“I am Johannes …” I hesitated, then added, “Johannes Verne.” “I know.” She seated herself, yet even in that simple movement there was something regal. “May we talk a little, Johannes?” She glanced at Miss Nesselrode. “You have been most kind. I have but little time. If he should call for me … at night I am almost never away.”
“Of course.”
Jacob came in quietly and took a seat on the far side of the room.
“Please, Johannes, tell me of your mother.”
My mother? What could I say? What could I tell her? Why should I tell her? “I loved her very much, Johannes. She was like my own daughter. And I liked your father. Had it been up to me…”
“She was beautiful,” I said, “like you. We were only three, and we were always together. She was very happy, I believe, except when she thought about home. She told me many stories of Spain, and stories of the sea voyage to California, and of the landing.
“My father offered to take her back to California, but she was afraid for him.” “He was always a bold one. I think he feared nothing. Tell me … where did you live? How did you live? I want to know everything.” “We moved often. My father had gone to sea with his father, who was a ship’s captain, as you would know, and he had planned to become one himself. Yet he could not return to the sea without leaving us, and he would not do that. “For a time he managed a livery stable in Philadelphia, and later he trained horses and managed a big farm in Kentucky. He was a marshal in a Missouri river town before that. I do not know its name. I was only a baby then, I guess. “Often he said he would like to find a permanent job so he could write. Mr. Longfellow, the poet, was also a professor, and Oliver Wendell Holmes was a physician. Mr. Emerson, I think, was a minister. Each had some way of living so he could write with freedom.
“Many of the people who came to our house in Philadelphia were writers, like Mr. Lippard, who had long straggly hair and wore strange clothes. He lived in a big old ramshackle house of many rooms where all sorts of people lived. The house had been abandoned, I think, and they just moved in. “There was a Mr. Hirst, whom I saw only once or twice, and there was the editor, Edgar Poe. I think he was a writer, too. Yes, I know he was because I remember Papa wondering what he might have written had everyone not wanted stories of ghosts, haunted houses, and tombs. Mr. Poe wrote what was wanted, like all of them.
“Papa read me the stories of ‘Rip Van Winkle,’ arid about the ‘Headless Horseman,’ and sometimes when Papa’s friends came around, Mama made coffee or tea for them. Mr. Poe liked to hear Papa talk about his years at sea when he was a boy, and he asked many questions. On one voyage Papa’s ship was blown far to the south when rounding Cape Horn, and they found themselves among icebergs and had a terrible time before they escaped.
“Mama told stories, too, and one of them was about Boabdil, the Moor, who was sleeping in an enchanted cave with all his knights, awaiting the moment when he would awaken them to reconquer Spain.”
“She sat with the men? She talked with them?”
“It is not the custom. But they all insisted she be with them, for she knew so many stories. Some of them, I think, were stories you told her, for I remember she spoke of you sometimes.
“Sometimes it became very late and they forgot I was not in bed, or maybe Mama just made believe she forgot, for she would say suddenly, ‘Oh, how awful! You should be in bed, young man!’ But if the stories were very good, she would make believe to forget again.
“There was one story that made her sad. It was a story about a monster-“ “A monster?”
“A woman named Mary Shelley wrote the story. Her husband was a poet, I think. It was a story about a student named Frankenstein who made a man out of pieces of dead people. People thought the creature a monster, but he wasn’t really. Mama always felt sorry for the monster. I thought he’d be kind of scary.” For a moment there was silence in the room, and then Aunt Elena changed the subject. “You lived in Kentucky, you said?”
“A man who met Papa at the livery stable gave him the job of training horses for racing. He liked the way Papa cared for the horses, and he said all the trainers he wanted were already employed and if Papa could produce a winning horse he would give him a share of the winnings.”
“Did he never talk of going to sea again?”
“Oh, no! By that time Mama was sick and Papa wanted to get out of the city where the air was better. Once when we were alone he said we must be very good to Mama because she was more ill than she believed. Papa would not take any kind of work where he could not look in upon Mama often.
“Once I heard him talk to Mr. Poe about it, for his wife was ill also. Both of them had consumption, and it was considered a kind of aristocratic illness, whatever that is. People became pale and frail and all the doctors did was prescribe fine wines and special foods.
“Papa said to Mama that he had no right to keep her where she was. He said, ‘In California you would soon be well. We must go back.’ But Mama would not go. She said Papa would be killed. He said, ‘Do you think I would die so easily?’ ‘No,’ she said, ‘but you might kill him, and that would be just as bad.’ “Sometimes at night when they thought I was asleep they talked of me, worrying about what would become of me when they were gone, because by that time Papa was sick, too, and Mama knew it. After Mama died-“ “How long ago?”
“I was five, I think. I do not remember too well, but we lived in Kentucky then.”
For several minutes I could not say anything, only remembering those last, long, lovely days when we could look out over the green pastures with their white fences and the beautiful horses running and playing there. Mama talked to me an awful lot then. I think she wanted to tell me everything, before … Aunt Elena had sat very still, reaching for every word I spoke. Sometimes her eyes filled with tears, sometimes her lips trembled, but she said nothing, and did not interrupt.
“Mr. Poe’s wife died, too, someone said. I do not know, only that after Mama died two of the horses Papa had trained won their races and the owner gave Papa a share, as he had promised.
“It was a very damp, rainy year and Papa was worse, so he quit his job and we came west.”
“I see.” Aunt Elena sat very still; then she looked over at me. “Thank you, Johannes, for telling me. At least she was happy during those years. She had your father, and they had you.”
She got to her feet. “I must go. Johannes, if you ever need me, please have Miss Nesselrode or Senor Finney come to me. In the meantime, you must be careful! About him there is nothing I can do. We have had words about this. “As yet, he knows nothing. I would know if he did. He believes you dead. He even talks of returning to Spain.
“You must keep out of trouble! It was because of talk among the women about a fight at school that I heard of a boy named Johannes who was living at the home of Miss Nesselrode. I knew she had come west in the wagon with your father, and that Senor Finney had worked for Senor Farley on the same trip.” She started for the door, but Jacob got up suddenly. “Wait, ma’am. I’ll just take a look around outside first.”
He was gone only a minute. “It’s all right, ma’am. A body can’t be too careful.” At the door Aunt Elena stooped suddenly and kissed me on the forehead; then, embarrassed, she slipped out and disappeared in the darkness. Miss Nesselrode came up behind me and rested a hand on my shoulder. “I believe she loves you very much, Johannes, just as she loved your mother.” “She does not know me.”
“She sees your mother in you. Tia Elena has no children, and your mother was like a daughter to her. Now it is you of whom she thinks.” “She is a nice lady.”