Chapter I: The Runaway Grandmother (2)

Across the aisle was stretched a purple ribbon, marking the seats reserved for the family and the family servants; in this solemn hour class distinctions were abolished, there was only Thornwell or not-Thornwell. The governor of the Commonwealth--the living one--came in with his lady, but no one did them special honor; they seated themselves among the guests. So with the lieutenant-governor and his lady, and the senator who represented the Commonwealth in Washington; a “scholar in politics” with a very famous name, a dapper little gentleman with sharply trimmed mustaches and beard. If you knew the “blue-bloods” of this community, you would recognize great bankers and lawyers, the presidents of two universities and several scholars of fame. You would not know the timid old ladies dressed in rusty black, who had got out of cars some distance down the driveway and walked about for a while so as not to get there too early; poor relations, who had been in receipt of pensions from Josiah, and were trembling with anxiety until the will should be read.

Through the side door you saw a throng of humble people; the employees of the mills, which were shut down for the afternoon. They came streaming up the path from the road below, dressed in their pathetic best; they would stand patiently for an hour or two, listening to the strains of the organ and waiting their time to file through the room. A rare occasion for them; one might work in the mills another generation and gaze up at the white-painted castle amid its sheltering elm trees and never climb the path to glimpse the splendor. The rest of the village, which did not work in the mills, was clustered along the roadside to stare at the shining limousines and their stately occupants. It was feudalism in frock-coats.

The grandfather’s clock at the head of the stairs pointed to one-fifty-four, and the organ was pealing a magnificent heavy tune. Every person in the room knew the words, and beheld the same magnificent picture--

_Ten thousand times ten thousand
In sparkling raiment bright,
The armies of the ransomed saints
Stream up the steeps of light:
’Tis finished, all is finished,
Their fight with death and sin:
Fling open wide the golden gates
And let the victors in._

At which sublime moment, with all heaven thundering in her ears, Alice Thornwell Winters, black of dress and white of face, was confronting Clara Thornwell Scatterbridge, demanding, “Once more and for the last time, do you admit that the Mayflower cradle is my property?”

Said Clara: “I think this a most unsuitable moment--”

Said Alice: “There could be no moment more suitable. It marks the break-up of our family, if you so decree. That Mayflower cradle has been the cradle of our destiny, and the symbol of our position. I was rocked in its arms, and the generations before me. I bore the first man-child--”

Said Clara: “Well, I have borne five boys and two girls, even though a little bit late.”

Said Alice: “I have Father’s pledge and I stand on that. Give me your answer!”

Said Clara: “It is a matter about which James must be consulted--”

Said Alice: “You have had opportunity to consult James, and you have done so. If you do not answer my question, I understand that your answer is no.”

The clock had moved one minute, and Cornelia came, saying, “It is time to descend. I hope my children are not going to advertise our family shame to the world.”

XII

The procession of men and women and children was formed in the proper order, and down the stairs, two by two, they went: Cornelia first, with no veil over her features and no tears in her soft brown eyes; her gray hair was smoothed flat, and her little round face was solemn, her little nose facing straight ahead, her gaze fixed upon nothingness. One hand rested upon the arm of Great-uncle Abner; and behind her came Great-uncle Ahab, escorting Great-aunt Priscilla. Then Deborah, the oldest daughter, with her husband, Rupert Alvin; then Alice, the second daughter, with her husband, Henry Cabot Winters; then Clara, with her husband, James Scatterbridge; then the son of Alice, and the two daughters of Deborah and the seven children of Clara tapering to a small pair with a governess between them. The miscellaneous uncles and aunts and nephews and nieces and cousins had already been seated inside the magic purple ribbon, so the procession ended with the personal servants; Addicks, with his venerable black suit showing slightly green in the bright sunlight; the governor’s private secretary, and his Negro valet, and Cornelia’s Negro maid, and the handy man, and the gardener, and the cook--all persons who had been with the family so long that they alone knew the dates.

The six pairs of white-robed choir boys came down the center aisle, their cherub voices proclaiming, “Now the laborer’s task is o’er; Now the battle day is past.” The last and tallest bore a high jeweled cross and behind it strode the two clergymen, robed in white and black. All found their proper places, and the rector lifted his hands and pronounced, “Peace be upon this house.” And, truly, whatever spells he might command were in order at this moment, with Clara Scatterbridge sitting with her teeth clenched on the thought, “They are ours and we shall keep them!” And Alice Winters glaring before her at the sentence, “They got it by a mortgage, like pawnbrokers!” And Priscilla Alvin, elder daughter of Deborah, shutting her fists tight upon the conviction, “When it comes to a show down, Mother will give up, but I will never give up!”

“I am the r-r-r-esur-r-ection and the life!” proclaimed the Reverend Dr. Wolverhampton; and then, exactly as if he had known about Mayflower cradles and Shah of Persia’s rugs, he added, “We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.” The choir chanted, “Lord, thou hast been our refuge: from one generation to another”; and then the clergyman began to read the extract from the fifteenth chapter of the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians. It is very long and somewhat involved, so there was no matter for surprise if here and there a member of the congregation found his attention straying. Rupert Alvin had seen, as he came down the aisle, the face of Jerry Walker gazing from one of the side seats; thus it was inevitable that Rupert should be thinking about the felt-plants and the hat-works which Jerry had bought, and would he be able to meet his notes, and how far should the Pilgrim National Bank lead him on? And Great-uncle Abner, who in the next match was to meet the French Jew, and could not help wondering about the fellow’s tricks. And young Josiah Thornwell Winters, the infinitely precious son of Alice, who had a date with a girl and wondered how soon he would get off. And Betty Alvin, who sat behind her grandmother, thinking, “If only she’d come stay with us and liven things up!”

The voice of the rector was wrestling with the complicated Pauline metaphysics. “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.” Cornelia was thinking “Can all that really be true? Shall I really ever see Josiah again? Is he alive somewhere now, and does he know what I am thinking? If he does, am I really free?”

In the casket, within three feet of her, lay what St. Paul called the “natural body” of her husband. For three days it had been preserved by formaldehyde solutions; but an hour or two more and it would be shoved into a vault, and there would begin a process extremely unpleasant to think about. Cornelia had been reading Fabre, and had come upon the details, which now forced themselves upon her shuddering thoughts. St. Paul, thinking the same thoughts, had said, “This corruptible must put on incorruption.”

XIII

The clergyman was praying; and Cornelia, down upon her knees, said a prayer of her own, “Oh, Lord, let my children stop quarreling!” Then she was back in her seat, listening to a eulogy of the great departed. “When the state was in peril, he was as a rock of refuge ... to every need, public or private, he gave freely ... the greatest of his generation ... we of the new time call in vain for his like--” and so on, a discourse that was Boston in every tone and accent. But Cornelia’s mind was occupied with the realities of this household, to whom the glory of Josiah was not a crown to be worn but a carcass to be rended. For years she had prayed “O Lord, take worldliness out of their hearts.” But something must have been wrong with her technique of prayer; it had failed entirely of effect.

“The services will be continued at the place of interment,” said the rector; and the six pairs of choir boys marched out, singing “The church’s one foundation,” and the guests moved slowly into the library and the drawing-room, or to the front lawn, to await while the mill-hands filed across the room. The executives of the company were in charge of this, but Cornelia considered it her duty to remain, and her daughters, not to be outdone in ceremony, stood by her side.

The workers came in single file, slowly and hesitatingly: men and women, old and young, foreigners for the most part, pathetic figures, the more so because of their efforts to look proper. It was not often, under this system of feudalism in frock-coats, that the two kinds of people met in the same place; but here they were, the masters, tall and elegant, and the toilers, stunted in form and scarred in features, with shoulders bowed and limbs crooked and hands knotted and calloused. They had stood upon weary feet for hours in order to see this splendor, but now they were too timid to look at it; all but a few of the young ones kept their eyes straight ahead. A few saw Cornelia--persons whom she had visited in sickness--and these made faint signs of recognition, which she acknowledged.

Then came the pall-bearers; the honorary ones, whose names were in the papers, walking honorably alongside. The casket was slid into the hearse; the relatives entered their cars and so did those guests who cared to follow, and the long line of vehicles set out, with two motorcycle officers at the head and all traffic waiting respectfully. So they came to the family mausoleum, with the costly bronze receptacle waiting for its tenant. The group stood about with heads bowed, and again the choir sang and the Reverend Dr. Wolverhampton lifted up his rolling voice. “Man that is born of woman, hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery.” The casket was set in place and sealed, and the doors of the vault were shut and locked; the blessings of the Lord were conferred upon those present; and all was over. The hearse went back to its garage to await the morrow’s passenger and the guests scattered to their homes; the members of the family returned to “Hillview” for a ceremony which concerned them alone--the reading of Josiah Thornwell’s will.

XIV

Behold them waiting in the library: every one, from the highest to the lowest, the richest to the poorest--even the older servants, who were certain of being remembered. Every one--save two. Clara, looking about, missed her sister Alice and, becoming suddenly suspicious, went into the entrance hall. There, coming down the broad staircase, was a sight the like of which had never been seen by any Thornwell since the days--well, a long time ago, when the ancestors had been privateersmen. Alice was marching, her cultivated features set in grim defiance and her deep-souled eyes staring before her; behind her a French maid, and between them a piece of furniture of brown varnished wood, much scarred and scratched.

Clara stood, all but paralyzed. “Alice Thornwell! What are you doing?”--as if it were not evident enough! Then, seeing Alice go straight by without a word: “If you take that cradle out of this house, I will never speak to you while I live!” And then, “I will denounce you for a thief to the world!” And when even this most dreadful of maledictions failed of effect, Clara could only stand with fingernails dug into the palms of her hands and face white with fury, whispering over and over, “Oh! Oh! _Oh!_”

They went through the front door and Clara rushed into the library, whispering to her mother “Alice is stealing the cradle!” Cornelia hurried outside in time to see the heirloom being loaded onto the Winters limousine. It would not go through the door, but the two women set it on the running-board on the right-hand side, away from the chauffeur; the maid sat on the front seat and held it through the front window and Alice sat on the rear seat and held it through the rear window; and the car rolled away down the drive, leaving the Thornwell family like a nest of ants which has been stepped on.

And even that was not the end! A dreadful idea flashed through the mind of Clara, and she rushed into the rear reception room, which the ladies of the family used for their tea-parties. In the center of this room, upon the seldom-trodden floor, had reposed the Shah of Persia’s rug; and now it was gone! Clara gave one glance, and fled back to her older sister. “Deborah Thornwell, you have stolen my rug!”

Deborah drew herself up to her utmost height of amazement. “I have not touched my rug!”

“But it’s gone!”

“It has not been taken by me.” Still whispering, of course.

Clara looked, and saw that Deborah’s elder daughter, Priscilla, was missing. She asked no more but turned to Addicks, the perfect servant, who never in his fifty years of devotion had encountered an emergency like this, nor in his maddest nightmare had dreamed it. “Addicks, Miss Priscilla has taken the Shah of Persia’s rug. Search for it and bring it to me. Run!”

In the two hundred and eighty-five years of Boston’s history, no such un-Bostonian thing had ever been known to happen, so there could be no Bostonian way of dealing with it. Clara Thornwell Scatterbridge became an ordinary woman in a rage. With tears in her china-blue eyes she appealed to her husband, to her mother, even to her older children and the governess. Ignoring her husband’s efforts to restrain her, she ran from room to room, flinging open doors and looking into cupboards and behind sofas. As it occurred to her to look outside, she rushed through the doorway, breathless, red of face, forgetting her stoutness, her laboring heart, her varicose veins, forgetting even that institution which through so many generations had stood inviolate, the Thornwell dignity. A civilization in ruins!

The mystery was solved at last. Word spreading among the servants, a chauffeur reported that he had seen Miss Priscilla with the rug in her arms, going towards the apple-orchard. So across the fields marched Clara, followed by Deborah, at Clara’s insistence. The other members of the family, suddenly realizing that this was a scene which must not be admitted, ordered the lawyer to begin the reading of the will.

Out under an old apple-tree, in the exact geographical center of the priceless Persian rug, sat the new generation, “young Boston,” which was going to think and act for itself--and bring back the days of the pirates and privateersmen.

“Priscilla!” commanded Clara. “Get up!” And then: “Priscilla, you hear me speak to you! Get up off that rug!”

Silence. And Clara turned to her sister. “Deborah, will you order your child to obey?”

Would she? There was a pause, while history hung in the balance. “Priscilla, I disapprove of what you are doing. Please get up.”

And so the rug-sitting sphinx revealed a voice. “Mother, I am the person who will inherit this rug and I have made up my mind what to do. I shall sit here until Grandfather’s will has been read. If he gives it to us, as he promised, all right. If not, Aunt Clara may call the police to remove me from it.”

“Priscilla! You defy your mother?” Clara’s voice was trembling. “Deborah, make her obey you!”

“Priscilla, obey me,” said the mother. Was it possible that the voice lacked just a little of its usual firmness? Anyhow, Priscilla Alvin continued to sit, her eyes fixed on space.

“Obey your mother!” commanded Clara.

“Priscilla, obey me!” echoed Deborah.

“Mother,” said the rug-sitter, “I was twenty-one years of age last week and I have taken legal advice and learned that I am no longer compelled to obey any one but the law. I am here and I shall stay here, and I serve notice now that if any one but a policeman removes me I shall get a warrant for the person’s arrest.”

“Oh!” cried Clara. “What is this new generation coming to?”

“Aunt Clara,” said the rug-sitter, “you will save time if you go back and hear the will, because you won’t accomplish anything meantime. Do not worry, I shall stay right here till the question is decided. I could have gone farther if I had wanted to, but I like this orchard, which you got away from us.”

XV

And meantime Cornelia had gone to her rooms and locked the door behind her; and then into her bedroom and shut that door, to make doubly certain. She was pacing up and down, beset by a storm of emotion. As they say a drowning man lives over the experiences of his whole life, so she was living the repressions of forty years. All the rages she had felt and never voiced! All the disappointments, the despairs! The experiences she had longed for, and never dared to have, and now could never have, because it was too late! She had been caught, a wild young thing in a trap; she had lived, a prisoner in a cell. She had had dreams, and seen them suffocated; she had had children, and seen them taken from her, and made into strangers. Forced into the mold of this family--this solid phalanx of iron people--with iron souls, iron wills which broke you!

This crowning indignity, this outbreak in the very presence of death--this was an accident, Cornelia told herself. They had never done anything like this before, nothing so open, so undignified. They would repudiate it themselves, they would be ashamed of it to-morrow. This was not “Boston”! But to Cornelia, who had been on the inside of “Boston,” it seemed an outbreak of reality, a revelation of hidden natures. Petty jealousy, petty greed, masked with dignity, and wearing the solemn costumes of historical tradition! Other people, living people, would quarrel over real things; the Thornwells quarreled over the dead rags and relics of their ancestors!

Once there had been real people in this family! Once there had been men and women who had acted, who had dared to think for themselves--and to care about something else than rags and relics! Memories surged into Cornelia’s mind, of the old days when the Thornwells had been smugglers and privateers--not thinking about the proprieties then! There had been revolutionary leaders among them--men who had gone into the “pot-houses” and incited mobs! There had even been women who had dared to think, and to act, instead of obeying the men! Didn’t they worship the memory of a Great-great-aunt Deborah, who had been one of the anti-slavery pioneers? Not frightened by the horrible name of “Black Abolitionist”--no indeed, she had made her home one of the stations in the “underground railway” which had carried fugitive slaves to Canada! She had taught Negroes to read and write--not only black women, but black men! Such was the tradition they thought they worshiped; but really they only worshiped the rags and relics of it!

Suddenly this storm of emotion culminated, and Cornelia, who had been pacing back and forth in her room, suddenly stopped still. What was the reason women were always bound by fear? Because they were afraid! Why were they obedient? Because they obeyed! When they wanted to act, they did not know enough; and when they knew enough, then they were too old! But who could say you were too old to act, if you acted?

Cornelia, trembling with excitement, but at the same time calm inside, went to her desk and sat down, and took pen and ink and began to write.

“My dear Children:

“For forty years I have been doing what other people wanted me
to do, and I have never had any fun. Now I think I have done
everything I can for you, and that you can get along without me. I
hope that I am old enough to take care of myself. I am going away
for a while, to remain until I choose to return, if ever. I am not
taking any property, because there has been too much of it in my
life, and I believe I shall be happier without it. I am going to
prove to myself, for my own satisfaction, that I can take care of
myself, without any advice or assistance from any one. I have only
one request, that you will waste no time or money in efforts to
find me. It will only irritate me and do no good whatever, because
I shall continue to do exactly what I please. I have heard of
runaway children; I am going to be the runaway grandmother.

“With best wishes,
“Mother.

“P.S. I enclose a respectable letter which you may show to our
friends.”

And the second letter:

“My Dear Children:

“Your father’s sudden death has shocked me deeply, and after the
strain of the funeral I realize that I am run down and in need of
rest. I have received a telephone call from an old school friend
who is starting on a camping trip and begs me go along. I think
such a complete change will help me, so I am taking a night train,
and write this to explain and leave you my dearest love and wishes
for a happy summer.

“Affectionately,
“Mother.”

Having sealed these two letters in one envelope and marked it “For Deborah, Alice and Clara,” Cornelia laid it in the middle of her bed. She then changed her mourning garb for an ordinary street-dress, and took her handbag with some ready money in it, and unlocked the two doors, and slipped down a back stairway, and out by a rear door, and down the path which led to the main road. There was a trolley stop, and a car labeled “Boston,” and she stepped aboard.