Part 3 (2/2)

One is from my dear friend, Mrs. Knox, the charming contralto of Christ Church. We had expected her to visit us this week, but her unexpected departure for the West has prevented her from doing so. She says:

”You must truly be enjoying Chappaqua these heavenly June days. I hope that the fresh air and rest are putting roses into your pale cheeks and giving you health and strength for your literary labors. My sudden departure compels me to forego the pleasure I had antic.i.p.ated in seeing you at Chappaqua--at least until the fall. I am appreciative of the courtesy of your dear mamma in inviting me to spend a day in that lovely retreat, already made sacred to me by my high regard and admiration for your most n.o.ble uncle, whose home it was.”

Another letter is written upon most dainty stationery, bearing the impress of Tiffany, and adorned with a prettily devised monogram in lavender and gold (handsome stationery is one of my weaknesses). This letter I know to be sprightly and amusing before I open it, for my friend Lela has been for two or three years one of my most entertaining correspondents. We were intimate friends in Paris three or four years ago, when Lela was a school-girl, and I an _enfant de Marie_, and although we have been separated by hundreds of miles, by the ocean, and finally, by Lela's marriage, our attachment continues; so, no reproaches upon school-girl friends.h.i.+ps, I beg.

Lela was married last winter, but she and her handsome French husband are yet in the honeymoon, which will last, I fancy, forever--certainly the former Queen of Hearts seems now to care for only _one_ heart. She says:

”You must be having a lovely time in such a charming place. We have been to Saratoga. It was stupid enough to send your worst enemy there.”

_June 17_.

This week has been quite lost, so far as study is concerned, for nearly every day has been interrupted by visitors.

Looking out of the window this morning, I saw a carriage containing two strange young ladies stop before the house. In answer to their inquiry for Miss Greeley and Miss Gabrielle, Minna informed them, in her broken English, that they were both in the city for the day. They looked quite aghast upon receiving this information, for they had already dismissed their carriage, in which they had driven from Pleasantville, and knew probably that there was no down train till 4.45, so quite helplessly they inquired if _no_ members of the family were at home.

Learning that Mrs. Cleveland and her daughters were here, one of the young ladies, a stylish girl in mourning, desired Minna to announce Miss Hempstead and her cousin. I puzzled a little over the name while glancing in the mirror to see that my c.r.a.pe ruffle was properly adjusted, and my hair in tolerable order. The name seemed familiar, and yet I knew that no friend of mine bore it.

I found the young ladies in the music room. Miss Hempstead introduced herself by saying:

”Perhaps you may have heard my name, although you do not know me. My brother was a friend of Mrs. and Miss Greeley, and was purser of the _Missouri_.”

I was then somewhat surprised that I had not divined Miss Hempstead's ident.i.ty from the name and her black dress; but the burning of the _Missouri_ made scarce any impression upon me at the time, surrounded as I was last fall by such heavy family afflictions; and the name of the young purser, whose tragic fate then filled the newspapers, had since then almost entirely pa.s.sed from my memory.

An ordinary pa.s.senger s.h.i.+p is wrecked or burned, ”Extras” are issued, a three days' excitement follows, and it is then a thing of the past; but as the _Missouri_ bore, on this memorable voyage, not indeed Caesar and his fortunes, but the supposed _fiance_ of dear Ida, its loss is an event still interesting to the gossiping public. It was useless to try to convince any one that no engagement had ever existed between Mr.

Hempstead and Ida: no one would credit my most solemn protestations.

Many people not personally acquainted with us, but who knew the facts ”upon the best authority,” as outsiders usually do, said that the marriage was to have taken place before the election, but after Aunt Mary's death it was postponed for three months. Before two weeks had elapsed, however, Mr. Hempstead was, in the poetic language of the journals, ”sleeping beneath the coral wave,” and poor Ida received as many well-meant condolences over his death as over Aunt Mary's.

When the tragedy of last autumn was all over, the interest of the public was greater than ever, and Ida, ”who had within four short weeks lost mother, lover, and father,” formed the subject of many a pathetic editorial and sermon. A London journal styled Ida the ”maiden widow,”

spoke of uncle's fond attachment to Mr. Hempstead, and announced that the loss of his prospective son-in-law was an affliction that precipitated Mr. Greeley's death.

I first heard of Mr. Hempstead in the winter of 1869-70. Aunt Mary, who was then commencing to fail, went with Ida to Na.s.sau to spend the cold months. Her state-room, engaged at the last moment, was a very uncomfortable one, and Mr. Hempstead, then purser of the _Eagle_, gave up for her use a large deck state-room with three windows--a great comfort to Aunt Mary, who was always so partial to an airy bedroom.

The voyage proved, however, a very stormy one, and the waves dashed in through these three windows, quite drenching poor Ida, who suffered so much from sea-sickness as to be quite indifferent to danger or discomfort.

In writing to me after reaching Na.s.sau, Ida mentioned Mr. Hempstead in a few words:

”The purser was an agreeable and gentlemanly officer, and so kind to mamma.”

She did not, however, mention his name, and I never knew it till last summer.

After their return to New York, in the spring of 1870, Aunt Mary invited Mr. Hempstead to visit them at Chappaqua, as she felt under some obligations to him for having given her his state-room, and subsequently executed some little commissions for her, between New York and Na.s.sau. He came out here, and made a visit of a week. In July of the same year. Aunt Mary and Ida went abroad, and from that time the acquaintance dropped. That he admired Ida know, but how any one could manufacture an engagement from such slight material, I cannot imagine.

One day last summer, during the excitement of the campaign, I had taken up a rose-tinted society journal as a little respite from politics, when my eyes fell upon a paragraph announcing Ida's engagement to Mr.

William Hempstead, Purser of the _Missouri_; and then I for the first time learnt the officer's name. My astonishment can be imagined; and to this day it remains an enigma who invented that little society item.

If a fertile-minded reporter had desired to head his column of Engagements in High Life with Ida's name, and had announced that she would shortly be led to the hymeneal altar (I believe that is the correct phrase in newspaper parlance) by any one in our circle of acquaintances with whom she was at all intimate, it would not have been surprising; but why a person whom she had not seen or heard of for two years should have been selected, is a mystery worthy of G. P. R. James.

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