Because You Are You

Front matter

Because You Are You

By Kate Whiting Patch

Illustrations and Decorations By John Rae

Chapter 1: Genus Invalidi

I

genus invalidi

omen are apt to begin the day with a confidential glance in the mirror. If this is a secret I hope I have not become a traitor to my sex by revealing it. I have passed my Marie Bashkirtseff period, and never could have been quite so abandoned upon paper (being a New Englander) as was that passionate and precocious child. Yet I would be frank. And I shall be frank in telling what I saw one morning, not many days ago, when I looked in the mirror.

I saw a white face and sunken eyes, and a strained mouth. Of course I might have seen these the day before, and also the day before that; but for several weeks I had been trying not to admit the truth which suddenly forced itself upon me. And now as though to emphasise the impression, and leave no room for doubt in my mind, another face took shape in the mirror—the face I used to confront when I got up in the morning. Yet I had never really seen it before; never realised that a girl with a tip-tilted nose, and freckles, and a small, insignificant figure, could look like that!

Then the rose petal tints faded and the eyes of morning light were gone. The face that was left looked whiter than ever in its frame of ruddy brown hair. When I had finished my breakfast I sent for Dr. Gardiner.

“Dear child,” he said, looking me up and down with those kind eyes of his—“Dear child, why didn’t you send for me before?” Then he hinted at nervous prostration and a complete rest.

After all, it was quite according to fashion and precedent, and I was cross enough to feel that separation from my suffering family for a few months would be endurable on both sides, but when he went further and suggested a distant health resort I rebelled. “Don’t make a Professional Invalid of me,” I wailed. “Don’t send me where I shall meet them: I don’t want to learn to talk symptoms and be One of them. I might escape unscathed, but who can tell?”

The doctor looked puzzled, and then he laughed. “Perhaps you’re right,” he said. “Well, go your own way, but I don’t want to see you here again for three months.”

The Professional Invalid is a product of the Twentieth Century. In this day of specialists there are women-and a few men-who make a specialty of Invalidism. Of course one should not hint at this fact-but a fact it remains despite delicate evasions. Sometimes she (it is really only fair to use the feminine gender) is to be met with at home, or at seaside hotels; but for the most part her time is passed in making royal progress with her train from one noted health resort to another. I believe there are rare instances to prove that the old-fashioned Invalid still exists—the gentle sufferer who fears to make trouble and bravely endeavours to hide her misery from the loving care that surrounds her—and that, as Sterne catalogued his travellers, one might make a similar list of Invalids. It were easily done—

The Gentle Invalid, The Patient Invalid, The Trying Invalid, The Pleasant Invalid,

The Irritable Invalid, The Down Right Cross Invalid, The Simple Invalid, etc.

Yet, the Professional Invalid, like his, Sterne’s, Sentimental Traveller, would still stand in a class by herself.

After a close acquaintance with one of these specialists, is it to be wondered at that I should contemplate with horror the remote possibility of myself becoming a Professional Invalid?

Kind, blunt Dr. Gardiner had said, “Go your own way.” So here I am. My own way has led me to Land’s End and Jane Spindler’s stone cottage. And instead of talking symptoms I am scrawling my heart and mind out upon sheets of innocent white paper.

Well, it is better than hunting up Jane Spindler to tell her about the pain I had this morning at the back of my neck. At the first opportunity Jane would cut in to tell me of a backache that she suffered from three years since! Here I can talk of myself all I choose, and tell my adventures. For perhaps I shall have adventures at Land’s End. The name has a beckoning, beguiling sound. It suggests dancing paths of light on the sea, from sunshine and evening star, ships that nestle safely from the storm—and ships that sail away and never come back. And all it suggests is vague, and mysterious, and unknown.

Chapter 2: About Myself

II

about myself

suppose that my imaginary reader has some natural curiosity in his make-up and may be mildly wondering who I am.

Let me explain: The mood is propitious and I have not yet reached that stage in my convalescence where myself has ceased to be a person of importance.

I am in reality a Person of no Importance—just one of the vast army of weary school teachers. When the June days grew hot and my enthusiasm cold; when I found my head dizzy and my hands tremulous, and a grinding pain holding me at the back of my neck, even a daily siesta wouldn’t prevent me from irritability at the pranks of the dear little irrepressibles under my charge. It came to a climax when I ignominiously shed tears in the presence of the principal—who looked bored and told me to go home. Disgraced I fled from his presence; a frightened substitute was put in my place, and Dr. Gardiner kindly sent me into exile for three months.

And I have arrived at the scene of my banishment. As the coveted trip to Europe was out of the question for one who possesses so narrow a slice of this world’s plum pudding, I have come to this little coast village, recommended to me as attractive and inexpensive, and taken up my abode with Jane Spindler. Jane and I have looked one another in the eyes and have decided to be friends, and I have set about wooing to me the prescribed rest and change.

Jane Spindler and I live in a little house About Myself that might have come out of a picture book. It is a stone cottage with an ell at the side. The eaves overhang the low, small-paned windows and a vine has draped itself over the tiny porch. All about the base of the house is a tangle of dear old-fashioned flowers—sweet William and iris, pinks and lemon lilies; though the lilies were fading when I came. I have one of the two upstairs rooms, a cosy little place with one long window at the end looking down on the garden, and two small dormers. From the front dormer I gaze out on the shaded street; the one at the back gives me a delightful glimpse of the harbour. Here I can kneel and watch the departure and return of the many dingy vessels. The harbour is always full of boats, some with sails furled, others spreading their white wings to the morning. I find myself wondering about the boats: where they are going, and who they carry. The dingiest of them grows into a lovely dream thing when it gets out into the blue of sea and sky, with the sun on its sails—a fairy boat going out to seek its fortune of a fairy prince. But I am content to watch them from my window, or from the shelter of the pines at the end of the garden. The pines form a small grove softly carpeted with their fallen needles. Here I spend the greater part of each day. The lazy swaying of their ragged tops against the sky is very soothing, and their soft music is suggestive of the voice of the sea to which they are neighbour.

Here to their inviting shelter I bring my portfolio, and stretched on the soft needles revel in the pleasures of idleness. Nothing matters. The past ceases to exist for me: the sun shines pleasantly warm through the tree tops: a red squirrel whisks near and gazes at me in bright-eyed surprise and whisks away again. The spray of lemon balm which I borrowed from the garden as I came along gives out its fragrance deliciously as it lies against my cheek; through the tree trunks was the sparkle of the ocean and the gleam of distant sails. Now a brown winged butterfly has alighted on a blade of grass near me; and the black and white, of his body and the gorgeous spots on his wings, thrill me like the flashing of a jewel. Somehow I don’t seem to care about hunting up his species. It is enough at this hour that he exists to add to the beauty about me.

One can’t be very industrious here beneath the pines. There is a constant temptation to stop to listen to the music of the tree tops, or to idly follow the flight of a gull or the passing of a little boat into the blue the blue distance, when the tiny life about one is not claiming attention. Now it is a great gauzy- insect that has alighted upon my blotting pad. The pen lags as I enjoy his glittering pause; little ants hurry through the brown needles and across my paper. Nothing matters but the peace of it. I can feel the wrinkles smoothing out of my soul, as I am sure they are vanishing from my forehead.

By and by Jane Spindler will come out to summon me to her good dinner, and then I shall rest again. And afterwards perhaps I shall walk across the pastures to the sea and rest still again. Can Paradise hold more for weary school ma’ams?

There’s a little sail boat just putting out from shore with an artist-man aboard. I wonder, lazily, where he is bound and admire his energy without envy. Will my little boat ever come in among those many sails?

The breeze is scattering my papers. I must gather them up before it is time for Jane and dinner. I have taken great pains that she should not suspect me of being an Invalid, Simple or Professional. It would be even worse were she to fancy me a Professional Writer!

Chapter 3: About Jane Spindler and Other Things

III

about jane spindler and other things

his has been my first rainy day and it has given me an opportunity to become really well acquainted with Jane Spindler. When I opened my eyes to the patter of rain-drops I promptly closed them again and gave myself over to the enjoyment of it. My little bed stands close under the eaves; and the quiet patter, patter on the roof so close above my head brought back sweet memories of my early childhood and my first little attic room. How often had I fallen asleep to that soothing music, and awakened to hear the lazy swish, swish of the long wet branches of the old willow just outside.

I dozed off again; and awoke at last to hear the hall clock announcing eight in shocked and reproving tones. Sitting up in bed I gazed from my little back dormer at the grey sea and the tossing, anchored boats. The rain-drops’ monotonous tap, tap and the leaden skies proclaimed the beginning of a North-Easter. My pines must be deserted to-day. From the window I gazed at their wet trunks and down at the dripping garden; and with a sigh turned to my bath.

When I descended Jane Spindler called me from the kitchen. “I’ve laid your breakfast out here,” she explained. “I thought you’d find the fire comfortable.” Never a reproachful glance nor reference to my late hours.

I exclaimed with pleasure. The dulness outside made the cheery kitchen more attractive than ever.

In the average humble country home the kitchen is the pleasantest and most homelike of the apartments, and Jane Spindler’s kitchen was no exception to this rule. A low lounge covered with bright chintz stood under the front windows, and Jane’s work-basket occupied a corner of this couch. A red covered table stood by the south window; and on one end of this my breakfast was set forth upon a spotless white napkin.

Jane, having served me, returned to the completion of a pie; and I sipped my cocoa and watched her contentedly, a feeling of warm satisfaction wrapping me around like a woolly shawl. “I am glad it rained,” was my idle thought. “Now I can get Jane Spindler to tell me stories.”

But this was not so easily accomplished. Jane Spindler is not of the communicative order of female, and she answered my tenta- tive questions in monosyllables. The pie in the oven, she turned to my breakfast dishes. But I begged the privilege of washing them. "Late comers should serve themselves,” I pleaded; and Jane looked thoughtful. “I have heard folks say that havin’ the hands in dish-water was soothin’ to the nerves,” she observed, “so if you think it will be beneficial I’ve no objection.”

I started in amazement. “What made you think I had nerves?” I gasped.

Jane smiled in superior fashion. “I’ve taken ’em to board before,” she said; and I stood aghast at her discernment. She didn’t, oh, she didn’t, mistake me for a Professional! Perhaps my silence indicated my distress, for she added soothingly, “I will say you are a deal pleasanter than the others. You haven’t asked for egg drinks between meals nor yet for a fire at night, or the filling of hot water bags, and I shouldn’t consider you objectionable in any particular.”

I sank into Jane Spindler’s kitchen rocker in a fit of hysterics, and Jane calmly peeled potatoes until I was done with it. “Perhaps,” she ventured, “it would ease your feelin’s to tell me about them, it’s most usually that way.”

But I hadn’t fallen quite so low. I remembered my note-book and I put the temptation from me. “No, I don’t want to talk about it,” I assured her. “I’ll soothe my nerves with dish-water, and then I’ll help you do your mending and you can tell me stories.”

“Land!” exclaimed Jane; but she looked relieved. “I ain’t no kind of a story teller.” However, I could see she was turning the matter over in her mind, and I felt that I had somehow risen in her estimation.

"Have you always lived here?” I ventured to ask, feeling for a propitious opening.

Jane shook her head. “I was born over to the Point,” she said. “Father bought this place of Captain Ichabod in ’.”

“Captain Ichabod,” I exclaimed. “Who was he?” The name sounded promising.

“Captain Ichabod Snow? Oh, he was a sea captain. It was him that built this house. He had a son that worked in the quarries and that’s how it happened to be made of stone. It was considered a handsome place in those days.”

“It’s beautiful now,” I affirmed; but Jane looked doubtful. “It’s home and I’m used to it,” she agreed, “but it could be improved considerable if anybody had the money.”

“Heaven forbid!” I exclaimed interiorly. It was plain to see why Providence had ordained that Jane’s pocket-book should remain flat. Fancy the dear old house breaking out with bow windows and piazzas; with jig saw decorated roofs and pillars! No doubt if Jane Spindler had married she would have gone to housekeeping in one of the hideous modern structures in the village, and have been very proud of it.

How is it, I wonder, that in old towns like this, filled as they are with fine examples of our best period of architecture, the very people who were born and reared in these lovely old cottages and houses can’t rest until they have spoiled the old with “improvements,” or built for themselves “loftier chambers” which can boast no architecture at all—only the embodiment of the builder’s confused dreams!

A sad example of this came to my mind as I soothed my nerves with the dish-water. Yesterday’s walk had led me past the new home of the old village doctor. For nearly fifty years he had lived in a dignified old mansion, elm shaded and vine draped, on the principal street; but at last the dream of his youth was realised. He purchased a new site, from which all the fine old shade trees had been cleared, and built his house. As it grew toward hideous completion the doctor’s bosom swelled with pride and the neighbours nodded approval. Turret and square tower, pillar and scroll work, imitation stained glass—they had all done their work. I had beheld the completed horror. It was all so new—a new lawn, and a gorgeous flower bed with a masonic emblem blooming in zinnias in its centre; new black and gold signs replacing the time honoured little board that had modestly pointed out the old office of the past; and Mrs. M.D. placidly rocking in a new red piazza chair where she could nod and smile at an admiring public.

The doctor himself was out at the rear, rake in hand, as I passed, fondly tending some bit of garden. His wheelbarrow stood near, and an old silk hat clung to the back of his head. He still wears a silk hat to preserve the dignity of the profession, and I suppose he is using up the old ones as he goes about his rural labours. But think of the sufferings of that ancient silk hat at finding itself associated with a rake and a wheelbarrow!

I walked back to the dear old stone cottage pondering on the pathos of the situation-not of the hat but of the people! Why couldn’t the dear old things have been content with the harmony of their plain old home? The garishness and unsuitability of the new almost brought the tears to my eyes.

I mentioned to Jane Spindler at tea time that I had passed the doctor’s new house. “Ain’t it handsome!” she exclaimed so warmly that I hadn’t the heart to differ with her, and she arose to bring from a secretary drawer a lengthy newspaper clipping which she handed me for perusal. The village press, it appeared, had burst out in appreciative comment upon the doctor’s new abode. The architecture it explained was “colonial with variations.” The phrase pleased me. That explains these modern village houses—the “variations:” and as is the case with the doctor’s splendid abode, the variations are usually so complicated that the central theme is quite lost sight of.

I had finished the dishes with these meditations, and as I took to the sofa corner, Jane had given some last critical touches to the sink. The prospect for stories seemed rather hopeless, so I asked if she had some photograph albums to show me. At that she brightened and returned with an armful.

There is always a fascination to me in gaz- ing upon the visages of by-gone generations: how strange to realise that they too lived and loved and worked and grew weary; puzzled over the problems of the universe for a little day, and then passed into the mystery where we fondly hope that questions are answered.

Jane took up her mending (I am afraid I forgot that I was to help her) and I turned the pages of the old albums and asked questions when any special face held more than my passing attention.

“That’s Captain Ichabod,” Jane ventured as I paused over a fine old visage. The lips were firm and a fringe of beard went from ear to ear like a tippet; but the frank, fearless eyes had a suggestion of a twinkle in their depths.

“I like him,” I said. “I am sure he must have had much sense, and a love of beauty as well as of comfort. It all shows in his having built this house.” “He was a great friend of father’s,—that’s father you’re coming to now.” It was another strong old face, though not quite so lovable; next came “mother,” very much like Jane but with the matron’s softer lines of face and body. And there was Jane herself; a stiff little female looking very like one of the string of paper dolls which my grandmother used to cut out for me. Her plaid skirts ballooned out just so above the white pantalettes; her little neck rose chillily from her low cut gown, while her bare thin arms hung limp on either side.

I was smiling at the resemblance it bore to the grown up Jane, sitting so straight and prim before me darning a stocking, when I turned the page and came upon another little Jane:—seated in a plush chair, one foot resting jauntily upon the other knee and clasped by thin hands.

The eyes of this other little Jane were sparkling.

“I’m most ashamed of that picture,” observed the grown up Jane, her lips breaking into a smile. “It was taken the same day as the other, just to satisfy me. My cousin James had had his tin-type done the week before, and crossed his knees and held his foot just so, and when mother took me to the saloon (he was a travellin’ man who went about on wheels) I was set on having myself fixed just like James. Mother was dreadful mortified, but I suppose I was self-willed, and she finally said I could have one the way I liked if I’d stand up pretty afterwards like a lady, and have the man take me for her. So we brought them both home, and she never showed mine to folks, but I alalways kept it an’ by-an’-bye I put it in the album.”

“It’s a much better picture I’m sure,” I de- clared. “To think a little child could look so different, and all in the same day!”

“I guess if folks’ moods could be taken by the tin-type man, we’d find they varied considerable through a day,” meditated Jane, rolling up her mended stocking.

“Dearie me, don’t suggest it,” I replied. “Think what crazy quilts our souls would appear! The thought is horrible.”

“I s’pose it will be something like that on Judgment Day,” Jane reflected. “It ain’t likely that all of us has pieced our quilts up as careful as we might.”

“Then let us hope we won’t be allowed to see one another’s poor work,” I exclaimed. “That only the Lord himself will look pitifully upon our wrong stitches and clashing colours!”

I was sorry that the dull weather had set Jane Spindler to philosophising.

But I forgot her words as my eyes fell upon the next page and met another Jane—a Jane just turned eighteen. Was it the rosy cheeks and lips—the almost too generous gift of the tin-type man—that made the difference? Had Jane really been pretty; or was it just the eternal charm of youth that I saw in the slim figure standing by a rustic gate, a straw hat hanging on her neck? The pastoral stage in photography had been reached; though in variance with this the artist's brush had set a gold ring upon Jane's finger.

“That’s a sweet picture,” I declared. And the present Jane almost blushed. “I was young then,” she said simply, by way of explanation.

“And who is this?” I asked, pointing to the young man who stood straight and tall on the next opening—the last picture in the book. It was a boyish, eager face.

“That was Captain Cedric Sewall. He was lost at sea—when I was eighteen.”

I looked up astonished at the note in Jane’s quiet voice. Our eyes met for one breathless second; then she gently took the book from my hands and, closing it, turned away.

When she returned it was the same self-contained Jane Spindler who had poured my cocoa. She made some homely remark with reference to the approach of dinner time, and I replied suitably as I gazed out into the dripping garden. But neither was deceived.

How in our vain, assured way, I reflected, we analyse and catalogue the people about us—and yet how little we really know. For a flashing moment the door of Jane Spindler’s soul had stood ajar and I had glanced in. The door was closed again: but Jane—the real Jane Spindler—had been revealed.

“He was lost at sea—when I was eighteen,”—the few words, the glance, the gently closed book. It was enough. The hush of that sacred moment rested with me all the day; and Jane and I said good night softly when we parted.

Chapter 4: “What’s in a Name”

IV

“what’s in a name?”

ane spindler went yesterday to spend the night with her mother's second cousin at the Point, and left me to keep house. I had some difficulty in getting her conscience to agree to it. She wanted to go, but feared she would fail in fulfilling her perfect duty to me if she followed her inclinations. And Jane had been brought up in the old school that defined duty to be the thing one does not want to do.

At last, however, I persuaded her that I was not in the least timid about passing the night alone, as Jane herself does nine months out of the twelve. And as she had the table laid and my dinner prepared before she took her departure I certainly had nothing to complain of. Indeed it was pleasantly exciting to thus suddenly become a house-holder and mistress of that pretty stone cottage. I saw Jane’s prim back disappear between the gate posts with decided satisfaction. When she was out of sight I made haste to banish her stiff nosegay from the dining table. Jane’s centre pieces are the one grating note in the harmony I find here. This special one was a mixture of fair larkspur and magenta sweet William. I freed the tender sprays of blue from the embraces of the red faced William, and set them in a slender glass with some loose stalks of white gilly-flowers and in a circle of cool green ferns; then I felt that I could sit down to my dinner. Perhaps Jane Spindler will give over the office of flower gathering to me. I might offer to take that little duty to myself and thus preserve the harmony of my day even at meal times.

The blue and white of my nosegay sympathised with Jane’s old blue china, and I lingered over my lonely repast with wandering, pleasant thoughts for company. What was Jane Spindler’s mother’s cousin like, I wondered; and would Jane tell her about me and my curious ways?

I had forgotten to ask the name of the cousin, or I might have guessed better as to her personality. It was all well enough for Shakespeare to ask lightly, “What’s in a name?” But the more I knock up against human nature the more convinced I am that people are usually very like their cognomens. Does some unseen power inspire the naming of human infants I wonder—or do people grow up to fit their names? This last suggestion lays a horrible burden of responsibility upon parents. But be it as it may, the rank and file of mortals certainly are fairly well represented by their titles. Witness Jane Spindler for example. I have never taken the trouble to describe her, for it seemed so entirely unnecessary. Tall and spare of figure, with straight back and erect head, her rather thin hair drawn uncompromisingly into a firm knot; clear, steady grey eyes, a firm chin and an uncommunicative mouth,—so Jane is suggested by her name and so she appears. But supposing she had dropped the “Spindler” in her youth? If only that nice young Capt. Sewall had not been lost at sea, if Jane Spindler had changed into Jane Sewall for instance, might not Jane herself have softened and gradually moulded herself into the likeness of her new name?

Again, we must feel that the Powers directing the naming of infants must be possessed of much humour, and occasionally indulge in freaks of sarcasm. I once met a family by the name of Bright, and they were personifications of Dulness. To see those Bright children starting out for school, round faced, heavy eyed, apathetic, was to feel that Nature had laughed in her sleeve when she moulded them. And then how often a dusky mother christens her little black daughter Blanche, or Lily!

I meditated idly in this fashion as I ate my dinner, and turned from the subject at last because I was clearly getting involved in puzzles, and my mental state was of too indolent an order to meet the problem squarely. So I fell back again to fancying that it was my house and my lunch table and my garden just outside, and I should like to have laid claim to the smiling blue overhead. “That little tent we prisoners call the sky.”

Yet I was willing to share my largess with all the world beside, so at peace I felt with Humanity.

I distinctly enjoyed washing the blue and white china (with no thought for the nerve soothing dish-water) and it was just as I had set the last saucer in its place in the china closet that I heard a gentle tap at the door, and the happiest part of my day began.

It was a little, frail old lady who had tapped. Her beautiful wrinkled face was raised to mine as I pushed open the green shuttered door in response to her summons. The clear blue eyes sought mine with a deprecating glance. “My dear,” she said, “may I step into your front room a moment?”

My front room! The joy of hospitality arose within me. “Please come right in,” I returned, reaching a cordial hand to help her over my door-sill. She laid her hand in mine confidingly. It was a knotted, yellow old hand; but soft as satin, for all the hard work it had evidently put through in the past, and it was clothed in a black silk mitt. The little lady herself wore a gown of black cashmere with a trim little “basque” which was softened at the neck by a fold of creamy lace. Her black silk bonnet was tied beneath her chin with a ribbon bow and a shawl hung on her arm.