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 Begin Reading
Table of Contents
Copyright Page

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For Poppy Meyer
The first annoying thing is when I ask Dad what he thinks happened
to Mom, he always says, “What’s most important is for you to
understand it’s not your fault.” You’ll notice that wasn’t even the
question. When I press him, he says the second annoying thing,
“The truth is complicated. There’s no way one person can ever know
everything about another person.”
Mom disappears into thin air two days before Christmas without
telling me? Of course it’s complicated. Just because it’s complicated,
just because you think you can’t ever know everything about
another person, it doesn’t mean you can’t try.
It doesn’t mean I can’t try.
 PART ONE

Mom Versus the Gnats

 MONDAY, NOVEMBER 15
Galer Street School is a place where compassion, academics, and
global connectitude join together to create civic-minded citizens of a
sustainable and diverse planet.

Student: Bee Branch

Grade: Eight
Teacher: Levy

KEY
S Surpasses Excellence
A Achieves Excellence
W Working towards Excellence

Geometry S
Biology S
World Religion S
Music S
Creative Writing S
Ceramics S
Language Arts S
Expressive Movement S

COMMENTS: Bee is a pure delight. Her love of learning is infectious,

as are her kindness and humor. Bee is unafraid to ask questions. Her
goal is always deep understanding of a given topic, not merely
getting a good grade. The other students look to Bee for help in
their studies, and she is always quick to respond with a smile. Bee
exhibits extraordinary concentration when working alone; when
working in a group, she is a quiet and confident leader. Of special
note is what an accomplished flutist Bee continues to be. The year is
only a third over, but already I am mourning the day Bee graduates
from Galer Street and heads out into the world. I understand she is
applying to boarding schools back east. I envy the teachers who get
to meet Bee for the first time, and to discover for themselves what a
lovely young woman she is.

That night at dinner, I sat through Mom and Dad’s “We’re-so-proud-

of-you”s and “She’s-a-smart-one”s until there was a lull.
“You know what it means,” I said. “The big thing it means.”
Mom and Dad frowned question marks at each other.
“You don’t remember?” I said. “You told me when I started Galer
Street that if I got perfect grades the whole way through, I could
have anything I wanted for a graduation present.”
“I do remember,” Mom said. “It was to ward off further talk of a
pony.”
“That’s what I wanted when I was little,” I said. “But now I want
something different. Aren’t you curious what it is?”
“I’m not sure,” Dad said. “Are we?”
“A family trip to Antarctica!” I pulled out the brochure I’d been
sitting on. It was from an adventure travel company that does
cruises to exotic places. I opened it to the Antarctica page and
passed it across the table. “If we go, it has to be over Christmas.”
“This Christmas?” Mom said. “Like in a month?” She got up and
started stuffing empty take-out containers into the bags they’d been
delivered in.
Dad was already deep into the brochure. “It’s their summer,” he
said. “It’s the only time you can go.”
“Because ponies are cute.” Mom tied the handles in a knot.
“What do you say?” Dad looked up at Mom.
“Isn’t this a bad time for you because of work?” she asked him.
 “We’re studying Antarctica,” I said. “I’ve read all the explorers’
journals, and I’m doing my presentation on Shackleton.” I started
wiggling in my chair. “I can’t believe it. Neither of you are saying no.”
“I was waiting for you,” Dad said to Mom. “You hate to travel.”
“I was waiting for you,” Mom said back. “You have to work.”
“Oh my God. That’s a yes!” I jumped out of my chair. “That’s a
yes!” My joy was so infectious that Ice Cream woke up and started
barking and doing victory laps around the kitchen table.
“Is that a yes?” Dad asked Mom over the crackling of plastic take-
out containers being crammed into the trash.
“That’s a yes,” she said.

*
 TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 16
From: Bernadette Fox
To: Manjula Kapoor

Manjula,
Something unexpected has come up and I’d love it if you could
work extra hours. From my end, this trial period has been a lifesaver.
I hope it’s working for you, too. If so, please let me know ASAP
because I need you to work your Hindu magic on a huge project.
OK: I’ll stop being coy.
You know I have a daughter, Bee. (She’s the one you order the
medicine for and wage valiant battle with the insurance company
over.) Apparently, my husband and I told her she could have
anything she wanted if she graduated middle school with straight
A’s. The straight A’s have arrived—or should I say straight S’s,
because Galer Street is one of those liberal, grades-erode-self-
esteem-type schools (let’s hope you don’t have them in India)—and
so what does Bee want? To take a family trip to Antarctica!
Of the million reasons I don’t want to go to Antarctica, the main
one is that it will require me to leave the house. You might have
figured out by now that’s something I don’t much like to do. But I
can’t argue with Bee. She’s a good kid. She has more character than
Elgie and I and the next ten guys combined. Plus she’s applying to
boarding school for next fall, which she’ll of course get into because
of said A’s. Whoops, S’s! So it would be in pretty bad taste to deny
Buzzy this.
The only way to get to Antarctica is by cruise ship. Even the
smallest one has 150 passengers, which translates into me being
trapped with 149 other people who will uniquely annoy the hell out
of me with their rudeness, waste, idiotic questions, incessant
yammering, creepy food requests, boring small talk, etc. Or worse,
they might turn their curiosity toward me, and expect pleasantry in
return. I’m getting a panic attack just thinking about it. A little social
anxiety never hurt anyone, am I right?
 If I give you the info, could you pretty please take over the
paperwork, visas, plane tickets, everything involved with getting we
three from Seattle to the White Continent? Is this something you
have time for?

Say yes,
Bernadette

Oh! You already have credit card numbers to pay for airfare, trip,
and accoutrements. But in terms of your salary, I’d like you to take it
directly out of my personal account. When Elgie saw the Visa charge
for your work last month—even though it wasn’t much money—he
wasn’t thrilled that I’d hired a virtual assistant from India. I told him
I wouldn’t be using you anymore. So, if we could, Manjula, let’s keep
our romance an illicit one.

From: Manjula Kapoor

To: Bernadette Fox

Dear Ms. Fox,

It would be my pleasure to assist you with your family travel plans
to Antarctica. Attached please find the contract for moving forward
on a full-time basis. Where indicated, please include your bank
routing number. I look forward to our continued collaboration.

Warm regards,
Manjula

*
Invoice from Delhi Virtual Assistants International

Invoice Number: BFB39382

Associate: Manjula Kapoor

40 hours a week at $0.75 USD/hr.

TOTAL:
$30.00 USD
Invoice Due in Full upon Receipt
 WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 17
Letter from Ollie Ordway (“Ollie-O”)

CONFIDENTIAL:
TO GALER STREET SCHOOL PARENT ASSOCIATION

Dear Parents,
It was terrific to meet you last week. I’m thrilled to have been
brought in to consult for the wonderful Galer Street School. Head of
School Goodyear promised a motivated Parent Association, and you
didn’t disappoint.
Let’s talk turkey: in three years you’re losing your lease on your
current location. Our goal is to launch a capital campaign so you
will be able to purchase a larger, more suitable campus. For those of
you who couldn’t attend the meeting, here’s the drill-down:
I conducted an off-site consisting of 25 parents in the Seattle area
with an income of $200K+ and whose children are entering
kindergarten. The headline is that Galer Street is considered a
second-tier school, a fallback option for those who don’t get
accepted to their first-choice school.
Our objective is to move the needle on Galer Street and kick it
up into the First-Choice Cluster (FCC) for Seattle’s elite. How do
we achieve this? What is the secret sauce?
Your mission statement says Galer Street is based on global
“connectitude.” (You people don’t just think outside the box, you
think outside the dictionary!) You received some impressive big-
media coverage for the cows you bought for the Guatemalans and
the solar cookstoves you sent to the African villagers. While raising
small sums of money for people you’ve never met is
commendable, you need to start raising large sums of money for
your own children’s private school. To do this, you must emancipate
yourselves from what I am calling Subaru Parent mentality and
start thinking more like Mercedes Parents. How do Mercedes
Parents think? My research indicates the following:
 1. The choice of private schools is both fear-based and
aspirational. Mercedes Parents are afraid their children won’t get
“the best education possible,” which has nothing to do with actual
education and everything to do with the number of other Mercedes
Parents at a school.
2. When applying to kindergarten, Mercedes Parents have their
eyes on the prize. And that prize is Lakeside School, alma mater
of Bill Gates, Paul Allen, et al. Lakeside is considered the feeder
school to the Ivy League. Let me rock it straight: the first stop on
this crazy train is Kindergarten Junction, and nobody gets off
until it pulls into Harvard Station.

Head of School Goodyear took me on a tour of your current

campus at the industrial park. Apparently, Subaru Parents have no
problem sending their children to a school adjacent to a wholesale
seafood distributor. Let me assure you, Mercedes Parents do.
All roads lead to raising the money to buy a new campus. The
best way to achieve it is to pack the incoming kindergarten class
with Mercedes Parents.
Grab your crampons because we have an uphill climb. But fear
not: I do underdog. Based on your budget, I have devised a two-
pronged action plan.
The first action item is a redesign of the Galer Street logo.
Much as I love clip-art handprints, let’s try to find an image that
better articulates success. A coat of arms divided into four, with
images of the Space Needle, a calculator, a lake (as in Lakeside),
and something else, maybe some kind of ball? I’m just throwing out
some ideas here, nothing’s set in stone.
The second action item is to hold a Prospective Parent
Brunch (PPB), which we aim to fill with Seattle’s elite, or, as I have
grown fond of saying, Mercedes Parents. Galer Street parent
Audrey Griffin has generously offered to host this gathering at her
lovely home. (Best to keep away from the fishery.)
Attached please find a spreadsheet listing Seattle Mercedes
Parents. It is imperative that you go over this list and tell me who
you can deliver to the PPB. We’re looking for the watershed get
we can then squawk as leverage toward securing other
Mercedes Parents. When they all see one another, it will alleviate
their fears about Galer Street being a second-tier school and the
applications will roll in.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I’m working on the invite. Get
me those names ASAP. We need to take this brunch at the Griffins’
house live before Christmas. Saturday, December 11, is my target
date. This puppy has all the ingredients of an epic kilt lifter.

Cheers,
Ollie-O

*
 Note from Audrey Griffin to a blackberry abatement
specialist

Tom,
I was out in my garden, cutting back the perennials and planting
some winter color in preparation for a school brunch we’re hosting
on December 11. I went to turn the compost and got attacked by
blackberry vines.
I’m shocked to see that they have returned, not only in the
compost pile, but in my raised vegetable beds, greenhouse, and
even my worm bin. You can imagine my frustration, especially since
you charged me a small fortune to remove them three weeks ago.
(Maybe $235 isn’t a lot for you, but it’s a lot for us.)
Your flyer said you guarantee your work. So, please, could you
come back and remove all the blackberries by the 11th, this time for
good?

Blessings, and help yourself to some chard,

Audrey

*
 Note from Tom, the blackberry abatement specialist

Audrey,
I did remove the blackberries on your property. The source of the
vines you’re talking about is your neighbor’s house at the top of the
hill. Their blackberries are the ones coming under your fence and
into your garden.
To stop them, we could dig a trench at your property line and pour
a concrete barrier, but it would need to be five feet deep, and that
would be costly. You could also keep on top of them with weed killer,
which I’m not sure you want to do because of the worms and the
vegetables.
What really has to happen is the neighbor at the top of the hill has
to eradicate their vines. I’ve never seen so many blackberries
growing wild in the city of Seattle, especially on Queen Anne Hill,
with your home prices. I saw a house on Vashon Island where the
whole foundation was cracked by blackberry vines.
Since the neighbor’s bushes are on a steep hillside, they’re going
to need a special machine. The best one is the CXJ Hillside Side-Arm
Thrasher. I don’t have one of those myself.
Another option, and a better one in my opinion, is large pigs. You
can rent a couple, and in a week’s time, they’ll pull out those
blackberries by the roots and then some. Plus, they’re dang cute.
Do you want me to talk to the neighbor? I can go knock on the
door. But it looks like nobody lives there.
Let me know.
Tom

From: Soo-Lin Lee-Segal

To: Audrey Griffin

Audrey,
I told you I’m starting to take the shuttle bus in to work, right?
Well, guess who I rode in with this morning? Bernadette’s husband,
Elgin Branch. (I know why I have to save money by taking the
Microsoft Connector. But Elgin Branch?) I wasn’t certain it was him
at first, that’s how little we all see of him at school.
So you’re going to love this. There was only one seat available,
and it was next to Elgin Branch, an inside one between him and the
window.
“Excuse me,” I said.
He was furiously typing on his laptop. Without looking up, he
moved his knees to the side. I know he’s a Level 80 corporate VP,
and I’m just an admin. But most gentlemen would stand up to let a
woman through. I squeezed past him and sat down.
“Looks like we’re going to finally be getting some sunshine,” I said.
“That would be great.”
“I’m really looking forward to World Celebration Day,” I said. He
looked a little frightened, like he had no idea who I was. “I’m
Lincoln’s mom. From Galer Street.”
“Of course!” he said. “I’d love to chat, but I’ve got to get this
email out.” He grabbed some headphones from around his neck, put
them over his ears, and returned to his laptop. And get this—his
headphones weren’t even plugged in! They were those sound-
canceling ones! The whole ride to Redmond he never spoke to me
again.
Now, Audrey, for the past five years we always figured Bernadette
was the ghastly one. Turns out her husband is as rude and antisocial
as she is! I was so miffed that when I got to work, I Googled
Bernadette Fox. (Something I can’t believe I’ve waited until now to
do, considering our unhealthy obsession with her!) Everyone knows
Elgin Branch is team leader of Samantha 2 at Microsoft. But when I
looked her up, nothing appeared. The only Bernadette Fox is some
architect in California. I checked all combinations of her name—
Bernadette Branch, Bernadette Fox-Branch. But our Bernadette,
Bee’s mom, doesn’t exist as far as the Internet is concerned. Which,
these days, is quite an accomplishment in itself.
On another topic, don’t you love Ollie-O? I was crushed when
Microsoft ten-percented him last year. But if that hadn’t happened,
we’d never have been able hire him to rebrand our little school.
 Here at Microsoft, SteveB just called a town hall for the Monday
after Thanksgiving. The rumor mill is going crazy. My PM asked me
to book a meeting room for the hours just prior, and I’m hard-
pressed to find one. That can mean only one thing: another round of
layoffs. (Happy holidays!) Our team leader heard some scuttlebutt
that our project was getting canceled, so he found the biggest email
thread he could, wrote “Microsoft is a dinosaur whose stock is going
to zero,” then hit Reply All. Never a good thing. Now I’m worried
they’re going to punish the whole org and that I won’t land well. Or
I might not land at all! What if that meeting room I booked was for
my own firing?
Oh, Audrey, please keep me, Alexandra, and Lincoln in your
prayers. I don’t know what I’d do if I got managed out. The benefits
here are gold-plated. If I still have a job after the holidays, I’ll be
happy to cover some of the food costs for the prospective parent
brunch.

Soo-Lin
 THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 18
Note from Audrey Griffin to the blackberry abatement
specialist

Tom,
You’d think nobody lives in that big old haunted house above us,
judging by the state of their yard. In fact, someone does. Their
daughter, Bee, is in Kyle’s class at Galer Street. I’d be thrilled to raise
the subject of her blackberry bushes with the mother at pickup
today.
Pigs? No pigs. Do take some chard, though.

Audrey

From: Bernadette Fox

To: Manjula Kapoor

I’m ecstatic you said yes!!! I’ve signed and scanned everything.
Here’s the deal with Antarctica. It will be three of us, so get two
rooms. Elgie has a ton of miles on American, so let’s try for three
tickets that way. Our winter break dates are December 23 through
January 5. If we have to miss a little school, that’s fine. And the dog!
We must find someplace willing to board a 130-pound, perpetually
damp dog. Ooh—I’m late picking up Bee at school. Again, THANK
YOU.
 FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 19
Note from Ms. Goodyear sent home in our weekend folders

Dear Parents,
Word has spread about the incident at pickup yesterday. Luckily,
nobody was hurt. But it gives us the opportunity to pause and revisit
the rules outlined in the Galer Street handbook. (Italics mine.)

Section 2A. Article ii. There are two ways to pick up students.
By Car: Drive your vehicle to the school entrance. Please be
mindful not to block the loading dock for Sound Seafood
International.
On Foot: Please park in the north lot and meet your children on
the canal path. In the spirit of safety and efficiency, we ask that
parents on foot do not approach the drive-up area.

It always inspires me that we have such a wonderful community

of parents who are so engaged with one another. However, the
safety of our students is always top priority. So let’s use what
happened to Audrey Griffin as a teachable moment, and remember
to save our conversations for coffee, not the driveway.

Kindly,
Gwen Goodyear
Head of School

*
 Emergency-room bill Audrey Griffin gave to me to give to
Mom

Patient name: Audrey Griffin

Attending Physician: C. Cassella

Emergency Room Visitation Fee 900.00

X Ray (Elective, NOT COVERED) 425.83
Rx: Vicodin 10MG (15 tablets, 0 refills) 95.70
Crutch Rental (Elective, NOT COVERED) 173.00
Crutch Deposit: 75.00
TOTAL 1,669.53

Notes: Visual inspection and basic neurological examination

revealed no injury. Patient in acute emotional distress, demanded X
ray, Vicodin, and crutches.

From: Soo-Lin Lee-Segal

To: Audrey Griffin

I heard Bernadette tried to run you over at pickup! Are you OK?
Should I come by with dinner? WHAT HAPPENED?

From: Audrey Griffin

To: Soo-Lin Lee-Segal

It’s all true. I needed to talk to Bernadette about her blackberry

bushes, which are growing down her hill, under my fence, and
invading my garden. I was forced to hire a specialist, who said
Bernadette’s blackberries are going to destroy the foundation of my
home.
 Naturally, I wanted to have a friendly chat with Bernadette. So I
walked up to her car while she was in the pickup line. Mea culpa!
But how else are you ever going to get a word with that woman?
She’s like Franklin Delano Roosevelt. You see her only from the waist
up, driving past. I don’t think she has once gotten out of her car to
walk Bee into school.
I tried talking to her, but her windows were rolled up and she
pretended not to see me. You’d think she was the first lady of
France, with her silk scarf flung just so and huge dark glasses. I
knocked on her windshield, but she drove off.
Over my foot! I went to the emergency room and got an
incompetent doctor, who refused to accept that there was anything
wrong with me.
Honestly, I don’t know who I’m more furious at, Bernadette Fox or
Gwen Goodyear, for calling me out in the Friday Folder. You’d think I
did something wrong! And mentioning me, but not Bernadette, by
name! I created the Diversity Council. I invented Donuts for Dads. I
wrote Galer Street’s mission statement, which that fancy company in
Portland was going to charge us ten thousand dollars for.
Maybe Galer Street is happy renting in an industrial park. Maybe
Galer Street doesn’t want the stability of owning its new campus.
Maybe Gwen Goodyear would like me to cancel the Prospective
Parent Brunch. I have a call in to her now. I’m not the least bit
happy.
The phone is ringing. It’s her.
 MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22
Note from Ms. Goodyear sent home in the Monday
Messenger

Dear Parents,
This is to clarify that Bernadette Fox, Bee Branch’s mother, was
driving the vehicle that ran over the other parent’s foot. I hope you
all had a wonderful weekend despite the rain.

Kindly,
Gwen Goodyear
Head of School

If someone had asked me, I could have told them what happened at
pickup. It took me awhile to get in the car because Mom always
brings Ice Cream and lets her sit in the front. Once that dog gets the
front seat, she does not like to give it up. So Ice Cream was doing
the thing she does when she wants to get her way, which is to go
completely rigid and stare straight ahead.
“Mom!” I said. “You shouldn’t let her get in the front—”
“She just jumped in.” Mom pulled Ice Cream’s collar and I shoved
her butt and after a lot of grunting, Ice Cream finally got in the
back. But she didn’t sit on the seat like a normal dog. She stood on
the floor squished behind the front seat, with this miserable look on
her face, like, See what you guys make me do?
“Oh, stop being such a drama queen,” Mom said to her.
I got buckled in. Suddenly Audrey Griffin started running toward
the car all stiff and out of rhythm. You could just tell she hadn’t run
in about ten years.
“Oh, boy,” Mom said. “What is it now?”
 Audrey Griffin’s eyes were wild, and she had a big smile as usual,
and she was shaking a piece of paper at us. Her gray hair was
coming out of its ponytail, and she was wearing clogs, and under her
down vest you could see the pleats on her jeans bulging out. It was
hard not to watch.
Señora Flores, who was on traffic duty, gave us the signal to keep
it moving because there was a huge line of cars and the Sound
Seafood guy was videotaping the traffic jam. Audrey motioned for us
to pull over.
Mom was wearing dark glasses like she always does, even when it
rains. “For all that gnat knows,” Mom muttered, “I don’t see her.”
We drove off and that was that. I know for a fact we didn’t run
over anybody’s foot. I love Mom’s car, but riding in that thing is like
“The Princess and the Pea.” If Mom had run over something as big
as a human foot, it would have set off the air bags.

*
 TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 23
From: Bernadette Fox
To: Manjula Kapoor

Attached please find a scan of an emergency room bill I suppose I

should pay. One of the gnats at Galer Street claims I ran over her
foot at pickup. I would laugh at the whole thing, but I’m too bored.
See, that’s why I call the mothers there “gnats.” Because they’re
annoying, but not so annoying that you actually want to spend
valuable energy on them. These gnats have done everything to
provoke me into a fight over the past nine years—the stories I could
tell! Now that Bee is graduating and I can smell the barn, it’s not
worth waging a gnat battle over. Could you check our various
insurance policies to see if something covers it? On second thought,
let’s just straight-up pay the bill. Elgie wouldn’t want our rates rising
over something so trifling. He’s never understood my antipathy
toward the gnats.
All this Antarctica stuff is fantastic! Get us two Class B Queen
rooms. I’m scanning our passports, where you’ll find our birthdates,
exact spelling of names, and all that other good stuff. I’ve thrown in
driver’s licenses and SS numbers just to be safe. You’ll see on Bee’s
passport that her given name is Balakrishna Branch. (Let’s just say I
was under a lot of stress, and it seemed like a good idea at the
time.) I realize that her plane ticket has to read “Balakrishna.” But
when it comes to the boat—nametag, passenger list, etc.—please
move heaven and earth to make sure the divine child is listed as
“Bee.”
I see there’s a packing list. Why don’t you get us three of
everything. I’m a women’s medium, Elgie a men’s XL, not for his
girth but because he’s six foot three without an ounce of flab, God
bless him. Bee is small for her age, so why don’t you get her
whatever would fit a ten-year-old. If you have questions about size
and style, send us several to try on, as long as returns require no
more from me than leaving a box outside for the UPS guy. Also, get
all suggested books, which Elgie and Bee will devour, and which I
will intend to devour.
I’d also like a fishing vest, one replete with zippered pockets. Back
when I actually enjoyed leaving the house, I sat on a plane next to
an environmentalist who spent his life zigzagging the globe. He had
on a fishing vest, which contained his passport, money, glasses, and
film canisters—yes, film, it was that long ago. The genius part:
everything’s in one place, it’s handy, it’s zipped in, plus you can whip
it off and plop it down on the X-ray belt. I always said to myself:
next time I travel, I’m going to get me one of those. My time has
come. You’d better get two.
Have it all shipped to the manse. You’re the best!

From: Manjula Kapoor

To: Bernadette Fox

Dear Ms. Fox,

I have received your instructions regarding the packing list and
will proceed accordingly. What is manse? I do not find it in any of
my records.

Warm regards,
Manjula

From: Bernadette Fox

To: Manjula Kapoor

You know what it’s like when you go to Ikea and you can’t believe
how cheap everything is, and even though you may not need a
hundred tea lights, my God, they’re only ninety-nine cents for the
whole bag? Or: Sure, the throw pillows are filled with a squishy ball
of no-doubt toxic whatnot, but they’re so bright and three-for-five-
dollars that before you know it you’ve dropped five hundred bucks,
not because you needed any of this crap, but because it was so
damn cheap?
Of course you don’t. But if you did, you’d know what Seattle real
estate was like for me.
I came up here on a whim, pretty much. We’d been living in L.A.
when Elgie’s animation company was bought by Big Brother.
Whoops, did I say Big Brother? I meant Microsoft. Around the same
time, I’d had a Huge Hideous Thing happen to me (which we
definitely do not need to get into). Let’s just say that it was so huge
and so hideous that it made me want to flee L.A. and never return.
Even though Elgie didn’t need to relocate to Seattle, Big Brother
strongly recommended it. I was more than happy to use it as an
excuse to hightail it out of La-La Land.
My first trip up here, to Seattle, the realtor picked me up at the
airport to look at houses. The morning batch were all Craftsman,
which is all they have here, if you don’t count the rash of view-
busting apartment buildings that appear in inexplicable clumps, as if
the zoning chief was asleep at his desk during the sixties and
seventies and turned architectural design over to the Soviets.
Everything else is Craftsman. Turn-of-the-century Craftsman,
beautifully restored Craftsman, reinterpretation of Craftsman, needs-
some-love Craftsman, modern take on Craftsman. It’s like a
hypnotist put everyone from Seattle in a collective trance. You are
getting sleepy, when you wake up you will want to live only in a
Craftsman house, the year won’t matter to you, all that will matter is
that the walls will be thick, the windows tiny, the rooms dark, the
ceilings low, and it will be poorly situated on the lot.
The main thing about this cornucopia of Craftsmans: compared to
L.A., they were Ikea-cheap!
Ryan, the realtor, took me to lunch downtown at a Tom Douglas
restaurant. Tom Douglas is a local chef who has a dozen restaurants,
each one better than the last. Eating at Lola—that coconut cream
pie! that garlic spread!—made me believe I could actually be happy
making a life for myself in this Canada-close sinkhole they call the
Emerald City. I blame you, Tom Douglas!
 After lunch, we headed to the realtor’s car for the afternoon
rounds. Looming over downtown was a hill crammed with, say what,
Craftsman houses. At the top of the hill, on the left, I could discern a
brick building with a huge yard overlooking Elliott Bay.
“What’s that?” I asked Ryan.
“Straight Gate,” he said. “It was a Catholic school for wayward
girls built at the turn of the century.”
“What is it now?” I said.
“Oh, it hasn’t been anything for years. Every so often some
developer tries to convert it to condos.”
“So it’s for sale?”
“It was supposed to be converted into eight condos,” he said.
Then, his eyes began to pirouette, sensing a sale. “The property is
three whole acres, mostly flat. Plus, you own the entire hillside,
which you can’t build on, but it does ensure privacy. Gatehouse—
which is what the developers renamed it because Straight Gate
seemed antigay—is about twelve thousand square feet, loaded with
charm. There is some deferred maintenance, but we’re talking crown
jewel.”
“How much are they asking?”
Ryan gave a dramatic pause. “Four hundred thousand.” He
watched with satisfaction as my jaw dropped. The other houses we’d
seen were the same price, and they were on tiny lots.
Turns out the huge yard had been deeded to open space for tax
purposes, and the Queen Anne Neighborhood Association had
designated Straight Gate a historic site, which made it impossible to
touch the exterior or interior walls. So the Straight Gate School for
Girls was stuck in building-code limbo.
“But the area is zoned for single-family residences,” I said.
“Let’s take a look-see.” Ryan shoved me into his car.
In terms of layout, it was kind of brilliant. The basement—where
the girls were penned, it appeared, from the dungeon door that
locked from the outside—was certainly creepy and depressing. But it
was five thousand square feet, which left seven thousand feet
above-grade, a swell size for a house. On the ground floor was a
kitchen opening onto a dining room—pretty fabulous—a huge
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worship of the brilliant Steerforth,—in short, his general way of
looking at the world is so exactly like that of the ordinary healthy boy
under similar circumstances that these parts of the book are, in the
highest and best sense of the word, very realistic.

But as a whole the work has no such convincing power over me to-
day as it had when I first read it. Some of the characters, indeed, like
little Miss Mowcher, Barkis, and Mr. Creakle, seem more like puppets
and less like real persons than they did. Many of them seem to carry
about with them a sort of trade-mark, to certify to their genuineness,
—Heep’s “humility,” for instance, Murdstone’s “firmness,” or Littimer’s
“respectability”; or perhaps the test of identity is a formula, like
“thinking of the old ’un” of Mrs. Gummidge, or “waiting for something
to turn up” of Micawber. In many cases the picture is a caricature
rather than a real portrait, and yet it has the advantage of the
caricature, that it sets forth in bold relief the leading feature and fixes
itself forever in the memory.

There is little to say about the story, for it is known to all. Practically
three or four stories are woven into one. There is the story of David
himself, a boy who, after a comfortable childhood with his young
widowed mother and her old house servant Peggotty, falls under the
tyranny of a stepfather and his sister, and is sent to be beaten and
abused at Creakle’s school, and when his mother dies is put out to a
miserable and hopeless existence at the dismal counting-house of
Murdstone and Grinby. He runs away, and in absolute destitution
betakes himself to the home of Betsey Trotwood, an aunt whom he
has never seen, but with whom he finds a refuge. Then follows the
description (one of the best chapters in the book) of his school days
at Canterbury; his devotion to Miss Shepherd; his romantic adoration
of Miss Larkins, who marries an elderly hopgrower; his disastrous
fight with a butcher. He is then articled to Mr. Spenlow, of Doctor’s
Commons, to become a proctor, and falls in love with Dora,
Spenlow’s daughter, an affectionate, foolish little creature, whom he
marries. He wins a reputation as an author, and after the death of his
“child-wife,” and a period of travel, finally weds Agnes Wickfield, who
has always loved him, and who, ever since his school days at
Canterbury, has been the guardian spirit of his life.

Intertwined with this story is that of the family of Mr. Peggotty, the
brother of David’s old nurse, who lives in the boat on the sand at
Yarmouth, with his nephew Ham, and Em’ly, his adopted child, a
beautiful creature, who is betrayed by David’s friend Steerforth, with
whom she elopes on the eve of her marriage to Ham, and who
afterwards abandons her. An affecting picture is given of the honest
Mr. Peggotty seeking his poor child through the world; of her final
return, and of the great storm and shipwreck, in which Steerforth
goes down, and Ham loses his life in a vain attempt at rescue.

Another strand in the cord of this remarkable story is that of

Micawber and his family, with whom Copperfield becomes a lodger
during his gloomy days at Murdstone and Grinby’s,—a man who,
after various misfortunes, including poverty, jail, and a wretched life
in which he is made the tool of the hypocritical Uriah Heep, is finally
sent to Australia on the same vessel with Mr. Peggotty and Emily,
and begins a career of ultimate prosperity.

But the story is interesting not so much on account of the plot as of

the people who are in it, and the human interest which runs through
the whole.

In addition to the naturalness of Copperfield’s own feelings, there are

other characters that are very true to life. That of his eccentric aunt,
Betsey Trotwood, is perhaps a little overdrawn at first, in her
interview with the doctor on the occasion of David’s birth, but
afterwards her warmth of heart, frankness, and the strong good
sense which underlie her rude behavior and eccentricities, the
combination of strength and weakness in her nature, call to my own
mind at every step one whom I have intimately known and greatly
loved. There is something immensely refreshing, for instance, in her
outbreak at the slimy Uriah Heep:
 “‘If you’re an eel, sir, conduct yourself like one. If you’re a man,
control your limbs, sir. Good God!’ said my aunt, with great
indignation, ‘I’m not going to be serpentined and corkscrewed out
of my senses!’”

Her noble conduct in concealing what she believed to be the

defalcation of her old friend Mr. Wickfield is equally characteristic:

“‘And at last he took the blame upon himself,’ added my aunt, ‘and
wrote me a mad letter, charging himself with robbery and wrong
unheard of; upon which I paid him a visit early one morning, called
for a candle, burned the letter, and told him if he ever could right
me and himself to do it, and if he could not, to keep his own
counsel for his daughter’s sake.’”

The “umble,” pious, and vindictive scoundrel, Uriah Heep, has been
a type of whining hypocrisy. The description of him as Copperfield
first saw him is remarkable:

“A red-haired person, a youth of fifteen, as I take it now, but

looking much older; whose hair was cropped as close as the
closest stubble, who had hardly any eyebrows and no eyelashes,
and eyes of a red brown, so unsheltered and unshaded that I
remember wondering how he went to sleep. He was high-
shouldered and bony, dressed in decent black, with a white wisp
of a neckcloth buttoned up to the throat, and had a long, lank,
skeleton hand, which particularly attracted my attention as he
stood at the pony’s head, rubbing his chin and looking up at us in
the chaise.”

On the whole, perhaps Heep’s character is rather a grotesque than a

reality. Everywhere he inspires us with unutterable aversion. He
worms himself into the secrets of Wickfield, his employer, takes
advantage of his weakness for drink, and finally gets possession of
much of his property. Afterwards, in the prison scene, he is equally
true to his snaky nature, and becomes an edifying and pious pattern
of the products of prison reform.
The quiet, respectful, and respectable Littimer, Steerforth’s serving-
man, who seemed to be always saying to the awestruck David, “You
are young, sir; you are very young,”—and who afterwards became
his master’s tool in the disgraceful intrigue with Em’ly, will find many
a counterpart in actual life. There are some of us who in our youth
have felt similar awe in the presence of such a domestic.

Perhaps the most charming chapters in the book are those which
describe the courting, the marriage, and the disastrous
housekeeping of David and his child-wife, Dora, in which the little
dog Jip plays such a conspicuous part. They are a pair of precious
young noodles; yet the love-making, in spite of its absurdity, is so
absolutely natural, and the foolish Dora so utterly affectionate, up to
the pathetic scene of her death, that the incidents awaken a very
strong sympathy.

Mr. Micawber, of course, is an exaggeration; but how many men

have we known who possessed some of his essential traits,—his
stilted diction, his sudden alternations of supreme joy and utter
despair, his mania for letter-writing, his visionary hopes and schemes
in the midst of his distresses? How perfect in its way is the final
newspaper account of the public dinner in Australia given in his
honor!

Mr. Peggotty’s search through the world for Little Em’ly seems to me
now greatly overstrained, though I did not think so when I first read it.
There is a very true touch in the description of the old Mrs.
Gummidge, who had always been querulous and complaining until
great sorrow fell upon the household, when she became at once
helpful, considerate, and cheerful in comforting the distress of
others. We have all seen examples of this kind of transformation.

Dickens has done mankind a service by portraying the dignity of

simple things and the delicacy and nobility of character that often lie
beneath a rough exterior, among those whom Lincoln used to call
“the plain people,” of whom Lincoln was himself perhaps the most
illustrious type. What could be nobler and in its essential character
more gentlemanly than the behavior of Mr. Peggotty and Ham after
the betrayal of Little Em’ly; what more delicate than Peggotty’s
appreciation of Em’ly’s feeling toward him?

“‘She would go to the world’s furdest end if she could once see
me again, and she would fly to the world’s furdest end to keep
from seeing me. For tho’ she ain’t no call to doubt my love—and
doen’t—and doen’t—but there’s shame steps in and keeps
betwixt us.’”

Dickens’s style is often intensely vivid—for instance, in his

description of a London fog in “Bleak House”; of the burning
Marseilles sun in “Little Dorrit”; of the storm and shipwreck in “David
Copperfield”;—all fine instances of word-painting. Yet the crudities
are many and glaring, there is very little finish, and sometimes the
diction is commonplace.

But there are occasional passages of extraordinary beauty, due

possibly not so much to the style as the sentiment and the things
described. Witness the following, where David describes his feelings
when he had taken refuge with his aunt in her cottage at Dover, after
his escape from Murdstone and Grinby’s:

“The room was a pleasant one, at the top of the house,

overlooking the sea, on which the moon was shining brilliantly.
After I had said my prayers, and my candle had burnt out, I
remember how I still sat looking at the moonlight on the water, as
if I could hope to read my fortunes in it, as in a bright book; or to
see my mother with her child, coming from Heaven along that
shining path, to look upon me as she had looked when I last saw
her sweet face. I remember how the solemn feeling with which at
length I turned my eyes away, yielded to the sensation of gratitude
and rest with which the sight of the white-curtained bed—and how
much more the lying softly down upon it, nestling in the snow-
white sheets—inspired. I remember how I thought of all the
solitary places under the night sky where I had slept, and how I
prayed that I never might be houseless any more, and never
might forget the houseless. I remember how I seemed to float,
then, down the melancholy glory of that track upon the sea, away
into the world of dreams.”
“David Copperfield” may not be the supreme work of fiction which
some of us once fancied it, but it touches the heart very closely. It
dignifies humble life and common things, makes us better friends
with the world, and awakens those human traits which work for
kindness and goodwill toward all mankind.
 THE SCARLET LETTER
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Most persons of culture, if asked who was the foremost American

writer of fiction would undoubtedly answer, “Nathaniel Hawthorne.”
Among his works “The Scarlet Letter” is, I think, the most generally
read and widely known. This high estimate of Hawthorne is in most
respects well deserved. His works have a fine literary and poetic
quality. The style is faultless; the dramatic situations are admirably
conceived; and the structure of the plot, while simple, is extremely
artistic. Hawthorne generally deals with the darker phases of human
life, with scenes of wickedness and crime. His description of the
emotions awakened by criminal acts is extremely powerful. And yet it
seems to me, in reading his pages, that Hawthorne had little
knowledge of what were the actual motives and feelings of the guilty,
and that his account of the development of passions and character
came rather from reflection and abstract reasoning than from acute
observation.

The book begins dramatically rather than historically—that is to say,

in the very middle of the impressive story which it relates. Hester
Prynne, the heroine, had married old Roger Chillingworth, a union
unnatural and without affection, which was followed on her part,
during her husband’s long and unexplained absence, by a guilty
passion for Arthur Dimmesdale, the eloquent clergyman of a Puritan
New England town. All the incidents connected with the growth and
development of this passion, and with the birth of the child which
followed it, are omitted from the narrative, which opens with a scene
at the door of the prison, from which Hester comes forth to suffer the
punishment prescribed for her crime,—to stand for a certain time in
the scaffold by the pillory, and to wear for the rest of her life the
scarlet letter A upon her breast. We have nothing to tell us how the
temptation began, nor how it grew, nor the terrible anxieties which
must have preceded the discovery of her wrongdoing. Possibly these
things are the more impressive because left wholly to the
imagination.

But among the multitude that gaze upon the unfortunate woman in
the hours of her public exposure is a face that she knows only too
well. Old Roger Chillingworth, who has been so long absent, and
supposed even to be dead, appears and recognizes her. He visits
her afterwards in prison, and exacts from her an oath that his identity
shall remain unknown. The terrible punishment of the scarlet letter to
a sensitive mind is powerfully portrayed; her shame at every new
face that gazes upon it, and the consciousness of another sense,
giving her a sympathetic knowledge of hidden sin in other hearts, a
strange companionship in crime, upon which Hawthorne lays much
stress in many of his works. Even little Pearl, her child, gives her no
comfort, for the child’s character is wayward, elusive, elf-like. She is
a strange creature, whose conversation brings to her mother
constant reminders of her guilt. Hester, with great constancy, refuses
to disclose the name of the child’s father, and Dimmesdale, the
honored pastor of the community, is tortured by a remorse which
constantly grows upon him. Old Chillingworth suspects him,
becomes his physician, lives with him under the same roof,
discovers a scarlet letter concealed upon his breast, and enjoys for
years the exquisite revenge of digging into the hidden places of a
sensitive human soul and gloating over the agonies thus
unconsciously revealed to a bitter enemy. An account is given of
Dimmesdale’s self-imposed penances, and of the concealed scourge
for his own chastisement. One night he resolves to go forth and
stand on the same scaffold where Hester has undergone her
punishment. The bitterness of his emotions is finely drawn; the wild
shriek which barely fails to rouse the citizens of the town; the
passing of Hester on her way from her ministrations at a death-bed;
the standing together of the three, father, mother, and child, upon the
scaffold; the letter A which appears in the sky; Pearl’s keen
questions; and the face of old Chillingworth, who has come forth to
look on them.

Hester at last resolves to disclose to Dimmesdale the identity of his

evil companion. Her character has grown stronger through openly
bearing the burden of her guilt, while the poor clergyman’s soul has
become shattered through his constant hypocrisy. She meets him in
the forest, and in a scene of great natural tenderness and beauty
tells him that Chillingworth is her husband. He reproaches her bitterly
for her long concealment, then forgives her. She urges him to flee,
as his only hope.

“‘Exchange this false life of thine for a true one. Be, if thy spirit
summon thee to such a mission, the teacher and apostle of the
red men. Or,—as is more thy nature,—be a scholar and a sage
among the wisest and the most renowned of the cultivated world.
Preach! Write! Act! Do anything, save to lie down and die! Give up
this name of Arthur Dimmesdale, and make thyself another, and a
high one, such as thou canst wear without fear or shame. Why
shouldst thou tarry so much as one other day in the torments that
have so gnawed into thy life!—that have made thee feeble to will
and to do!—that will leave thee powerless even to repent; Up, and
away!’

“‘O Hester!’ cried Arthur Dimmesdale, in whose eyes a fitful light,

kindled by her enthusiasm, flashed up and died away, ‘thou tellest
of running a race to a man whose knees are tottering beneath
him! I must die here! There is not the strength or courage left me
to venture into the wide, strange, difficult world, alone!’

“It was the last expression of the despondency of a broken spirit.

He lacked energy to grasp the better fortune that seemed within
his reach.

“He repeated the word.

“‘Alone, Hester!’
 “‘Thou shalt not go alone!’ answered she, in a deep whisper.

“Then, all was spoken!”

In connection with their proposed departure to Europe, the minister

inquired of Hester the time at which the vessel would depart, and
learned that it would probably be on the fourth day thereafter. “That
is most fortunate!” the clergyman then said to himself. The reason
why he considered it fortunate revealed a very subtle phase of
human nature.

“It was because, on the third day from the present, he was to
preach the Election Sermon; and as such an occasion formed an
honorable epoch in the life of a New England clergyman, he could
not have chanced upon a more suitable mode and time of
terminating his professional career. ‘At least, they shall say of me,’
thought this exemplary man, ‘that I leave no public duty
unperformed, nor ill performed.’”

And of this strange feeling the author remarks:

“No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to
himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting
bewildered as to which may be the true one.”

Having resolved upon flight, however, and in the joy of his

anticipated release from a dreadful life, a curious change comes
over Mr. Dimmesdale, a revolution in his sphere of thought and
feeling.

“At every step he was incited to do some strange, wild, wicked

thing or other, with a sense that it would be at once involuntary
and intentional; in spite of himself, yet growing out of a profounder
self than that which opposed the impulse.”

When he met one of his old deacons, it was only by the most careful
self-control that he could refrain from certain blasphemous
suggestions respecting the communion supper. When he met a
pious and exemplary old dame, the eldest of his flock, whom he had
often refreshed with warm, fragrant Gospel truths, he could now
recall no text of Scripture, nor aught else, except a brief, pithy, and,
as it then appeared to him, unanswerable argument against the
immortality of the human soul. He was tempted to make certain evil
suggestions to one of the young women of his flock, and to teach
some very wicked words to a knot of little Puritan children. He had
come back from the forest another man.

But when the hour of departure approaches, and amid the

preparations for the great Election Sermon, Hester hears that Roger
Chillingworth has learned of their intended flight and taken passage
by the same ship!

The final climax is reached when Dimmesdale, after preaching his

great sermon, which arouses the people to the highest pitch of
enthusiasm, comes forth from the church, and recognizes Hester
and Pearl. At his earnest entreaty she supports him to the scaffold,
where he stands at her side, and, against the protestations of old
Chillingworth, confesses his guilt, shows the scarlet letter upon his
own breast, and expires. Chillingworth does not long survive him.
Hester goes with Pearl across the sea, but after some years returns
alone, again resumes the scarlet letter, and takes up her old life in
her little cottage near the town.

The moral of the book, from the poor minister’s miserable

experience, is put into this sentence: “Be true, be true, be true; show
freely to the world, if not your worst, yet some trait whereby the worst
may be inferred.” Hester’s strength in bearing her sorrow is
contrasted powerfully with the growing weakness and degeneracy of
Dimmesdale, and with the transformation of Chillingworth into a
devil, through constant gratification of his revenge. The strange
conduct of Pearl, who, with her child’s instinct, resents the conduct of
the minister who will recognize her mother and herself only in secret,
adds to the effect; yet it can not be said that Pearl is in the least a
natural child. She seems almost as mature when she first asks her
mother who it was that sent her into the world, and denies that she
has a Heavenly Father, as she does in the last pages of the book.
The appearance of Mistress Hibbins, the old witch, who was
afterwards executed, throws a gleam of the supernatural across the
pages.

It is a weird story, the product of a luxuriant though somewhat morbid

imagination; but the novelist, on the other hand, lacks that acute
perception, that knowledge of trifling circumstances, such as would
have appeared in the pages of Balzac or Tolstoi—those suggestive
details which unconsciously set forth men’s motives, feelings, and
character better than any philosophical reflections.
 HENRY ESMOND
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

The equestrian painting by Velasquez of Prince Balthasar Charles,

the original of which is in the Madrid Museum, is now well known
throughout the world by means of photographs and other
reproductions. It represents a very small boy on a very huge horse,
which is in the act of rearing. The anatomy of the animal is
impossible, and it is safe to say no boy as small as the Prince ever
assumed under like circumstances the attitude attributed to him; and
yet, in spite of its defects, this picture is a very remarkable and a
very beautiful painting. We know in an instant that it is the work of a
master. Indeed it is only the work of a master which could contain
such blemishes and still be great. Similar flaws sometimes deface
the greatest works of literature—for instance, the putting out of
Gloucester’s eyes in “Lear,” or the Walpurgis Night’s Dream in the
first part of “Faust.” And so it is with “Henry Esmond.” It is marred by
one or two dreadful deformities; and yet, in spite of them, it is
perhaps the most charming novel ever written.

The book opens with one of the most exquisite scenes in all
literature, where young Esmond, a lad twelve years of age, who is
supposed to be the illegitimate son of Thomas, Viscount
Castlewood, and who has led a rather hard life as a page of the old
viscountess, and been left alone in the great house after his father’s
death, is now found in the yellow gallery by Lady Castlewood, the
young and beautiful wife of the new viscount, when she comes with
her husband to take possession of the property. The scene is thus
described:

“She stretched out her hand—indeed, when was it that that hand
did not stretch out to do an act of kindness, or to protect grief and
ill-fortune? ‘And this is our kinsman,’ she said; ‘and what is your
name, kinsman?’

“‘My name is Henry Esmond,’ said the lad, looking up at her in a

sort of delight and wonder, for she had come upon him as a Dea
certe, and appeared the most charming object he had ever looked
on. Her golden hair was shining in the gold of the sun; her
complexion was of a dazzling bloom; her lips smiling, and her
eyes beaming with a kindness which made Harry Esmond’s heart
beat with surprise.

“‘His name is Henry Esmond, sure enough, my lady,’ said Mrs.

Worksop, the housekeeper (an old tyrant whom Henry Esmond
plagued more than he hated), and the old gentlewoman looked
significantly toward the late lord’s picture; as it now is, in the
family, noble and severe-looking, with his hand on his sword and
his order on his cloak, which he had from the Emperor during the
war on the Danube against the Turk.

“Seeing the great and undeniable likeness between this portrait

and the lad, the new viscountess, who had still hold of the boy’s
hand as she looked at the picture, blushed and dropped the hand
quickly, and walked down the gallery, followed by Mrs. Worksop.

“When the lady came back, Harry Esmond stood exactly in the
same spot and with his hand as it had fallen when he dropped it
on his black coat.

“Her heart melted, I suppose (indeed she hath since owned as

much) at the notion that she should do anything unkind to any
mortal, great or small; for when she returned, she had sent away
the housekeeper upon an errand by the door at the further end of
the gallery; and, coming back to the lad, with a look of infinite pity
and tenderness in her eyes, she took his hand again, placing her
other fair hand on his head, and saying some words to him, which
were so kind, and said in a voice so sweet, that the boy, who had
never looked upon so much beauty before, felt as if the touch of a
superior being or angel smote him down to the ground, and kissed
 the fair protecting hand, as he knelt on one knee. To the very last
hour of his life, Esmond remembered the lady as she then spoke
and looked—the rings on her fair hands, the very scent of her
robe, the beam of her eyes lighting up with surprise and kindness,
her lips blooming in a smile, the sun making a golden halo round
her hair.”

The story now digresses, returning to Esmond’s early life, the vague
recollections of his childhood abroad, his coming to Castlewood, his
education by Father Holt, a Jesuit priest, the plots and intrigues of
the family on behalf of King James, the seizure of the great house by
King William’s troops, the arrest of the viscountess in her bed, and
the death of the viscount at the battle of the Boyne.

The young page was warmly welcomed by the new viscount, as well
as by Lady Castlewood, and he became the instructor of their
children. There are exquisite descriptions of their domestic life in the
earlier pages of the book.

“There seemed, as the boy thought, in every look or gesture of

this fair creature, an angelical softness and bright pity—in motion
or repose she seemed gracious alike; the tone of her voice,
though she uttered words ever so trivial, gave him a pleasure that
amounted almost to anguish. It can not be called love that a lad of
twelve years of age, little more than menial, felt for an exalted
lady, his mistress; but it was worship. To catch her glance, to
divine her errand, and run on it before she had spoken it; to
watch, follow, adore her, became the business of his life.
Meanwhile, as is the way often, his idol had idols of her own, and
never thought of or suspected the admiration of her little pigmy
adorer.

“My lady had on her side her three idols; first and foremost, Jove
and supreme ruler, was her lord, Harry’s patron, the good
Viscount of Castlewood. All wishes of his were laws with her. If he
had a headache, she was ill. If he frowned, she trembled. If he
joked, she smiled, and was charmed. If he went a-hunting, she
was always at the window to see him ride away, her little son
crowing on her arm, or on the watch till his return. She made
dishes for his dinner; spiced his wine for him; made the toast for
his tankard at breakfast; hushed the house when he slept in his
 chair, and watched for a look when he woke. If my lord was not a
little proud of his beauty, my lady adored it. She clung to his arms
as he paced the terrace, her two fair little hands clasped round his
great one; her eyes were never tired of looking in his face and
wondering at his perfection.”

But it was not long until my lord began to grow weary of the bonds in
which his lady held him and at the jealousy which went hand and
hand with her affection.

“Then perhaps, the pair reached that other stage, which is not
uncommon in married life, when the woman perceives that the
god of the honeymoon is a god no more; only a mortal like the
rest of us; and so she looks into her heart, and lo! vacua sedes et
inania arcana!”

One unhappy day Esmond brings the smallpox to Castlewood from

an ale-house in the village, which he has visited, and where he has
met Nancy Sievewright, the blacksmith’s pretty daughter. Lady
Castlewood, on hearing this, breaks out into a strange fit of rage and
jealousy; but when Esmond is taken ill she nurses him tenderly,
contracting the disease herself, while the viscount with his little
daughter Beatrix flees from the contagion. He returns to find his
wife’s beauty marred a little for a time, whereupon his love for her
grows weak and she betakes herself to the affection of her children.
With a little legacy that comes into her possession, she sends
Esmond to the University, whence he returns on vacation to find a
skeleton in the household. His kind mistress is shedding tears in
secret, while her husband drinks heavily, neglects her for an actress
in a neighboring town, and brings home Lord Mohun, a notorious
rake, with whom he spends his nights at play, and squanders his
fortune. At last Mohun is suspected of designs against my lady, and
in a drive with this unscrupulous man Esmond warns him to leave
Castlewood. An accident occurs; Mohun is thrown out and injured.
The viscount tells his wife that “Harry is killed” (Harry being the name
both of Esmond and Mohun). She screams, and falls unconscious. A
duel follows, and Lord Castlewood is slain by Mohun’s sword, but
before his death confesses that he has learned from Father Holt that
Esmond is the legitimate son of his predecessor, and the lawful heir
to Castlewood. Esmond burns the confession and resolves not to
profit by a claim which will bring sorrow upon his kind mistress and
her children. He is sent to prison for participating in the duel, from
which he had endeavored to dissuade his patron and afterwards to
defend him. Here Lady Castlewood visits him. She brings no
comfort, however, but upbraids him in her wild grief:

“‘I lost him through you—I lost him, the husband of my youth, I
say. I worshiped him—you know I worshiped him—and he was
changed to me. He was no more my Francis of old—my dear,
dear soldier! He loved me before he saw you, and I loved him!
Oh, God is my witness, how I loved him! Why did he not send you
from among us? ’Twas only his kindness, that could refuse me
nothing then. And, young as you were—yes, and weak and alone
—there was evil, I knew there was evil in keeping you. I read it in
your face and eyes. I saw that they boded harm to us—and it
came, I knew it would. Why did you not die when you had the
smallpox, and I came myself and watched you, and you didn’t
know me in your delirium—and you called out for me, though I
was there at your side. All that has happened since was a just
judgment on my wicked heart—my wicked, jealous heart. Oh, I
am punished, awfully punished! My husband lies in his blood—
murdered for defending me, my kind, kind, generous lord—and
you were by, and you let him die, Henry!’”

He is crushed by her injustice, but does not waver in his devotion.

After his imprisonment is over he procures an ensign’s commission
and participates in the destruction of the French fleet in Vigo Bay. On
his return he hears that his mistress is about to marry the chaplain of
Castlewood, and he hastens to prevent the match. The rumor is
unfounded, but it furnishes the opportunity for reconciliation. They
meet in Winchester Cathedral after the service:

“She gave him her hand—her little fair hand; there was only her
marriage ring on it. The quarrel was all over. The year of grief and
estrangement was passed. They never had been separated. His
mistress had never been out of his head all that time. No, not
once. No, not in the prison, nor in the camp, nor on shore before
 the enemy, nor at sea under the stars of solemn midnight, nor as
he watched the glorious rising of the dawn; not even at the table
where he sat carousing with friends, or at the theater yonder,
where he tried to fancy that other eyes were brighter than hers.
Brighter eyes there might be, and faces more beautiful, but none
so dear—no voice so sweet as that of his beloved mistress, who
had been sister, mother, goddess to him during his youth—
goddess now no more, for he knew of her weaknesses, and by
thought, by suffering, and that experience it brings, was older now
than she; but more fondly cherished as woman perhaps than ever
she had been adored as divinity. What is it? Where lies it? the
secret which makes one little hand the dearest of all? Who ever
can unriddle that mystery?”

And then when Esmond gently reproaches her that she had never
told him of her sorrow for her cruel words, and that the knowledge
would have spared him many a bitter night:

“‘I know it, I know it,’ she answered, in a tone of such sweet
humility as made Esmond repent that he should ever have dared
to reproach her. ‘I know how wicked my heart has been; and I
have suffered too, my dear. I confessed to Mr. Atterbury—I must
not tell any more. He—I said I would not write to you or go to you;
and it was better, even, that, having parted, we should part. But I
knew you would come back—I own that. That is no one’s fault.
And to-day, Henry, in the anthem, when they sang it, “When the
Lord turned the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream,” I
thought, yes, like them that dream—them that dream. And then it
went, “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy; and he that goeth
forth and weepeth shall doubtless come home again with
rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him;” I looked up from the
book, and saw you. I was not surprised when I saw you. I knew
you would come, my dear, and saw the gold sunshine round your
head.’”

“‘If—if ’tis so, dear lady,’ Mr. Esmond said, ‘why should I ever
leave you? If God hath given me this great boon—and near or far
from me, as I know now, the heart of my dearest mistress follows
me—let me have that blessing near me, nor ever part with it till
death separate us. Come away—leave this Europe, this place
which has so many sad recollections for you. Begin a new life in a
new world. My good lord often talked of visiting that land in
Virginia which King Charles gave us—gave his ancestor. Frank
will give that. No man there will ask if there is a blot on my name,
or inquire in the woods what my title is.’

“‘And my children—and my duty—and my good father, Henry?’

she broke out. ‘He has none but me now; for soon my sister will
leave him, and the old man will be alone. He has conformed since
the new Queen’s reign; and there in Winchester, where they love
him, they have found a church for him. When the children leave
me I will stay with him. I cannot follow them into the great world,
where their way lies—it scares me. They will come and visit me;
and you will, sometimes, Henry—yes, sometimes, as now, in the
Holy Advent season, when I have seen and blessed you once
more.’

“‘I would leave all to follow you,’ said Mr. Esmond; ‘and can you
not be as generous for me, dear Lady?’

“‘Hush, boy!’ she said, and it was with a mother’s sweet, plaintive
tone and look that she spoke. ‘The world is beginning for you. For
me, I have been so weak and sinful that I must leave it, and pray
out an expiation, dear Henry. Had we houses of religion as there
were once, and many divines of our church would have them
again, I often think I would retire to one and pass my life in
penance. But I would love you still—yes, there is no sin in such a
love as mine now; and my dear lord in heaven may see my heart;
and knows the tears that have washed my sin away—and now—
now my duty is here, by my children while they need me, and by
my poor old father, and—’

“‘And not by me?’ Henry said.

“‘Hush!’ she said again, and raised her hand to his lip. ‘I have
been your nurse. You could not see me, Henry, when you were in
the smallpox, and I came and sat by you. Ah, I prayed that I might
die, but it would have been in sin, Henry. Oh, it is horrid to look
back to that time. It is over now and past, and it has been forgiven
me. When you need me again I will come ever so far. When your
heart is wounded then come to me, my dear. Be silent! Let me say
all. You never loved me, dear Henry—no, you do not now, and I
thank Heaven for it. I used to watch you, and knew by a thousand
 signs that it was so. Do you remember how glad you were to go
away to College? ’Twas I sent you. I told my papa that, and Mr.
Atterbury too, when I spoke to him in London. And they both gave
me absolution—both—and they are godly men, having authority
to bind and to loose. And they forgave me, as my dear lord
forgave me before he went to heaven.’

“‘I think the angels are not all in heaven,’ Mr. Esmond said. And as
a brother folds a sister to his heart; and as a mother cleaves to
her son’s breast—so for a few moments Esmond’s beloved
mistress came to him and blessed him.”

After this wonderful chapter there comes another of almost equal

beauty, if it stood alone, but the two together make a strange
discord. For when they reach Walcote, which is now the family
home, Beatrix, the daughter of Lady Castlewood, comes down the
stairs to greet him.

“Esmond had left a child and found a woman, grown beyond the
common height, and arrived at such a dazzling completeness of
beauty that his eyes might well show surprise and delight at
beholding her. In hers there was a brightness so lustrous and
melting that I have seen a whole assembly follow her as if by an
attraction irresistible; and that night the great Duke was at the
playhouse after Ramillies, every soul turned and looked (she
chanced to enter at the opposite side of the theater at the same
moment) at her, and not at him. She was a brown beauty—that is,
her eyes, hair, and eyebrows and eyelashes were dark; her hair
curling with rich undulations, and waving over her shoulders. But
her complexion was as dazzling white as snow in sunshine;
except her cheeks, which were a bright red, and her lips, which
were of a still deeper crimson. Her mouth and chin, they said,
were too large and full, and so they might be for a goddess in
marble, but not for a woman whose eyes were fire, whose look
was love, whose voice was the sweetest low song, whose shape
was perfect symmetry, health, decision, activity, whose foot, as it
planted itself on the ground, was firm but flexible, and whose
motion, whether rapid or slow, was always perfect grace—agile as
a nymph, lofty as a queen—now melting, now imperious, now
sarcastic—there was no single movement of hers but was