Chapter XVI: Margarita Comes to Town

[FROM SUE PAYNTER]

WASHINGTON SQUARE,

Oct. 16, 188--

JERRY DEAR:

First about the will--how splendid it was! Nothing could
have pleased Roger more, I am sure--he told me with that
queer, little whimsical grimace of his that it cleared his
conscience to feel he was leaving you _something_! What a
personality he has, and how, in his quiet unassuming way, he
impresses it on us!

I hear that Sarah made a great fuss about the will, but was
advised by Mr. Sears to stop--and stopped! With Madame B. I
am of course anathema--I have not heard from her since. The
bank, _bien entendu_, is of the past, and you, I hear, are
in the far West. How you will revel in the freedom and how
good it must have been to kick off the ball and chain! If
anyone can be trusted not to abuse leisure, it is you, dear
Jerry--you won't appear so culpable, as a poor American
always does, somehow, under such circumstances. Even I feel
unjustifiably idle now, so I have taken up some of Mr.
Elder's fads--what a fine, manly sort of fellow he is!--and
may be seen, _moi qui vous parle_, teaching sight-reading to
a boy's glee-club!

But of course you are impatiently waiting for me to turn to
Margarita and leave this silly chatter about my egotistic
self. _Eh bien_, she is marvellous. For half an hour I hated
her, but I couldn't hold out any longer. I have never even
imagined such a person. What a pose that would be if any
actress were clever enough to avail herself of the
un-paralleled opportunities it would give her! Of course I
thought it _was_ a pose, at first--I simply couldn't believe
in her. But equally of course no woman could deceive another
woman very long at that, and she is one to conquer both
sexes. When she put her hand in mine and asked if I was
going to buy her some dresses on Broadway, I had to kiss
her.

I got very little, just enough for absolute necessity, and
gave her a letter to my woman in Paris and another to one I
could only afford occasionally, and told her to obey them
and take what they gave her. She understood and promised not
to buy what happened to strike her--this was necessary, for
she begged piteously for a rose pink satin street dress and
a yellow velvet opera cloak to wear on the boat! We had a
terrible struggle over a corset--she screamed when the
_corsetiere_ and I got her into one and slapped the poor
woman in the face. It took all my diplomacy to cover the
affair and I doubt if I could have done it, really, if
Margarita herself had not suddenly begun to cry like a
frightened baby and begged pardon so sincerely that the
woman was melted and ended by offering her sister as a maid!
The girl had the best of references, and as she must have
someone and Elise has travelled extensively and seems very
tactful, she is now (I trust) adjusting the elastic girdle
her sister finally induced Margarita to wear.

I took her to my Sixth Avenue shoe place, and she was so
ravished with a pair of pale blue satin _mules_ I got her
that she actually leaned down and kissed the clerk who was
kneeling before her! Fortunately we were in a private room
and he was the cleverest possible young Irishman, who winked
gravely at me and took it as naturally as possible--he
thought she was not responsible, you see, and assured me
that he had an aunt in the old country who was just that
way!

What a beautiful voice she has--have you ever heard it drop
a perfect minor third? But what a strange, strange wife for
Roger, of all men! I suppose she is the first thoroughly
unconventional person he was ever closely connected with--in
one way _you_ would seem more natural with her--I suppose
because you are more adaptable than Roger. With him,
everybody must adapt. Will she! _Voila l'affaire!_ I should
say that the young woman would be likely to have great
influence over other people's lives, herself. If she and
Roger ever clash--! Ah, well, _advienne que pourra_, it's
done.

I gave her for a wedding present that lovely little old
daguerreotype of Roger at three years old. It was in an old
leather frame, you know, and I had it taken out and put into
a little band of steel pearls and hung on a small dark red
velvet standard. No one could fail to know him from it--I
think it is the most wonderful child portrait I ever saw. He
seems to have always had that straight, steady look. There
is a tiny curl of yellow baby hair in the back, which amused
her very much. That is the only one of him at that age, you
know--his mother gave it to me when we were engaged, and I
always kept it.

I am forgetting to tell you about our visit to the Convent,
and you must hear it. I love the old place and often go up
there to see Mary, when things grow a little too unbearable.
She is wonderful--so placid and bright, so somehow just like
herself, when you expect something different! Why did she do
it, I wonder? I was one of her best friends, and I never
knew. Her great executive ability is having its reward, they
tell me, and she is likely to be Mother Superior some day.

I had told her about Margarita and she was deeply interested
in her, though the terrible state of the child's soul
naturally alarmed her. When I told her that her
sister-in-law had never been in a church, nor seen one,
unless she had noticed those we passed in New York, she
crossed herself hastily and such a look of real, heartfelt
pain passed over her face!

Well, I got my charge safely up there, and everything
interested her tremendously from the very beginning. It was
the intermission _demi-heure_ of the morning and the girls
were all munching their _gouter_ and playing about on the
grass. I explained to her why they all wore the same black
uniform, and why the honour girls, "_les tres-biens_," wore
the broad blue sashes under their arms, and why the Sisters
kept on their white headdresses in the house, and why the
girls all made their little _reverence_ when Mother Bradley
came out to meet us. She kissed Margarita so sweetly and
held her in her arms a moment--I don't think Roger quite
realised how his attitude hurts her: it is the only almost
unjust thing I ever knew him to do. In the halls there is a
great statue of Christ blessing the children, and Margarita
stopped and stared at it several minutes, while we watched
her. She seemed so rapt that Mary took my hand excitedly and
whispered to me not to disturb her for the world, but wait
for what she would say. After a while she turned to me.

"Why has that woman a beard, Sue?" she asked cheerfully.
Imagine my feelings! I did not dare look at Mary.

We went all through the school-rooms and she was most
curious about the globes and blackboards and pianos. We
stopped at the door of a tiny music room, and I smiled, as I
always do, at the pretty little picture. The young girl with
her Gretchen braids of yellow hair, straight-backed in front
of the piano, the nervous, grey-haired little music master
watchfully posted behind her, beating time, and in the
corner the calm-faced Sister, pink-cheeked under her
spreading cap, knitting, with constantly moving lips. The
music rooms are so wee that the group seemed like a
gracefully posed _genre_ picture. Before we knew what she
was about, Margarita had slipped in behind the music master
and brought both hands down with a crash on the keys, so
that the Chopin Prelude ended abruptly in an hysterical wail
and the young lady half fell off the stool--only half, for
Margarita pushed her the rest of the way, I regret to say.
Fortunately Mary was able to get us out of it, but I fear
there was no more Prelude that day! Why will women play
Chopin, by the way? I never heard one who could--Aus der Ohe
is masculine enough, heaven knows, but even that amount of
talent doesn't seem to accomplish it. Do you remember
Frederick's diatribes on the subject? He used to say that
Congress should forbid Chopin to women, on pain of life
imprisonment.

But you must hear the end of the visit. We went into Mary's
room--perfectly bare, you know, with a great crucifix on the
wall and below it, part of the woodwork, a little cup for
holy water. As soon as she entered the room Margarita
paused, and gave a sort of gasp--her hand, which I held
tight in mine, grew cold as ice. She moved over slowly to
the crucifix, with her eyes glued to it--she seemed utterly
unconscious of us, or where she was; she stood directly
under the crucifix, with Mary and me on either side of her
shaking with excitement, and then she put out her hand in a
wavering, unsteady way, like a blind person, dipped her
fingers in the empty bowl and began to cross herself! She
touched her forehead quickly, then moved her hand slowly
down her chest, fumbled toward one side, then drew a long
breath and stared at us, winking like a baby.

"I wish I had some food, Sue," she said, and actually yawned
and stretched her arms, like a plow-boy, in our faces. "I
think this room makes me hungry. Are you not hungry, Mary?"

Now, Jerry, what do you make of that? She cannot have seen a
crucifix, can she? Nor anyone crossing themselves? She acted
like a woman walking in her sleep. If I lived in Boston and
were interested in that sort of thing I could swear that she
had been a nun in her last incarnation!

Mary is, of course, much wrought up, and is going to set the
whole convent praying for her, I believe. I told Roger about
it, but you know what he is--it sounded rather silly as soon
as I had it begun. He pointed out that there were plenty of
chances for her to have seen the Sisters crossing themselves
before crucifixes, and other sensible explanations. But
really and truly, Jerry, I was with her every minute, and
she did what she had not seen done.

What do you think of it?

Yours always,

SUE PAYNTER.