A Woman Named Smith Read online

  A WOMAN NAMED SMITH

  CHAPTER I

  THE SCARLETT WITCH DEPARTS

  If it had been humanly possible for Great-Aunt Sophronisba Scarlettto lug her place in Hyndsville, South Carolina, along with her intothe next world, plump it squarely in the middle of the ElysianFields, plaster it over with "No Trespassing" signs, and then settleherself down to a blissful eternity of serving writs upon the angelsfor flying over her fences without permission, and setting the savedby the ears in general, she would have done so and felt that heavenwas almost as desirable a place as South Carolina. But as even shecouldn't impose her will upon the next world, and there was nobodyin this one she hated less than she did me--possibly because she hadnever laid eyes on me--she willed me Hynds House and what was leftof the Hynds fortune; tying this string to her bequest: I mustoccupy Hynds House within six months, and I couldn't rent it, orattempt to sell it, without forfeiture of the entire estate.

  I can fancy the ancient beldam sniggering sardonically the while shefigured to herself the chagrined astonishment, the helpless wrath,of her watchfully waiting neighbors, when they should discover thathistoric Hynds House, dating from the beginning of thingsCarolinian, had passed into the unpedigreed hands of a woman namedSmith. I can fancy her balefully exact perception of the attitude soradically conservative a community must needs assume toward such anintruder as myself, foisted upon it, so to speak, by an enemy whonever failed to turn the trick.

  Because I'm not a Hynds, at all. Great Aunt Sophronisba was my auntnot by blood but by marriage; she having, when she was no longerwhat is known as a spring chicken, met my Great-Uncle JohnnyScarlett and scandalized all Hyndsville by marrying him out of hand.

  I have heard that she was insanely in love with him, and I believeit; nothing short of an over-mastering passion could have inducedone of the haughty Hyndses to marry a person with such familyconnections as his. For my father, George Smith, was a ruddyEnglish ship-chandler who pitched upon Boston for a home, and livedwith his family in the rooms above his shop; and my grandmotherSmith dropped her "aitches" with the cheerful ease of one to themanner born, bless her stout old Cockney heart! I can remember herhearing me my spelling-lesson of a night, her spectacles far down onher old button of a nose, her white curls bobbing from under hercap.

  "What! Carn't spell 'saloon'? Listen, then, Miss: There's a hess anda hay and a hell and two hoes and a henn! Now, then, d 'ye spellit!"

  Not that Mrs. Johnny ever accepted us. It was borne in upon theSmiths that undesirable in-laws are outlaws. This despite the factthat my mother's pink-and-white English face was a gentler copy ofwhat her uncle's had been in his youth; and that when I came along,some years after the dear old man's death, I was named Sophronisbaat Mrs. Johnny's urgent request.

  After Great-Uncle Johnny died, as if the last tie which bound her toordinary humanity had snapped, his widow retired into a seclusionfrom which she emerged only to sue somebody. She said the world wasbeing turned topsyturvy by people who were allowed to misbehave totheir betters, and who needed to be taught a lesson and their properplace; and that so long as she retained her faculties, she would doher duty in that respect, please God!

  She did her duty so well in that respect that the Hynds fortune,which even civil war and reconstruction hadn't been able altogetherto wreck, dwindled to a mere fifteen thousand dollars; and shewasn't on speaking terms with anybody but Judge Gatchell, herlawyer. She would have quarreled with him, too, had she dared.

  To the minister, who bearded her for her soul's sake every now andthen, she spoke in words brief and curt:

  "You here again? Wanted to see me, hey? Well, you've done it. Nowget out!"

  And in the meantime the years passed and my own immediate familypassed with them; but still the gaunt old woman lived on in hergaunt old house, becoming in time a myth to me, and to Hyndsville aswell; where they referred to her, succinctly, as "the ScarletWitch." I heard from her directly only once, and that was the yearshe sent me a red flannel petticoat for a Christmas present. Afterthat, as if she'd done her worst, she ignored me altogether.

  My mother had wanted me to be a school-teacher, in her eyes the acmeof respectability. But as it happens, there are two things Iwouldn't be: one's a school-teacher, the other a minister's wife.If I had to marry the average minister, I should infallibly hate allchurch-goers; if I had to teach the average school-child and wrestlewith the average school-board, I should end by burning joss-sticksto Herod.

  So I disappointed my mother by becoming a typist. After her death Isecured a foothold in a New York house--I'd always wanted to live inNew York--and went up, step by step, from what may be called arookie in the outside office, to private secretary to the Head. AndI'd been a business woman for all of seventeen years when Great-AuntSophronisba Scarlett departed at the age of ninety-eight years andeleven months, and willed that I should take up my life in the housewhere she had dropped hers.

  "Oh, Sophy!" cried Alicia Gaines, the one person in the world whodidn't call me Miss Smith. "Oh, Sophy, it's like a fairy-story cometrue! Think of falling heir to an old, old, old lady's old, old, oldhouse, in South Carolina! I hope there's a big old door with afan-light, and a Greeky front with white pillars, and a big oldhall, and a big old garden--"

  "And an old stove that smokes and old windows that rattle and an oldroof that leaks, and maybe big, big old rats that squeak o' nights,"I said darkly. For the first rapture of the astonishing news wasbeginning to wear thin, and doubt was appearing in spots.

  "Sophy Smith! Why, if such a wonderful, beautiful, unexpected thinghad happened to _me_--" Alicia's blue eyes misted. I have known hersince the day she was born, next door to us in Boston, and she isthe only person I have ever seen who can cry and look pretty whileshe's doing it; also, she can cry and laugh at the same time, beingIrish. Some foolish people, who have been deceived by AliciaGaines's baby stare and complexion, have said she hasn't senseenough to get in out of a shower of rain. This is, of course, alibel. But what's the odds, when every male being in sight wouldrush to her aid with an umbrella?

  After her mother's death I fell heir to Alicia, who, like me, was anonly child, and without relatives. Lately, I'd gotten her into ourfiling-department. She didn't belong in a business office, she whoseproper background should have been an adoring husband and the latestthing in pink-and-white babies.

  "But somebody's got to think of stoves and roofs and rats and such,or there'd be no living in any old house," I reminded her,practically. "My dear girl, don't you realize that this thing isn'tall beer and skittles?"

  Alicia wrinkled her white forehead.

  "Consider me, a hardy late-summer plant forced to uproot andtransplant myself to a soil which may not in the least agree withme. Why, this means changing all my fixed habits, to trot off tolive in an old house that is probably haunted by the cross-grainedghost of a lady of ninety-nine!"

  "If I were a ghost, you'd be the very last person on earth I'd wantto tackle, Sophy," remarked Alicia, dimpling. "And as for that newsoil, why, you'll bloom in it! You--well, Sophy dear, up to now youhave been root-bound; you've never had a chance to grow, much lessto blossom. Now you can do both."

  I who was confidential secretary to the Head, looked at the girl whowas admittedly the worst file-clerk on record; and she looked backat me, nodding her bright head with young wisdom.

  "I hope," she said, wistfully, "that there'll be all sorts of lovelythings in your house, Sophy,--old mirrors, old books, old pictures,old furniture, old china. Lord send you'll find an attic! All mylife I've day-dreamed of finding an attic that's been shut up andforgotten for ages and ages, and discovering all sorts of lovelythings in all sorts of hiding-places. When I think my day-dream maycome true for you, Sophy, it almost reconciles me to the pain ofparting from you; though what on earth I'm to do without you,goodness only knows!" She was sitting on my bed, kimonoed,slippered, and braided. And now she looked at me with a suddenlyquivering chin.

  "Alicia," said I, "ever since I discovered that
there's no mistakeabout that lawyer's letter--that Hynds House is unaccountably, butundoubtedly mine and I've got to live in it if I want to keep it--ithas been borne in upon me that you are just about the worstfile-clerk on earth. You're a navy-blue failure in a businessoffice. Business isn't your _motif_. Now, will you resign the jobyou fill execrably, and accept one you can fill beyond allpraise--come South with me, share half-and-half whatever comes, andhelp make that old house a happy home for us both?"

  "Don't joke." Her lips went white. "Please, please, Sophy dear,don't joke like that! I--well, I just couldn't bear it."

  "I never joke," I said indignantly. "You little goose, did youimagine for one minute that I contemplated leaving you here byyourself, any more than I contemplate going down there by myself, ifI can help it? Stop to think for a moment, Alicia. You have beenlike a little sister to me, ever since you were born. And--I'malone, except for you--and not in my first youth--and notbeautiful--and not gifted."

  At that she hurled herself off my bed and cried upon my shoulder,with her slim arms around my neck. Those young arms were beginningto make me feel wistful. If things had been different--if I had beenlovely like the Scarletts, instead of looking like the Smiths--theremight have been--

  Well, I don't look like the Scarletts; so there wasn't. The best Icould do was to drop a kiss on Alicia's forehead, where the brightyoung hair begins to break into curls.

  And that is how, neither of us having the faintest notion of whatwas in store for us, Alicia Gaines and I turned our backs upon NewYork and set our faces toward Hynds House.