Part 13 (2/2)
I told him quickly that it was in a little sort of cul-de-sac street called Flemish Pa.s.sage, not far from English Street, where Heppie and I sometimes look at the shops; and I was going on to say more about it and about Mrs. James, but before I'd time to draw another breath, Mr.
Somerled grabbed up a speaking tube and was talking through it. ”Find Flemish Pa.s.sage near English Street, and I'll tell you where to stop,”
he addressed the back of Vedder's ma.s.sive head.
”It's an old curiosity shop, and she keeps it,” I hurried to explain, but that didn't seem to matter to Mr. Somerled.
”I hope you like the lady's society,” was all he said.
”I love her, and she's an angel, but a very peculiar angel; and Grandma doesn't call her a lady, so perhaps you won't,” I broke the news to him.
”I daresay your grandmother wouldn't have called my mother a lady,” he replied coolly. ”She was an angel, and the cleverest, most gracious woman I ever knew or expect to know.” I did like him for saying this.
And something told me that, in spite of his domineering way with me, he wouldn't be one to put on high and mighty airs with Mrs. James, as Grandma does.
English Street, of course, is the main street of Carlisle and runs north to William Rufus's Castle that stands looking over the moors toward the border, eight miles away. Grandma never would let Heppie take me into the Castle, because it's turned into barracks now, and swarming with soldiers. She said that her father called soldiers Men of Blood, and seemed to think that ought to put me off from wis.h.i.+ng to go in, but it didn't a bit, rather the other way round. I love soldiers in books, and should like to meet some.
It was near the old Citadel of Henry VIII, where the towers have been turned into court-houses, that we had to turn off, and it is there that English Street really begins. It didn't take Vedder long to find Flemish Pa.s.sage--which Mrs. James says is named after the Flemish masons William Rufus brought over to make the Castle, men who settled down afterward to live in Carlisle. Maybe there were Flemish houses on the spot in those days--who knows? I love to think there were; and though there isn't a trace of anything half so ancient as William, Flemish Pa.s.sage can't have changed much from what it must have been in the Middle Ages. Even the people who live there are mostly old, and as the big gray car turned into the small, quiet cul-de-sac, elderly heads appeared at antique windows of all the medieval houses. I should think nothing so exciting had happened in Flemish Pa.s.sage at all events since Carlisle surrendered to Prince Charlie. The car looked enormous, as if it were a dragon swelling to twice its size in rage because it knew there would be no room for it to turn round when it wanted to get out.
Mrs. James house used to be like the others till she had the two front windows thrown into one, and took to keeping a shop. The way she happened to do that was just as it was with Miss Mattie in that darling ”Cranford” I found with father's name in it; only Mrs. James, of course, was married and Miss Mattie wasn't. I wanted to tell Mr. Somerled about her, and how her husband, a distant cousin of Grandma's, was the doctor that couldn't cure my father. Mrs. James herself wasn't a cousin, and wasn't even of the north, so Grandma never thought of her, as she has no opinion of southern people. Mrs. James was Devons.h.i.+re, and (in Grandma's eyes) a _mesalliance_ for Richard James. He lodged with the Devons.h.i.+re girl's mother when he was a medical student in London, Heppie told me once; and even Heppie puts on superior airs with Mrs. James, whom she considers a f.e.c.kless creature. I have an idea Heppie knew the doctor before he met his wife, and he was her One Romance; so naturally she thinks the ”James Mystery” wouldn't have happened if he had married her instead. Of course, though, it could never have occurred to _any one_ to marry Heppie, whereas Mrs. James must always have been a darling and very pretty in her fluffy way. Grandma says the ”James Mystery” (as it seemed it was called in the newspapers at the time, when I was very small) never was a mystery except for ”fools or sensation-mongers.” I heard her speak those very words to poor Mrs. James, who has always called on Grandma once a month, ever since I can remember, though Grandma does nothing but make herself disagreeable and say things to hurt Mrs. James feelings, knowing that her one dream of happiness is in believing her husband still lives.
n.o.body else believes this, Heppie has told me; because Doctor James had a motive for not wis.h.i.+ng to live, ”apart from any disappointment in his home life.” After he didn't cure my father there was another case which he was supposed not to have understood. I don't know exactly what happened, for my questions weren't encouraged; but he operated on the person when he ought not, or else didn't operate when he ought; anyhow the person was a high personage, so there was trouble, and then might have been a legal inquiry if Doctor James hadn't gone one day to Seascale, and from there disappeared. His hat was found on the beach, and a coat, and though his body was never recovered, all the world except his wife felt sure he had drowned himself on purpose. As for her, she is perfectly certain that he is alive, and she hopes to this day that some time he will come to her, or else send for her to go to him.
He disappeared or died, or whatever it was, seventeen years ago when I was almost a baby; and he and Mrs. James weren't so very young even then: but because he admired what he called her ”baby face,” she has always tried desperately to keep her looks that he mayn't find her changed when (she doesn't say ”if”) they meet again. It is the most pathetic thing I ever heard of, because in spite of all the troubles she has had, enough to make her old twice over, she has never lost gayety or courage. Grandma and Heppie think it wicked and frivolous of her not to ”bow to G.o.d's will,” but I think she is a marvel, and I love every little funny way and trick she has.
I don't know Mrs. James well enough to call her my friend, because I don't often see her, and we've never been left alone together when she's called on Grandma; Heppie took me to her house only once, just after she'd grown poor through the breaking of some savings-bank, and turned her little drawing-room into an antique shop. I fancy Heppie wanted to go simply to spy out the nakedness of the land and satisfy curiosity in Grandma. But I've never forgotten that day, and how brave and bright Mrs. James was, selling off the pretty old things which she had loved: heirlooms of her family and her husband's; old clocks, old vases, old ornaments, and jewels, old china and gla.s.s, old samplers and bits of embroidery or brocade, old furniture, old pictures and transparencies, and everything of value except old books, which she adored because his library had been her husband's life. It was clever of her, I think, to group the treasures together in the little drawing-room with its oak panelling and beams, its uneven, polished oak floor, and the two diamond-paned windows which she enlarged and threw into one. It is not like a shop, but just a charming room crowded full of lovely things, and every one of them for sale, even the chairs. She wrote cards of advertis.e.m.e.nt which the hotel people let her pin up in their halls or offices, because they respected her pluck, and had liked Doctor James.
Americans and other travellers saw the advertis.e.m.e.nts, and went to her house; so by and by Mrs. James made a success with her experiment. When most of her own antiquites were sold, she could afford to buy others, just as good or better, to take their places. She never made big sums of money; but maybe that was because she had debts of her husband's to pay off, which she kept secret. Besides, she is so generous and kind that she would give good prices for things in buying, and ask small ones in selling.
”Mrs. James: Antiquities;” it says in gilt letters over the door on which you can still see the mark left by the professional name-plate of Doctor James. His wife had that taken off before she opened her shop, because she felt that her going into trade might seem to discredit ”his honoured name.”
That is her great watchword: ”his honoured name.” I've often heard her repeat it to Grandma, who invariably snorts and says something to dishearten or humiliate the poor humble darling who thinks so much of the Hillard and James families, and so little of herself.
Opening the door, which rings a bell of its own accord, you walk straight into the drawing-room, or hall. There's an oak screen which cuts off your view to the left, and gives an opportunity for surprises; and straight ahead at the back is a lovely old carved stairway, that goes up steeply, with two turns and two platforms, where stand tall, ancient clocks. Behind this hall or drawing-room, turned into a shop, is a tiny parlour, where Mrs. James spends her few free hours, eats her tiny, lonesome meals, and faithfully reads nearly every book in her husband's library, so that she may be an intelligent companion for him if he comes back. The walls of the parlour are covered with his books, on shelves reaching up nearly as high as the low-beamed ceiling. Behind the parlour is the kitchen, which looks into a tiny garden with one lovely apple tree in it; and a back stairway almost like a ladder leads to what used to be servants' rooms. Now Mrs. James sleeps in one; and next door is the young girl, rescued from something or other by the Salvation Army, who is her only servant. The front part of the ”upstairs,” which you reach by the lovely staircase in the shop, is occupied by a curate-lodger. Heppie says Mrs. James can afford to give up having a lodger now, and that she keeps him on only because she's stingy; or else because she thinks it ”distinguished” to have some connection with ”Church.” But I'm sure it's really because she's so kind and good-natured, that she can't bear to turn the curate away from rooms which have been his only home for years.
She _was_ surprised to see me get out of an automobile with a man! I know she did see me get out, because she opened the door herself, exclaiming in her soft Devons.h.i.+re voice, which has never been hardened by the north, ”Why, Barribel, my _dear_ child, can I _believe_ my eyes?”
She throws emphasis on a great many words when she talks, which Heppie says is gus.h.i.+ng, and not reserved enough for a true lady; but I like it when Mrs. James does it, because it sounds cordial, and more interested in you than any other person's way of talking which I ever heard.
I introduced Mr. Somerled, and hurried in the next breath to explain that he was a MacDonald, because that made him seem like a relation, and she wouldn't think to begin with that I was with a perfect stranger. But as soon as I said ”Somerled,” she knew all about him, not only the history of the first Somerled, which, of course, she _would_ know, but that this one was a great celebrity. _I_ shouldn't have known that, if Mr. Norman hadn't mentioned it: and Moore with the teeth told me, too, that she'd heard Mrs. West say he was ”a millionaire.” I'm not sure if Mrs. James knew about the millions, and even if she did, they wouldn't seem half as important to her as his pictures, which she began to chat about. Of course they're not as important, because anybody can have millions by accident, but they can have genius only from what they are in themselves. I felt more than ever how wonderful it was that he should be so good to me; a person so flattered and run after; but all the same I _couldn't_ make myself feel in awe of him. He seemed to me just a Man: and I wanted as much as ever to see what he would do if I took my own way and went against him.
Mrs. James invited us into the house in her cordial, emphatic way, while our coming and our being together were still mysteries which must have puzzled her wildly. I saw by the blue flash in Mr. Somerled's eyes that the artist in him admired the shop-drawing-room, and I thought from his manner that he had taken a fancy to Mrs. James herself. I am so used to her looks, from seeing her once a month ever since I can remember, that I can hardly judge what she is like: and I suppose she _is_ peculiar.
But why shouldn't she try to keep young for the sake of her dream? I think it's romantic and beautiful, and all one with her efforts to become the intellectual equal of her lost husband. Grandma and Heppie sneer after Mrs. James has been and gone, at the long words she uses, and condemn her for wanting to deceive people into thinking she's much younger than she is. But that is because they've no romance in them, and can't understand her true motive.
Her figure is like a young girl's, though perhaps a little stiffer and less rounded. She is short, and has the tiniest waist in the world, so tiny that it must hurt her to breathe, but that is her chief pride, because ”the doctor” (as she always calls him) fell in love at first sight with her slender waist; and she has never let it measure an inch more than it did then. A big man could span it with his hands. Perhaps Doctor James could. She dresses her hair now as he liked best seventeen years ago, though the fringe looks old-fas.h.i.+oned and odd. Grandma says her hair is bleached, otherwise it couldn't have kept its yellow colour at her age, forty-five. But it s.h.i.+nes and is a lovely golden. She takes the greatest pains in doing it, too, even when she's in a hurry on a cold winter's morning, because she's never sure ”the doctor” mayn't appear that day, to give her a surprise. It would be too bad if, after all these years, he should walk in and find her not looking her best!
She has features like a doll's, with large dark blue eyes, and high arched eyebrows which give her an innocent, expectant expression. Heppie says she blacks them; but Heppie has no eyebrows at all, so it's difficult for her to believe in other people's.
When Mrs. James came to meet us at the door, she had a ladies' paper in her hand, open at a page where it told you in big letters, ”How to be Beautiful Forever,” so I suppose it's true, as Heppie says, that she's always looking for recipes to keep young. She had on a lavender muslin dress, very becoming to her fair complexion, which would be perfect if she hadn't a very few little veins showing in the pink of her cheeks, and some faint, smiling-lines round her eyes, which you see only if you stare rudely as Grandma does, to ”take down Mrs. James's vanity.”
Lavender was the doctor's favourite colour, and she invariably wears one shade or another of it. She never would go into mourning for him, as people thought she ought to do when he disappeared.
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