow, my first glimpse of the city we were approaching. We passed the Wilhelm der Grosse coming up the river under tug, her sides covered with ice after a stormy crossing, a flock of seagulls in her wake. The snow blurred everything a little, and the buildings on the Battery all ran together—looked like an enormous fortress with a thousand windows. From the mass, the dull gold dome of the World building emerged like a ruddy autumn moon at twilight.
From the Twenty-third Street station we took the crosstown car—people were economical in those days—to the Fifth Avenue Hotel. After we had unpacked and settled our things, we went across the Square to lunch at Purcell’s, and there Mrs. Henshawe told us about Ewan Gray. He was in love with one of her dearest friends, Esther Sinclair, whose company was coming into New York for the holidays. Though he was so young, he had, she said, “a rather spotty past,” and Miss Sinclair, who was the daughter of an old New England family and had been properly brought up, couldn’t make up her mind whether he was stable enough to marry. “I don’t dare advise her, though I’m so fond of him. You can see; he’s just the sort of boy that women pick up and run off into the jungle with. But he’s never wanted to marry before; it might be the making of him. He’s distractedly in love—goes about like a sleep-walker. Still, I couldn’t bear it if anything cruel happened to Esther.”
Aunt Lydia and Myra were going to do some shopping. When we went out into Madison Square again, Mrs. Henshawe must have seen my wistful gaze, for she stopped short and said: “How would Nellie like it if we left her here, and picked her up as we come back? That’s our house, over there, second floor—so you won’t be far from home. To me this is the real heart of the city; that’s why I love living here.” She waved to me and hurried my aunt away.
Madison Square was then at the parting of the ways; had a double personality, half commercial, half social, with shops to the south and residences on the north. It seemed to me so neat, after the raggedness of our Western cities; so protected by good manners and courtesy—like an open-air drawing-room. I could well imagine a winter dancing party being given there, or a reception for some distinguished European visitor.
The snow fell lightly all the afternoon, and friendly old men with brooms kept sweeping the paths—very ready to talk to a girl from the country, and to brush off a bench so that she could sit down. The trees and shrubbery seemed well-groomed and sociable, like pleasant people. The snow lay in clinging folds on the bushes, and outlined every twig of every tree—a line of white upon a line of black. Madison Square Garden, new and spacious then, looked to me so light and fanciful, and Saint Gaudens’ Diana, of which Mrs. Henshawe had told me, stepped out freely and fearlessly into the grey air. I lingered long by the intermittent fountain. Its rhythmical splash was like the voice of the place. It rose and fell like something taking deep, happy breaths; and the sound was musical, seemed to come from the throat of spring. Not far away, on the corner, was an old man selling English violets, each bunch wrapped in oiled paper to protect them from the snow. Here, I felt, winter brought no desolation; it was tamed, like a polar bear led on a leash by a beautiful lady.
About the Square the pale blue shadows grew denser and drew closer. The street lamps flashed out all along the Avenue, and soft lights began to twinkle in the tall buildings while it was yet day—violet buildings, just a little denser in substance and colour than the violet sky. While I was gazing up at them I heard a laugh close beside me, and Mrs. Henshawe’s arm slipped through mine.
“Why, you’re fair moon-struck, Nellie! I’ve seen the messenger boys dodging all about you!” It was true, droves of people were going through the Square now, and boys carrying potted plants and big wreaths. “Don’t you like to watch them? But we can’t stay. We’re going home to Oswald. Oh, hear the penny whistle! They always find me out.” She stopped a thin lad with a cap and yarn comforter but no overcoat, who was playing The Irish Washerwoman on a little pipe, and rummaged in her bag for a coin.
The Henshawes’ apartment was the second floor of an old brownstone house on the north side of the Square. I loved it from the moment I entered it; such solidly built, high-ceiled rooms, with snug fire-places and wide doors and deep windows. The long, heavy velvet curtains and the velvet chairs were a wonderful plum-colour, like ripe purple fruit. The curtains were lined with that rich cream-colour that lies under the blue skin of ripe figs.
Oswald was standing by the fire, drinking a whisky and soda while he waited for us. He put his glass down on the mantel as we opened the door, and forgot all about it. He pushed chairs up to the hearth for my aunt and me, and stood talking to us while his wife went to change her dress and to have a word with the Irish maid before dinner.
“By the way, Myra,” he said, as she left us, “I’ve put a bottle of champagne on ice; it’s Christmas eve.”
Everything in their little apartment seemed to me absolutely individual and unique, even the dinner service; the thick grey plates and the soup tureen painted with birds and big, bright flowers—I was sure there were no others like them in the world.
As we were finishing dinner the maid announced Mr. Gray. Henshawe went into the parlour to greet him, and we followed a moment later. The young man was in evening clothes, with a few sprays of white hyacinth in his coat. He stood by the fire, his arm on the mantel. His clean, fair skin and melancholy eyes, his very correct clothes, and something about the shape of his hands, made one conscious of a cool, deliberate fastidiousness in him. In spite of his spotty past he looked, that night, as fresh and undamaged as the flowers he wore. Henshawe took on a slightly bantering tone with him, and seemed to be trying to cheer him up. Mr. Gray would not sit down. After an interval of polite conversation he said to his host: “Will you excuse me if I take Myra away for a few moments? She has promised to do something kind for me.”
They went into Henshawe’s little study, off the parlour, and shut the door. We could hear a low murmur of voices. When they came back to us Mrs. Henshawe stood beside Gray while he put on his caped cloak, talking encouragingly. “The opals are beautiful, but I’m afraid of them, Ewan. Oswald would laugh at me, but all the same they have a bad history. Love itself draws on a woman nearly all the bad luck in the world; why, for mercy’s sake, add opals? He brought two bracelets for me to decide between them, Oswald, both lovely. However did they let you carry off two, Ewan?”
“They know me there. I always pay my bills, Myra. I don’t know why, but I do. I suppose it’s the Scotch in me.”
He wished us all good-night.
“Give a kiss to Esther for me,” said Mrs. Henshawe merrily at the door. He made no reply, but bent over her hand and vanished.
“What he really wanted was to show me some verses he’s made for her,” said Mrs. Henshawe, as she came back to the fire. “And very pretty ones they are, for sweet-heart poetry.”
Mr. Henshawe smiled. “Maybe you obliged him with a rhyme or two, my dear? Lydia—” he sat down by my aunt and put his hand on hers—“I’d never feel sure that I did my own courting, if it weren’t that I was a long way off at the time. Myra is so fond of helping young men along. We nearly always have a love affair on hand.”
She put her hand over his lips. “Hush! I hate old women who egg on courtships.”
When Oswald had finished his cigar we were taken out for a walk. This was primarily for the good of her “figger,” Myra said, and incidentally we were to look for a green bush to send to Madame Modjeska. “She’s spending the holidays in town, and it will be dismal at her hotel.”
At the florist’s we found, among all the little trees and potted plants, a glistening holly-tree, full of red berries and pointed like a spire, easily the queen of its companions. “That is naturally hers,” said Mrs. Myra.
Her husband shrugged. “It’s naturally the most extravagant.”
Mrs. Myra threw up her head. “Don’t be petty, Oswald. It’s not a woollen petticoat or warm mittens that Madame is needing.” She gave careful instructions to the florist’s man, who was to take the tree to the Savoy; he was to carry with it a box of cakes, “of my baking,” she said proudly. He was to ask for Mrs. Hewes, the housekeeper, and under her guidance he was to carry the tree up to Madame Modjeska’s rooms himself. The man showed a sympathetic interest, and promised to follow instructions. Then Mrs. Henshawe gave him a silver dollar and wished him a Merry Christmas.
As we walked home she slipped her arm through mine, and we fell a little behind the other two. “See the moon coming out, Nellie—behind the tower. It wakens the guilt in me. No playing with love; and I’d sworn a great oath never to meddle again. You send a handsome fellow like Ewan Gray to a fine girl like Esther, and it’s Christmas eve, and they rise above us and the white world around us, and there isn’t anybody, not a tramp on the park benches, that wouldn’t wish them well—and very likely hell will come of it!”