Cousin Wilhelmina

Chapter I. The House With the Peacocks

Strolling along through a once aristocratic quarter of New York which was no longer a residential district, but had been converted into a thoroughfare, Mr. Travers Preston stood regarding with interest a house, square and massive in its character and of the inevitable brown stone. It had no pretence to architectural elegance, it was quite guiltless of ornamentation, yet it bore, in its austere plainness, the sign manual of solid wealth and of gentility.

Travers Preston gave the dwelling his particular attention, because it reminded him very forcibly of his boyhood, when he had been a more or less frequent visitor to the mansion. It had been at that time the abode of a certain crusty old bachelor, whom he smiled even now to re-

COUvSIN WIUIEIvMINA call. Moreover there was something in the aspect of the place which appealed to the artistic soul that lay hidden away under the cynical and man-of-the-world exterior, which Travers Preston presented to the generality of his acquaintances. He had been absent a good deal from his native city, having spent years abroad, and he had not followed the fortunes of this house, nor of those who once made it their habitation. But he remembered many touching traditions connected therewith, as well as personalities who had played a considerable part in the social drama of the metropolis.

Though it was October, the grassy lawn upon which the edifice fronted was beautifully fresh and green, exquisitely soft and smooth. It extended around three sides of the dwelling, ending at either side in a brown, trellised fence, to which still clung a ragged vine. It was separated from the street by a low, iron railing, from the gateway whereof a short, stone paved path led directly to a flight of broad steps, and these in their turn to the massive entrance door.

As the critical observer gazed, two superb peacocks suddenly appeared, around the corner of the house, advancing with stately motion and long, graceful sweep of the tail. So curious is the association of ideas that the birds not only recalled to Travers Preston his boyhood, but re-

THE HOUSE WITH THE PEACOCKS 9

minded him likewise of an ancient palazzo, in a shaded street of Florence.

" Florence the beautiful," he murmured, and for an instant of delicious reverie, the Italian city was present to his mind, and those happenings, trivial and unimportant, yet pleasant, which had fixed that particular domicile in his memory. The sun glinted upon the gorgeous coloring of the peacocks as they strutted about in front of the mansion. They might have been guardian geni from that past to which the edifice properly belonged.

Some street urchins began to gather about, attracted partly by the peacocks, who were a perennial delight to them, and partly by the motionless figure of a gentleman, in faultless afternoon costume, from the tip of his top hat to the immaculate varnish of his shoes. They gathered in a group and regarded him in his absorption, but he gave no heed, and they, tired of staring, presently turned their undivided attention to the peacocks, saluting them with a shower of pebbles. The unoffending fowls, so assaulted, fled with shrill screams and ungainly movement around the the corner of the dwelling. Travers Preston, with that curious pang of regretful retrospection which is apt to recur to those who have passed the boundaries of early youth, remembered how he had done precisely the same thing,

COUSIN WIIyHEIyMINA more than "twenty golden years before." Nevertheless, he addressed a remonstrance to the boys, in behalf of the creatures who had fled so ignominiously.

Once roused from his abstraction, he became unpleasantly conscious that the lads had concentrated their attention upon him. Gathering together his energies, he strolled leisurely away, followed by sundry remarks from the urchins upon the shine of his boots and the lustre of his hat. Outwardly, at least, undisturbed, he pursued his way, the plate-glass windows of the house, lighted by the glare of the sun, seeming to stare after his retreating figure.

He had not gone far, when he met a carriage, a square, old-fashioned vehicle, drawn by two substantial horses advancing at a deliberate pace. The coachman and footman upon the box, likewise wore ancient but exceedingly correct livery. The pedestrian at once surmised that this equipage belonged to that dwelling, which had so fascinated him. He stood still, again, at a convenient distance, to observe its further progress and to note that it stopped, in fact, before the iron gateway. Travers Preston felt a distinct thrill of emotion. He scarcely knew what he expected, as the footman threw open the carriage door and slowly, leisurely a person was assisted to alight. It was a woman, frail, slight, ethereal,

THE HOUSE WITH THE PEACOCKS 11 of an almost startling emaciation, of an ivorylike whiteness of complexion, of a slow, yet peculiarly graceful movement, which even the feebleness of age could not entirely disguise. She leaned upon the footman's arm, and so passed through the gate, up the broad steps and in at the door, which closed upon her. The observer had a curious feeling that it was like the closing of a chapter in a romance. He roused himself impatiently and went upon his way, walking at a rapid pace down Broadway to his handsome bachelor apartments, in Thirty- third Street near the Avenue.

It was not, however, until his dinner at the Club had been dispatched, and he had looked in for an hour at the opera house, that he finally found himself at leisure to think of the incident of the morning. He sat down in an arm chair to enjoy the luxury of a quiet smoke, and he opened one by one a pile of notes, which had accumulated upon his writing table. They inspired him with a peculiar distaste and seemed an impertinent interruption to his thoughts. They were chiefly invitations for various dates, requesting his presence at all sorts and varieties of functions, social and otherwise. They were an admirable illustration of the never ceasing treadmill in which the Gothamite of high social pretensions and abundant leisure is expected to pass his days and a great portion of his nights as well.

Travers Preston had long passed the stage when he felt himself bound to accept invitations, merely because he had received them. He picked and chose as a connoiseur in gems might pick and choose amongst a brilliant collection. On this occasion, he dismissed them nearly all with cynical contempt, save the last, which, having opened and read, he held in his hand, thoughtfully, struck by a coincidence. It was suggested to him by his excellent memory that these Robinsons, who now invited him to dinner to meet some stranger of distinction, were allied to the very people who, at one time, inhabited the dwelling that had that morning attracted his attention.

Having settled the matter to his satisfaction, he at once wrote an acceptance, and ringing for his valet, caused it to be despatched. He could hardly have told himself why he did so. He had formerly, it is true, known the Robinsons very well, and had drifted away from them almost entirely. They had practically dropped out of his world and had been relegated, through inclination or force of circumstances, to a very quiet set. After he had despatched his acceptance, Travers Preston relapsed into careless ease, thoroughly enjoying his cigar.

THE HOUvSE WITH THE PEACOCKS 13

He was a personage very much in demand in the social world of that metropolis from which he had been so frequently absent. Yet he was not so very young, having reached the sufficiently mature age of thirty-five, nor yet conspicuously handsome. On the contrary, he was usually regarded as singularly plain. His wealth, when measured by the set in which he chiefly moved, was inconsiderable, and he had neither business nor profession. But he had that quality, indefinable, but as tangible and as valuable as the diamonds of Golconda, of being a power amongst his fellows. It was universally conceded that he could do anything upon which he had set his mind, and win in any race. He had a talent for finance, or so, at least it seemed, from various fortunate investments. His fine taste in art and in music left little doubt that he might have met with eminent success in either of those directions. His friends always claimed that if he had been born poor, he would have shone resplendently somewhere. As it was, he languidly permitted himself to reflect other lights and was, as a moon, borrowing from many suns. He had chosen, in fact, to remain a dilettante.

For the rest, he possessed a never failing sympathy, a tact, a geniality and a polish of manner which resulted from culture, combined with cos-

COUvSIN WILHEIvMINA mopolitan experience. He knew an immense number of people eminently worth knowing, in all the principal cities. Nevertheless he was the victim of a profound weariness, which he hid more or less successfully and of a cynicism, which was never aggressive.

Sitting there that evening alone, he recalled his life in its various phases, and he asked himself how it was that he had missed so many things which other men most highly valued. Iyove, domestic life, the companionship of some charming woman? He laughed softly to himself, as he answered the question by the very simple reflection that he had thus far seen no woman whose companionship he would have desired. In his secret communings, he admitted to himself, though he would not have declared his opinion to the world, that he did not believe in what is called love. Romantic attachments he held to be totally foreign to the age of the telephone and the telegraph. Marriage in modern life was at best the union of two congenial persons, who pledged themselves to make life as mutually agreeable as possible.

He smiled as he pulled from his pocket, a tiny peacock feather. He had put his hand through the iron railing and picked it up, after the peacocks had made their hurried exit from the lawn. He scarcely knew why he had taken

THE HOUSE WITH THE PEACOCKS 15

it and carried it away. He twirled it now thoughtfully in his fingers and recalled once more the Palazzo in Florence, where he had previously beheld a fine brood of these gorgeous fowls. That Palazzo had been the habitation of a very charming woman, a young American widow possessed of considerable attractions. Popular report, in that time and place, had declared that the young woman would have been quite willing to bestow herself upon Travers Preston, but he himself had touched very lightly upon this aspect of the question even in his own thoughts. For being a gentleman to the core, he was as far as possible removed from coxcombry.

He remembered this lady and her attractions as a very forcible illustration of his theories. He had very much enjoyed her society, but he had parted from her with the smallest modicum of regret. As she came now into his mind, with a kindly and perfectly respectful memory of the pleasure she had given him by her good comradeship, it suddenly occurred to him that she had conversed for a whole afternoon upon the very subject of that quaint, old house with the peacocks, in the very heart of New York. She had related many anecdotes of the family, who resided there, and in particular of a traditional beauty that some generations previous had taken aristocratic New York by storm and had created a veritable furore amongst its young men.

Travers Preston had argued at the time that the youth of those by-gone generations must assuredly have been more impressionable, more romantic than those of the present, and that he could scarcely imagine the men of the new century becoming the victims of a grand passion. The lady had hotly contended for the existence of attachments as romantic and infatuations as complete in the twentieth century as at any other period of the world's history. She had, moreover, ventured the assertion that the man before her was an excellent subject for just such an attachment, possessing an artistic nature which is inevitably emotional, and a deep fund of feeling beneath a cynical exterior.

Evidently, as Travers Preston reflected, she had not been endowed with the spirit of prophecy. Here, after the lapse of some years, he was quite heart whole, entirely outside the range of feminine influence and in surroundings so congenial that he was not disposed to sacrifice the ease, luxury and freedom he enjoyed for any woman whatsoever. "Well," he cried, laughingly, "till the years roll backwards and age becomes youth, I shall never be in danger of heart-break for any woman."

He stuck the peacock's feather, cynically, in a

THE HOUSE WITH THE PEACOCKS 17

picture over the mantle-piece, as a gage of battle, a token of his high and puissant resolution. But he could not dismiss from his mind that by-gone beauty, whom he felt sure he had that day seen under the guise of an aged and fragile woman. She recurred to his mind in the full glory of her attractions, which had dazzled many a youth, and for which, if report spoke truth, more than one had wrecked his life.

In looking back upon that evening long after, Travers Preston frequently asked himself, if there are not moods of the human mind, phases of feeling through which it passes, that savor of prescience, that "in part are prophecy and in part are longings wild and vain. ' '

Chapter II. Misunderstanding

Precisely at twenty-five minutes past seven, Mr. Travers Preston found himself ringing the bell of a substantial brown stone mansion in the newer quarter of Manhattan, where handsome residences extend downwards almost to the water front. He stood upon the steps and looked past the broad driveway to where the North River glinted in the last, faint rays of the evening sunshine. A deep, red glow was just fading over the cold gray of the water. The dinner guest sighed, his thoughts going back a decade of years to a time when the Robinsons had inhabited a commodious dwelling in an old but very aristocratic quarter of the town.

"What jolly times we used to have there," he reflected. "I was in the early twenties. ' '

His reflections were cut short by the opening of the door, and he passed in from the last gleam of the dying sunset, contrasted with the pale gray of the water and the leaden dullness of the pavement, to the warmth and comfort of a (19)

substantial interior. The soft pile of the Moquette carpets, the glare of multitudinous electric lights, softened and shaded, told of wealth and luxury. Yet once again the new arrival sighed for that far less pretentious mansion, where he had been entertained of yore, and for a past in which he had been young.

Most of the other guests, including the distinguished stranger, were already assembled in the drawing-room, and the womenkind of the household were somewhat flustered, it must be owned, by the advent of this pink of fashion, the courted, the fastidious. Mr. Appleby Robinson was quite undisturbed by the event. He had been very intimate with Travers Preston in the old days, and their intimacy had waned and died for no particular reason save that the former, who was older, had become a family man and had settled down into comfortable obscurity, whereas the latter had gone forward into the very inner circle of fashion, had traveled much, had sojourned amongst the great of the earth, and had dwelt conspicuously in the atmosphere of purple and fine linen.

The host, recalling the past, gave the guest a very cheery and cordial greeting, to which the latter responded in his best manner. After his easy fashion he fell at once into the position of an old family friend, and so put even the most timid at their ease. He made himself charming to all that company, but he entered into particularly amicable relations with the eldest daughter of the house, Miss Mary Appleby Robinson. That young woman was plain and sensible and not likely to be diverted from her ordinary way by the attentions of this brilliant meteor of fashion. During the course of the dinner, he was at some pains to draw out the distinguished stranger upon his travels, but having paid him due attention, as the occasion befitted, he took the first opportunity of broaching to his host the subject which was uppermost in his own mind. He put a discreet question about the house with the peacocks, to which Appleby Robinson responded heartily:

"Oh, yes, old fellow, you must remember that is Cousin Wilhelmina's house."

"I vaguely remember that the house belonged to some of your people," Travers Preston replied, "but I don't think I ever knew a Cousin Wilhelmina."

"She was away from New York a great deal," the host explained. "In fact she only came back permanently after my Uncle Jerry died. ' '

"Oh, I knew your Uncle Jerry well," cried the other genially. "It was in his time I was at the house. He used to give us youngsters a quarter or fifty cents to buy sweets, al-

COUSIN WILHKLMINA ways with a homily against the use of tobacco. ' ' "Why, to be sure! poor uncle had the strongest antipathy to the weed. He caught me once smoking, and he threatened to thrash me if I ever so much as looked at a cigarette. Bless his innocent heart, he little guessed what a smoker I should become. ' '

"He wasn't very successful with any of his neophytes, then. Persuasion and sweetmeats were as unavailing in my case as threats in yours. ' '

In the pause which followed, the last speaker was revolving in his mind the form of a question which he presently put:

"Was that old lady whom I saw getting out of a carriage in front of the house this morning, your Uncle Jerry's sistei ?"

"Getting out at the door of the old house? Was she very fair, very frail, very ethereal?"

"Precisely."

"Then that was my Uncle Jerry's niece. She was always called Cousin Wilhelmina in the family, though Jerry was my grand- uncle."

"Oh, that's it!" Travers Preston exclaimed. "I am getting on, as the phrase is, to your family connections. ' '

"Yes, Jerry left her the old house and all his money, though they quarreled persistently during life, and never stayed together for more than a few weeks. The old boy regarded her as the type feminine, which he professed to abhor. He condemned what he called her frivolities, and was exasperated beyond measure by her conquests over the sterner sex. "

The host's attention was here called to some other guest and the subject was not resumed. After dinner Mr. Travers Preston devoted himself to Miss Mary, partly with a view to that fascinating topic which occupied his mind. He was literally haunted, indeed, by the remembrance of that fragile figure, so aged, so dainty, so delicate, a veritable walking compendium of the social history of her set, a living illustration of the transitory glory of this nether world. Of course, this absorption did not appear. Few could guess the current of Travers Preston's thoughts, unless he chose to give the indication. In the drawing-room, after dinner, he asked Miss Mary Robinson to sing. She complied at once, allowing him to choose for her a favorite of his own. It was a German romance, full of chords and harmony, which, nevertheless, required softness and delicacy of execution, alternating with fire and intensity. Miss Mary warned him:

"I have only a puppet's voice, a mere drawing-room trifle."

The man of the world looked down at the

COUSIN WIIvHRLMINA young girl kindly. She was certainly plain, all the Robinsons were, and no doubt she was quite correct in the estimate she gave of her voice. But there was a saving grace, all too rare, in her acknowledgment of deficiency, in her very recognition of her own limitations, just as there was a compensation for her plainness in the kindly and vivacious expression of her eyes. He was a finished connoisseur in music and frequently had to endure veritable torture from amateurs of his acquaintance. He had schooled himself, however, against such afflictions and now responded most pleasantly:

' 'You must sing it and allow me to judge. It is a lovely thing. ' '

"You should hear Cousin Wilhelmina sing that," cried the girl, with enthusiasm. Travers Preston gave her a startled glance, as Mary continued:

"She has a wonderful voice."

"It must be wonderful, indeed, if she can render that at her age," said the connoisseur, abstractedly, thinking of the dainty anachronism whom he had seen mounting the sunlit steps, with the frail form and white face, white with the pallor of age, a gem of which the setting was the quaint mansion and the superb pair of peacocks. The girl regarded him curiously :

"Has age anything to do with one's singing?" she inquired.

"Why, necessarily, a voice must lose something of its range and considerable, if not all, of its power, with advancing years. ' '

"Cousin Wilhelmina's voice hasn't lost anything!" Mary cried, emphatically, and this time the bored man of fashion smiled upon the young girl. That smile of his was a distinct attraction, it lighted up a plain face and a decidedly unclassical set of features. There was something so genuine in the girl's hearty praise and in that affection for her cousin which would not permit her to recognize even the ravages of time.

"You might let me hear you sing in the meantime," Travers Preston said, "until I have the good fortune to hear your wonderful cousin. ' '

"She is wonderful in every way !" Miss Mary exclaimed, with decision.

"Age cannot wither nor custom stale her infinite variety," the man quoted amusedly to himself, but Mary persisted:

"You will think so, too, when you know her."

"I am quite sure of that, and I hope the pleasure will not be too long def erred/ ' Travers Preston responded, quite sincerely. He was deeply interested in learning more of that relic, which had survived in the swirl of the huge metropolis, a phantom of that older society which had retained the archaic quality of the early colonial era. He dimly remembered, moreover, the interior of that ancient dwelling, where he had gone as a boy and where he had partaken of Uncle Jerry's bounties.

4 'You must manage for me a meeting with this fascinating Cousin Wilhelmina," Travers Preston continued. "Does she receive at all ?"

"Not so very often. She will not be bound by rules. Of course, there are the Thursday evening receptions, but you cannot be sure of finding her there. ' '

"Hamlet, with the Prince of Denmark left out. But if you will be good enough to introduce me, I shall have to take my chances. You can introduce me as a duly accredited old friend of the family."

"That will be a recommendation. She likes everything old and connected with the past. ' '

"Naturally," assented Travers Preston, wondering how old the girl thought he was, while she, in turn, cast a curious look at him.

"Many men have been fascinated by Cousin Wilhelmina," Mary went on, thoughtfully, "though I have known a few to dislike her intensely. She has a singular charm about her."

"An archaic charm?"

"Well, I don't know," Mary replied, doubtfully. "Though I have heard that remark made about her before, I can't see that it's so very appropriate. Some one said she was an anachronism. Wasn't that a peculiar compliment?"

"She matches that delightful old house and the peacocks," answered Travers Preston, evasively, 1 'but, meantime, I have not had my song. ' '

"I do not think I shall sing the one you have chosen," objected Mary, "in case you should ever hear Wilhelmina sing it. I have heard men say that they felt like falling at her feet when she sang that song. ' '

"She must be a remarkable old woman," thought the man, but he merely urged Mary Robinson to choose one of her own favorites, and he listened with the best grace and a certain degree of pleasure to her rendering of a simple, pathetic, little romanza. When taking his leave he remarked to his host:

"Miss Mary has promised to take me some Thursday evening to call upon Cousin Wilhelmina. ' '

"That's right! That's right!" agreed Mr. Robinson, jovially. "But don't go too late, or the old lady may have put on her night-cap. If she isn't there, you miss the genuine flavor of the place. ' '

COUvSIN WIIyHELMINA

''Yes, I can quite fancy that, and when I go to see Cousin Wilhelmina, I shall try to ensure her being there, at least so far as depends upon me."

"She is usually at her post," Mr. Robinson declared. "She is well preserved, though a bit rheumatic, when the weather's going to change, and I don't think her teeth are all her own, and I believe she wears a wig. ' '

"I am to hear her sing," Travers Preston observed, with a twinkle in his eye.

Mr. Robinson went off into a very peal of laughter. "Oh, I guess she'll spare you that," he cried. ' 'She was a singer once, but her pipes have worn rusty in these fifty or sixty years. ' '

Travers Preston went out of the house, wondering at the power of hero-worship. How could that young creature, with her honest eyes and the ring of absolute conviction in her voice, assure him that men had felt inclined to throw themselves at the feet of this etherealized mummy when she sang. He laughed as he lit a cigar, and yet he was thoughtful, too. The phantom of a by-gone personality must still hang about this old woman and attract the young by its glamour. He was more than ever desirous of paying the promised visit. That house with the peacocks might have been a dwelling of enchantment devised by ancient necromancers, so completely had it seized upon his fancy. The red glow was gone from the sky, and the river lay a dark streak, brightened only by the reflection of lights from the shore.

Travers Preston walked on a few blocks, and hailing a Broadway cable car, was borne downwards between the rows of brilliantly lighted shops and hotels, at the doors of which stood groups of men. In the car, half a dozen acquaintances claimed recognition from the man of fashion. He merely nodded in response to their greetings. He was in no mood for conversation. His interest was absorbed by that new theme, and a new theme to an imagination which is jaded, and a mind which is overborne by a multitude of successive thoughts and images, is always a powerful stimulus. And yet, if he had asked himself in that subtle self-analysis to which he was so prone, why that house and its aged occupant had thus interested him, he could have given no satisfactory explanation whatever. He had only a block to walk eastward, after leaving the car, before reaching his apartments. He was all unaware that through the fortuitous circumstances of having passed by the house with the peacocks and paused to gaze thereupon, he had become merely another illustration of the fact that what is vulgarly and with unconscious paganism called Fate, attends upon a man's every movement. "For whereso'er his feet may stray, unseen Fate goeth, too/'

Chapter III. A Weird Impression

Very shortly after Miss Mary Appleby Robinson received a note from Mr. Travers Preston, asking if she would appoint the following Thursday to call upon Cousin Wilhelmina. She replied in the affirmative, and mentioned an hour, at which, most punctually, her escort presented himself, and together the pair employed that commonplace medium of the cable-car to lead them into the realm of enchantment. They had to walk a block or two and they conversed quite gravely and earnestly, interested^ enough too, on the ordinary sights and sounds which met their view. Travers Preston, in his character of old friend of the family, indulged in a few reminiscences concerning Miss Mary's father, with whom, despite the disparity of years, he had been more than commonly intimate. When the two reached their destination, they paused an instant, by mutual consent, before ascending the steps and looked towards the house, which seemed decidedly commonplace by

COUSIN WILHEIyMINA night. It was enveloped completely by the darkness, the peacocks had vanished, there was, in fact, no outward nor visible sign that it differed from any other dwelling. The front windows were veiled by heavy curtains, in the region of the drawing-room, so as to exclude, in a fashion that has become obsolete, even the slightest glimpse of the interior. That desire of privacy has indeed, in wonderful degree, vanished from modern existence. Bach one would apparently lead his life in the full glare of the footlights. He would have his portrait in the illustrated papers and his doings chronicled in the social column. If he asks a friend or two to dine, he no longer draws the curtains upon their intimate talk over the wine and the walnuts, but it is paragraphed in the daily papers, the lime-light of publicity is turned thereupon , and it shines upon the lady in her boudoir and the author in his sanctum.

Travers Preston was conscious of a peculiar tremor, as he stood upon the steps, in the slight interval between the ringing of the bell and the opening of the door. He felt as if he were upon the threshold of some new and singular experience and the confident man of the world, who was a stranger in no continent nor city upon the globe, found himself abashed, intimidated to an inexplicable extent.