A Little Country Girl (Coolidge)/Chapter 8
CHAPTER VIII.
BRIC-A-BRAC.
NE afternoon in August, Candace happened to be alone in the drawing-room with Mrs. Gray when Mrs. Joy was announced.
"My dear," began that lady, after administering the two hard, rapid little kisses which were her idea of a cordial greeting, "I've come to see if you don't want to go down to the Point with me. There's an old woman there, I hear, who has a lot of wonderful old china and some mahogany arm-chairs which she wants to sell, and I'm going to look at them. Do put your things on, and come. I hate to drive alone; and there's no fun in this sort of expedition unless there's some one along with you."
"You are very kind," said Mrs. Gray; "but I have promised Mr. Gray to go with him at four to call on some friends who have just arrived at Bateman's, so it's quite impossible for me to go with you. Who is the old woman? Do you recollect her name?"
"Oh, Collishan or Collisham,—some name like that. She lives in Third Street."
"It must be old Miss Colishaw. Are you sure she wants to sell her china?" asked Mrs. Gray, who as a child had spent many summers in Newport before it became a fashionable watering-place, and knew the townspeople much better than did Mrs. Joy.
"I believe so; why shouldn't she? She's as poor as a church mouse, they tell me; and what use can such things be to her? She would rather have the money, of course. You can't go, then? I'm awfully sorry. But you'll let me have one of the girls, dear, won't you? I absolutely can't do it alone."
"Georgie has gone to drive with Berry, and I am sorry to say that Gertrude is on the sofa with a headache."
"Well, here's Miss Candace; she hasn't a headache, I'm sure: perhaps she will take pity on me.—You'll come, won't you? that's a dear. Run and put on your hat. It's a splendid afternoon, and the Point's a very interesting place if you happen to like old things. I don't care for them myself; but they're all the fashion now, you know, and I dare say you've caught the fever with the rest of the folks.—She can come, can't she, dear Mrs. Gray?"
"I don't think she has any engagement," replied Mrs. Gray, trying not to smile at the struggle with dismay that was going on in Candace's countenance; "she likes driving, and it is a beautiful afternoon.—You can go, can't you, Cannie?"
It was impossible on the spur of the moment to frame any excuse. Mrs. Joy's eyes were full upon her; Cousin Kate gave no help; there seemed nothing to do but to comply. Candace murmured something about "Certainly,—very kind,—very happy," and went away to put on the red hat, which went very well with the dress of red and white linen that she happened to have on. It was a new one, which Mrs. Gray had bought for warm days, and which Elizabeth had fitted and made. She wore a red rose in her breast, and had a pair of gray gloves, and she looked very fresh and girlish in this simple costume; but Mrs. Joy did not quite approve of it.
"Why don't they fix the little thing up better?" she was thinking to herself as she got into the carriage. "It's too bad. She'd be quite nice-looking if she were a little more stylish. A light silk, now, or a surah in two shades, like Berry's blue, would make quite a different thing of her."
"You've been down on the Point before now, I suppose," she said as they rolled smoothly along the Avenue.
"Yes, once I did. Cousin Kate took me with her one day to call on a friend of hers, Miss Gisborne."
"Oh, yes, that queer old maid. I know they're very intimate, though I confess I never could see what Mrs. Gray finds in her to like. She's so eccentric, and so different from other people, and she wears such extraordinary clothes."
"But she's very nice, and she tells the funniest stories, and her house is ever so pretty," said Candace, rather at a loss to know what she ought to say.
"Ah, indeed, is it? Inside, you mean. I don't think it amounts to much outside, though people who have a mania for old houses rave about it, I believe. I'm afraid I'm dreadfully modern in my tastes. I can't, for the life of me, see any beauty in ceilings so low that you bump your head against them, and little scraps of windows filled with greenish glass that you can't see through, and which make you look like a mouldy fright, if any one looks through from the outside."
"Miss Gisborne's window-panes are green," admitted Candace. "Some of them are so old that they have colors all over them like mother-of-pearl,—red and blue and yellow. I liked to see them; and she told us that last summer an architect who was going by the house stopped and looked at them a long time, and then rang the bell and offered to give her new sashes with great big panes in them if she would exchange; but she wouldn't."
"The more fool she!" rejoined Mrs. Joy, frankly. "My! what a splendid big house that is going to be! That's the kind of thing I like." And she pointed to an enormous half-finished structure of wood, painted pumpkin color and vermilion, which with its size, its cottage-like details, and the many high thin chimneys which rose above its towering roofs, looked a happy mixture of an asylum, a factory, and a Swiss châlet.
"But what a little bit of ground there is about it for such a big house!" said Candace, whose country eyes were often struck by the disproportion between the Newport edifices and the land on which they stood.
"Yes; land is so dreadfully dear now that people can't afford large places."
"I wonder why this is called 'Farewell Street,'" said Candace, looking at the name painted on the corner of a street into which they were turning.
"Some people say it's because this is the street by which funerals come away from the Cemetery," replied Mrs. Joy. "There's the Reading-room down there. You've seen that, I suppose. Mrs. Gray comes down to the mothers' meetings sometimes, I know."
"Yes; and she has promised to take me with her some day, but we haven't gone yet."
The carriage now turned into a narrow street, parallel with the Bay, but not in sight of it; and Mrs. Joy indicated to her footman a low dormer-windowed house, shabby with weather-stains and lack of paint, whose only ornament was a large and resplendent brass knocker on its front door.
"That's the place," she said. "Just look at that knocker. I know for a certainty that lots of people have offered to buy it, and the absurd old creature to whom it belongs won't sell. She declares that it's been there ever since she can remember, and that it shall stay there as long as she stays. So ridiculous, when things of the kind bring such an enormous price now, and she really needs the money!"
The carriage now stopped. Mrs. Joy got out, and Candace with her. The footman seized the shining knocker, and gave a loud rap.
"Go back to the carriage, Wilkins," said Mrs. Joy. Then she added in a low voice to Candace: "Get close to the door, dear. These people are so queer. I often have to push my way in, but I can always manage them in the end."
The door was opened a very little way by a very little girl.
"Is Miss Collisham at home?" asked Mrs. Joy, at the same time inserting her foot deftly between the door and the door-frame, to insure that the door should not be closed against her.
"No, 'm," said the child. "She's gone out."
"Dear me, what a shame! where is she?" demanded the visitor, in an aggrieved tone, as if Miss Colishaw had no right to be out when wanted by the owner of such a fine equipage.
"She's over to old Miss Barnes's. She's sick," replied the little girl.
"Who's sick?—old Miss Barnes? And where does she live?"
"Just over there in First Street," said the child, staring at Candace, whose big red hat had caught her fancy. "'Tain't but a little way," she added.
"Ah, indeed!" said Mrs. Joy, pushing her way into the entry. "Well, then, you just run over to this place, dear, and tell Miss Collisham that there's a lady waiting to speak to her on business. Be quick, that's a good little girl! This young lady and I will sit down here and wait till you come back."
The small maiden looked uncertain and rather frightened; but Mrs. Joy marched resolutely into the little parlor on one side of the hall, and seated herself; so, after a pause of hesitation, the child seized a sun-bonnet which lay on a chair, and set off at a run in the direction indicated. The moment she was gone Mrs. Joy jumped briskly up.
"Such a piece of good luck!" she cried. "One so rarely gets the chance to examine a place like this without the bother of a family standing by to watch everything you do." Then, to Candace's horror and astonishment, she walked straight across the room to a cupboard which her experienced eye had detected in the side of the chimney, opened the door, and took a survey of the contents.
"Nothing there," she remarked, locking it up, "only medicine bottles and trash. Let's try again." She opened a closet door, and emitted a sigh of satisfaction.
"These must be the very plates I heard of," she said. "Let me see,—five, six, eight,—a complete dozen, I declare, and all in good order,—and a platter, and two dishes! Well, this is a find; and such lovely china, too,—I must have it. Mrs. Kinglake's,—that she's so proud of—isn't half so handsome; and she has only eight plates. Now, where are those chairs that they told me about, I wonder?"
Candace was sitting in one of the very chairs, as it proved; the other Mrs. Joy presently discovered in a little back-room which opened from the parlor, and which she lost no time in rummaging. She had just unlocked another closet door, and was standing before it with a pitcher in her hand, when the mistress of the house appeared,—a tall, thin, rather severe-looking woman, whose cheeks still wore the fresh color which cheeks retain till old age in the Narragansett country.
Candace, who had remained in her chair in a state of speechless and helpless dismay, watching Mrs. Joy's proceedings through the open door, saw her coming, but had no time to warn Mrs. Joy.
"You wanted to see me on business?" said Miss Colishaw, fixing a pair of wrathful eyes on Mrs. Joy, the pitcher, and the open door of the closet.
"Oh, is it Miss Collisham?" replied that lady, neither noticing nor caring for the very evident indignation of look and tone. "Your little girl was so kind as to say that she would go and call you; and while we were waiting we thought we would look at this curious old—"
"We! are there more of you, then?" demanded Miss Colishaw, glaring into the closet as if she expected to see other audacious visitors concealed in its depths. Finding none, she closed the door and turned its stout wooden button with a good deal of energy.
"If you've any business with me, ma'am," she said, "perhaps you'll be so kind as to step into the parlor and say what it is."
"Certainly," responded Mrs. Joy, airily. "But before we go do tell me about this curious old jug. It's Spode, is it not? I'm almost sure that it must be Spode, or some other of the very old English wares. Do you know about it?"
"I know that it was my mother's yeast-pitcher, and that's all that I care to know," replied Miss Colishaw, grimly, taking it out of her hand. "I use it to keep corks in."
"Corks! How amusing! But it's really a nice old piece, you know. I'd like to buy it if you don't care any more for it than that. You could put your corks in something else just as well."
"It ain't for sale," said Miss Colishaw, decidedly, putting the pitcher again into the closet, and leading the way into the parlor.
Candace, who had heard all, and was feeling awkward and guilty to the last degree, rose as they entered, and courtesied to Miss Colishaw. Perhaps her face showed something of the shame and annoyance with which her heart was filled; for Miss Colishaw's iron expression relaxed a little, and the "Good-afternoon" she vouchsafed her sounded a shade less implacable.
"Oh, I forgot!" said Mrs. Joy, turning back to the rear room. "There's this old chair, Miss Collisham."
"Colishaw's my name," interposed her hostess.
"I beg your pardon, I'm sure; so it is, of course. Well, as I was saying, I noticed a delightful old arm-chair in this room,—ah, there it is! It exactly matches some without arms which I bought at Sypher's. If you'd like to part with this and the other in the front room, Miss—Miss Collishall, I should be glad to buy them; and I'd give you a very good price for them because of the match."
Miss Colishaw made no answer.
"Then there's some china that I observed in another closet," went on Mrs. Joy, returning again to the parlor, and opening the door of the closet in question. "This red and blue, I mean. I see you have a good deal of it, and it's a kind I particularly fancy. It's like some which my dear old grandmother used to have." Mrs. Joy's tone became quite sentimental. "I'd give almost anything for it, for the sake of old associations. I wish you'd fix a price on this, Miss Collisham."
"Very well, then, I will,—one million of dollars," replied Miss Colishaw, losing all command over her temper. "No, ma'am, I'm not joking. One million of dollars!—not a cent less; and not even that would pay me for my mother's china, and the chair my father used to sit in when he was old. They ain't for sale; and when I've said that once, I've said it for always."
"But, my dear Miss Collishall—"
"I ain't your dear, and my name ain't Collishall. Colishaw's what I'm called; and it's a good old Newport name, though you don't seem to be able to remember it."
"I beg your pardon," said Mrs. Joy, loftily. "It's rather an unusual name, and I never happened to hear it till to-day. Then you don't care to sell any of these old things?"
"No, ma'am, not one thing."
"Well, I must say that I consider you very foolish. This sort of old stuff won't always be the fashion; and the minute the fashion goes out, they won't be worth anything. Nobody will want to buy them."
"They'll be worth just the same to me then that they are now," responded Miss Colishaw, more gently. She evidently saw the hopelessness of trying to impress her point of view on Mrs. Joy.
"I dare say you have an attic-full of delightful old spinning-wheels and things," remarked that lady, quick to mark the change of tone and hoping to profit by it. She glanced toward the stair-foot as she spoke. Miss Colishaw quickly stepped in front of the stairs, and stood there with the air of an ancient Roman defending his household gods.
"Yes, ma'am, I have an attic," she said dryly. "It's a very good attic, and it's stuffed full of old things. There's a fender and two pairs of fire-dogs—"
Mrs. Joy's eyes sparkled. "Oh, do let us go up and see it!" she cried.
"No, you don't!" said Miss Colishaw, taking a firmer grasp of the baluster. "There's a wool-wheel, and a flax-wheel, and a winder, and three warming-pans—"
"Dear me! What a delightful place!" put in Mrs. Joy.
"There's lots and lots of old truck," continued the implacable Miss Colishaw. "It all belonged to my mother and my grandmother and her mother before her. It's all up there; and there it's going to stay, if all the rich ladies in Newport come down to try to wheedle me out of it. Not a soul of them shall set foot in my attic."
"Well, I must say that I think you very foolish," said Mrs. Joy, settling the wrists of her long gloves. "You're very poor, and these old things are no use to you in the way you live; and you'd far better take the money they would bring, and make yourself comfortable."
Miss Colishaw was now pale with anger.
"And who told you I was poor?" she demanded. "Did I ever come a-begging to you? Did I ever walk into your house to pry and rummage, and tell you that your things were no use? When I do you'll have a right to come here and behave as you have, but not a minute before. Use! They are of use. They remind me of my family,—of the time I was young, when we all lived in this house together, before Newport grew to be a fashionable boarding-place and was spoiled for people of the old sort. If that's all the business you have with me, madam, I think we have got through with it."
"Really, there's no occasion for being so very rude," said Mrs. Joy.
"Rude!" Miss Colishaw gave an acrid laugh. "Mine ain't fashionable manners, I know; but I guess they're about as good." She opened the front door, and held it suggestively wide. Mrs. Joy swept through.
"Come, Miss Arden," she called back over her shoulder.
Candace could do nothing but look as apologetic as she felt. "I'm so sorry," she murmured, as she passed Miss Colishaw.
"You haven't done anything. It's she who ought to be sorry," returned Miss Colishaw, and banged the door behind her as she passed through.
"What a horrid old person!" said Mrs. Joy, who looked heated and vexed. "I never met any one so impertinent. And such a fool, too! Why, she takes in sewing, I am told, or makes cake,—some of those things. She's as poor as Job's turkey; yet there she sits, with those valuable things absolutely wasting in her poky old house, and refuses to sell them. I wish I had spoken more strongly to her! I declare, I've a good mind to go back and do it now. It is such perfect folly. She really ought to be reasoned out of it."
"Oh, I wouldn't," urged Candace,—"I wouldn't go back. She was so angry. I don't know what she would say if you did."
"My dear, I don't care a red cent what she says. All the old women on the Point can't frighten me," declared Mrs. Joy. She reflected a little; then she gave up her intention.
"After all, it isn't worth the trouble. She's just that sort of obstinate old creature who will never listen to a word of advice. I knew, the moment I looked at her, that nothing I could say would do any good. Generally I can turn that kind of person round my finger. Why, you'd be surprised if I told you of the bargains I have got out of old garrets over on Conanicut and down the Island. But, really and truly, I'm a little tired of it; and I never did care much for such old duds, except that other people have them and it is the thing to have them. I'd rather go to Howard's any day, and get a lot of nice French china. Howard has such exquisite things always."
So the carriage was ordered to Coddington's Cove; and as they rolled smoothly past the Maitland Woods, neither Mrs. Joy nor Candace guessed that at that moment Miss Colishaw was sitting in her little back-room, with the old yeast-pitcher in her lap, crying as if her heart would break.
"It's bad enough to be old and poor and alone in the world," she sobbed to herself, "without having fine stuck-up folks coming right in to sauce you out of your senses." She wiped her eyes, and looked for a minute at the pitcher.
"Betsey Colishaw, you're a fool!" she remarked aloud. "You might have kept your temper. The woman didn't hurt you any. And there was that young thing looking so kind of sorry. You might have said a pleasant word to her, anyhow, even if you were all riled up with the other."
On sped the carriage, the lovely Upper Bay always in sight, until on the curve of the long Coddington's Point it turned, and retraced its course so as to strike Washington Street at the lower end. It was a delicious afternoon. The tide was flowing freshly in, and the brisk northwest breeze which met it sent little white-caps dancing all over the surface. Crafts of all kinds were traversing the harbor: yachts and cat-boats were out in numbers; schooners and barges sped up the bay, their sails shining against the green Island shores; row-boats and steam-tugs were crossing and recrossing between the city and the Fort and Torpedo Station. A sharp double whistle announced the "Eolus" just started on her up trip, with a long wake of creamy foam behind her. Fleets of white clouds were drifting across the sky, which was bluer than the sea, like ships of heaven, simulating and repeating the movements of those of earth below. Every wharf and dock was full of people, fishing, idling, or preparing to go out in boats. It was one of the moments when all mankind seems to be a-pleasuring, and to have laid aside all memory of the labors and the pains of this work-a-day world.
Mrs. Joy probably felt that she owed Candace some compensation for the unpleasant quarter of an hour which she had led her into at Miss Colishaw's; for she did her best to be entertaining, and to tell everything that she herself knew about Washington Street and its notabilities. She pointed out the two pretty old houses which have been so cleverly modernized into comfort without any sacrifice of their quaint exteriors; and the other and still finer one, once belonging to the Hunter family, whose renovations have gone so far toward spoiling it.
"It used to have a nice old staircase with a broad landing, and windows over the water, and beautiful mahogany balusters," explained Mrs. Joy. "But they've spoiled all that. They have painted over the elegant satinwood and old cherry wainscotings, and taken out the secret staircase; and now it's no better than any other square house with that kind of roof."
"Was there a secret staircase?" cried Candace. "Oh, what a pity they took it out! I always thought I should like to see one so much."
"I don't believe this would have interested you particularly. It was only a kind of narrow back-stairs, which was not commonly used. They do say, though, that ghosts used to be heard running up and down it quite often."
"Ghosts! How strange! What sort of noise did they make? I suppose no one ever saw them."
"One lady did."
"Really!" Candace's eyes were wide with attention.
"Yes. She was a friend of mine, and she used to board in the house before it was altered. She heard the noises, which were a sort of scratching and rustling, and she resolved to see what the ghost was like; so she took a candle and followed it downstairs."
"How brave! And what was it like?"
"It was like—a rat! When she caught sight of it, it was sitting on the edge of a pot of lard. It was picking its teeth, she said."
"A pot of lard!"
"Yes. The secret staircase led down to a sort of cellar, you see."
"Oh, Mrs. Joy, how disappointing!"
"I'm afraid ghost stories generally do turn out disappointing in the end. Here we are, close to old Fort Greene. Would you like to jump out, and run down to the water's edge and see it?"
"Oh, thank you, I should like it ever so much."
It was but a few steps from the carriage to the grassy top of the old redoubt; but when Cannie had picked her way down the steep incline toward the shore, she found herself entirely out of sight of the street and the houses, out of sight of everything except the lovely sunlit Bay which stretched before her. There was no sound except the plash of the waves, and for a moment she felt as much alone as if she had been in the depths of a country solitude. Then another sound came vaguely to her ear,—a low murmur of conversation; and she became aware that the Fort held other visitors besides herself. A rock hid the speakers from her, whoever they might be; the voices were too indistinct for recognition, and it was accident rather than intention which led her to diverge from the path, as she returned to the carriage, in a manner which gave her a view of the party.
There were three persons,—a man and two girls. The man was young and good-looking; he was also well dressed, but there was something about him which, even to Candace's inexperience, suggested the idea that he was not quite a gentleman. One of the girls was standing with her back to Candace, talking eagerly in a hushed voice; the other sat on a stone in an attitude of troubled dejection. Her face was in shadow; but she turned a little as Candace passed, and to her wondering surprise she saw that it was no other than her cousin Georgie Gray.