 Chapter 24 of Natalie Page. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Natalie Page by Catherine Haviland Taylor. Chapter 24. What made the chase? In quote SK, it had an entirely sane and logical explanation and it was started by that little fellow who wears wings, carries a quiver, is talked of and felt often, but is never seen, except on Valentine's. And of course you know whom I mean. His name comes from an old monk, which is strange. I think SK said it was not. He said that everybody has their monastery garden where they quite alone make the prettiest rhymes to love. And he explained further that when you try to say them along in the fumbling words of men, they will not echo even half of what is felt. All this discussion came because of the date, which was February 14. Much had happened since Christmas week. And this day we all sat in the living room, reviewing things. And Herbert sat on her foot rest at her feet, muttering things like beautiful hands, or did she prick her sweet finger, which everybody heard, but had to pretend they didn't. That's a funny sentence, but I haven't time to alter it. Amy and Willie were doing a picture puzzle. SK was sitting idle, and I was trying to address postcards to people at home. Personally, I don't like them, but the people to whom I was going to send them did. I could take part in all the talk in as much as I only wrote. Wish you were here. And this is a picture of Grant's tomb or the Woolworth Tower or whatever it was. Of course, it said what the picture was in print, but people always do explain again in writing on postcards. I suppose because it fills up space. Even real writers always use a great deal of explaining to do that. I have noticed. Willie would leave the table now and again to read my messages, all of which were almost the same in a different voice. He made it deeply dramatic or miss Hooper high. And Amy giggled awfully. She laughs at anything he says and he says she has more perception and appreciation of true humor than any woman he has ever met, which is what men always do say when women laugh at their jokes. The fifth time he made a tour to the desk, he picked up a card I had addressed to Colonel Cephas, I, Lemley, who did detective work in Baltimore in 1892. He has been resting since then and his wife takes in sewing. He explained that the business world was not a fit place for a southern gentleman. Willie told about how he acts when he gets drunk. On one occasion, he painted the entire house with apple butter. His wife had just made five clocks and it was in fly season two. And on another, he sought out the lower panel of the front door and then he got down on his hands and knees and stuck his head through the hole and barked at everyone who passed. That was really very funny because he has a little goatee which wags when he talks and to see his head top wide primed felt hat and bottom by wiggling fluff to see this sticking through a hole in the door. And hear him say Bow Wow in a high fall setup was enough to make you yell for three days he honestly thought he was Miss Hooper's dog Rover. His wife was visiting in a new town. When she is at home she tactfully restrains him with a broom, the neighbors say, and it is noticeable that he stands in front of the mansion house. After these attacks instead of occupying one of the rocking chairs which trail all over the porch and have across the sidewalk. But to get back after Willie told him he said he should have been on the job and I agree. No six weeks to find out what started it. If Cephas had humped. He stated surely I nodded for Colonel Lemley's own tales of his achievements. Not homes affairs look as exciting as the world and mats you do in the first year of school. After I wrote for perhaps 15 more minutes I finished my work and went over to sit by SK, who was on the Devon port before the fire. He had a lovely bunch of violets he had sent me and I was enjoying them a lot also the prospect for the evening, which was a theater party which SK was giving because Evelyn and Herbert are engaged. People seem to do things like that for engaged people, quite as if they need cheering up, and I was to wear a new dress which was pink and fluffy, and I must admit becoming. I was going to sit next to me tonight said SK. I said I hoped so and then I was quiet, where I was thinking how very much SK had done to make my New York life happy, and to smooth out and erase my troubles. The bracelet business had made me have sick. It had been so crawling, and it all happened because a little co cat, who was the Spanish girl we saw photographed in Sunday paper, and the one who muttered pretty Spanish admirations over the bracelet. One of the people who stays at the mansion told me of those had made her lover a test. I think she did it in joke, but he took it seriously because he was so very much in love. Of course, he was Vincente Alcón e Rodriguez, and it happened this way. He had met her somewhere on a business trip. I suppose he had letters of introduction, which admitted him almost anywhere since he has a great deal of money and is a great importance in the business world of Cuba. Like a good many Latin men, he fell in love with her immediately and wildly so. He called her orange blossom and white sweetheart of the rose that is in notes. And he threatened to kill himself if she didn't love him, but he didn't. And she didn't love him. She only laughed. That isn't first. I think she was capricious and liked to feel her power for she played with him, one day being kind and the next day scorning as only her race can scorn. SK told me this story and he put in trimmings as he always does, and I'm repeating in part from the tale that he related. Each day this man who had so much money but not the love he wanted more than all of the world would send her mountains of flowers or a strange string of beads or candied fruits from the Orient or candies from our states. He said he was a good lover, and he sounded so. I became very much interested. I did not see how Margarita Angela Blanco, a choppy could help liking it, but sometimes she didn't. One morning she threw all of his flowers out on the street, and then she called to him. He was lurking around on the other side of the way. That way more there than here. And she said the scent and all of its heaviness is weary some and rumors states that he tore his hair. But I think as Kate put that in for a nice touch because he had it clipped so short I don't see how he could get a decent hold. All things went on in that way. She would soften only to harden, and he would become elated only to taste the depth of despair. It was very romantic. And then Margarita's father had a mission to perform in the United States. She came along and of course Vincente Alcón E. Rodriguez trailed out of a respectful distance, but he didn't stay so, which is the paper chase manner in which some South American and Cuban courtships come off. Their pictures were taken together at the Jumel mansion. And so evidently she was a little kinder to him then. On the day she paused before the brace that in said as incomparable Linda E. Lo de sello and she said it with hunger floating on her liquid voice. Would that I could give it to you whispered Vincente Alcón E. Rodriguez. You can give me nothing I want. And after this pleasant speech, the little senior Rita shrugged her shoulders. SK said he clenched his hands clear to head and then said a copy. A good copy there is the angel of heaven. And she said a copy. And her lips curled. I didn't see why he loved her after that. But SK said she stimulated his interest by acting that way. But I wasn't to try it on him since his interest didn't need stimulating. Then Margarita looked mischievous and said the man who would get for me this original. I would give the gift of my love. But it is a poor thing. My little heart and perhaps not worth the effort to get. He said you cast me to the depths. How can I live for this you asked the impossible. And again she shrugged her shoulders. Why ask the possible. She said since that I could get myself. Then SK said Vincente went out, sat down on the green bench that faces the side gate. He held his head in his hands and stared unseemly at the gravel at his feet. He said they both enjoyed acting that way and being miserable as a good many people do. And Margarita laughed in her tinkering way not seeming to care how unhappy she had made him. Just before they started back to the built more he spoke to her again. You meant that he said fiercely. But certainly she replied I said my heart in exchange for that bracelet. And then they all got in motors and started off for lunch. Well, Vincente was determined to get that bracelet and he set out to do it. Somehow he got into communication with Debson offered him $25,000 if he got the bracelet and delivered it into his Vincente Alcone Rodriguez's hands. And then he sailed off on another chase for Margarita and her papa had started home again. So much is simple and the rest is only the result of the start. Debson heard me tell the tale of my bracelet that day I first visited the mansion. Getting the one in the case was not an easier fare for the place as well guarded. And so he naturally decided to get mine. It was he who chased me dodging behind things when I turned and even sitting on the curb at the last with his cup for pennies and telling me that he was blind. He had of course visited the mansion often in different disguise hoping each time to have the opportunity. And of course he began to lurk around our apartment house after he knew what was in my position. He had a brother who worked with him. They had an idea that confusion of evidence made evidence week. And so there were two blind men around the mansion that Sunday and no two people agreed about where they had seen the shambling figure. It wasn't a bad idea for it during the investigation of that particular event. The police had been so tried by different stories of where people had seen this old man that they brushed aside any mention of him and muttered of crowd hysteria. It was the brother of Debson who knocked SK down because he had seen me give the bracelet into SK's keeping. He was he who was the old Italian woman that day and who suddenly shed his shaw and skirts and was again the blind man shuffling up the steps. That was after he stuffed his woman duds in a basket of soil clothes which some neglectful small boy had left for a moment on the sidewalk while he went up to join the crowd around Sammy. That was clever I think for when the wash woman returned the things washed. The Italian guard was probably sent back to her with the word that it did not belong in that particular laundry and she the wash woman was I suppose glad enough to keep the garments and say no more. Meanwhile that same afternoon Debson had seen me give the bracelet to the keeper. Probably he peered through a window or half hid behind a big pillar outside and it was he who attacked him after the crowd had gone out to see what had happened to SK. And he who with tears running down his face called for help since getting away was dangerous. It all seems very simple now and makes us seem great fools. When SK advertised for a servant Debson applied for the position and fortune favored him since I often went to see SK and talk all my troubles over with him. He used a long rod with a hook on top of it to get upstairs since the back influences were too public for his late night visits. And he could come in this way under the dark of the court for people kept their shades down in their court windows. Other windows are too close to do otherwise. He made those tapping noises that night everyone was frightened and Uncle Archie fell over the pedestal and it was only coincidence that made them tap in three in that way. He also made violent love to Jane thinking perhaps that he could get her help or that in that way his visits to our apartment would be accounted for. It was not my bracelet but Evelyn's. She wore that night he took her to the ball. And she wore it because he had talked so much of how greatly a bracelet enhanced the fair roundness of a woman's arm. Jane admitted that statement got her and it must have for she remembered it absolutely correctly. And at that time sometimes substituted her bracelet for mine because the Tiffany mark made her story of its being real alive and she at that time wanted the real one. Jane told me lots about it. She missed that romantic miss. She said to hear a tap and then to lean from the window and to see him coming hand over hand up that there rod with the hook on top. And it used to turn me sick like you think that he might fall but he never did. Worth luck. And then she sniffed. It was a very hard time for I hid my bracelet often and Evelyn took it to and it seemed that every time he called it was out. Of course he'd come up that night that we had the detectives waiting for he thought it was his last chance. And of course it was he whom I followed down the fire escape. He expected to bag the bracelet easily that night that he was caught. He was going to get it in some way and he had been sure that would be easy. Then lower it to his brother who would if possible take it off if not throw it as he did in the coal cellar. I found out everything and began to believe SK's remark about sanity and logical reasons for all events. I even found out about James blushes and the ice pig. It seemed she used to give Debson suppers when he came up and she gave him a very nice grape juice that on had got for Evelyn. It was that that made her so anxious to speak of thefts as borrowing and again there was coincidence in the hurt hands. All that Debson's had happened from innocent causes is came from my mouse trap. But to throw people off the scent he deliberately broke that steagle glass. Of course I was shattered and followed and it was Debson's brother who pulled me from my mount on Riverside Drive to men who are very intent on getting anything can think lots of ways to get it. And $25,000 is quite an incentive. I felt sorry for the men I couldn't help it. And for Vincente Alcón y Rodriguez, I was afraid Margarita would never marry him. I wrote senior Vincente Alcón y Rodriguez and told him how sorry I was and that I would give him my bracelet. If my mother had not owned and wanted and that I hoped perhaps Sr. Rita Blanco y Javi could get one made like it. And I explained about how nice Evelyn's was. I really wanted to send my bracelet to Sr. Alcón y Rodriguez, but SK who occasionally gives me orders quite as if he had every right to would not permit it. None since he said she's only tearing him out. After he begins to gasp and show signs of giving up, she will pour him in the boat. I know him, which I considered cynical, but she did. Just that very thing happened and I got a piece of wedding cake. They were married January 20th after an engagement of two days. He answered my note most courteously and apologized at length and she added a little line. I have capitulated. She acknowledged in a very shaded elaborate writing. It is useless to allow innocent childs to be stabbed in back because of my light mention of a bracelet. And because of his great urgency, I have achieved for myself the married state. We were happy and wish you the same. And then she said she kissed my feet, which is very polite Spanish and signed herself undyingly and affectionately mine. Sr. Vincente gave SK's words backing when he wrote, I was willing to give up always despair. I vowed I would not request again when low she softened and turned to me the glory of her love. I was glad it ended that way. What are you thinking of? Ask SK that afternoon, on February 14 when we were all together and yet all sort of paired off in the living room. I told him, you like to see people love the people who love them. I said, no Evelyn has answered the right call. And I think Amy is going to push Shaw said SK you don't mean those kids. He didn't finish his sentence but he meant that Amy and Willie weren't old enough to do anything but all the latest walls and fox steps. I'm sure they're going to throw into it. I said, somehow I feel it. They slam each other now and disagree terribly, but he has unexpected moments of patience with her. And when he has those, I can see that he likes her lots. What sort as SK looking at them, they were doing a one step and Amy said Willie did it all wrong. And Willie said no, Northerner could dance. What with the victor and their quarreling we could shout anything and not be heard. I told him, he is trying to explain baseball to her. I said, since you said you'd take us all to all the games. And after he finished yesterday, she said, I don't think it's polite or nice for the man with the stick to wave it in front of the man with a little thing like a dish drain over his face. She saw game last year and that's all she got out of it. And I went on to explain how well Willie played and how he would usually greet that sort of a remark. SK laughed and after a little more watching them agree. Then I went on. I asked her last night whether she was going to marry the broker and she clasped her hands stared ahead and whispered what a child I was. And they laughed some more than he sobered. So he said, you like to see the fellow get the girl. I said I thought everyone was disappointed in books or life if he didn't. Then he mentioned a subject that he hadn't touched for ages and didn't mean to them. I think it slipped out and I found I didn't mind, but really liked it. Do you think he asked in an undertone that this fellow is going to get her. Oh SK I answered as I slipped my hand in his. I know he is and you do too. How can you help it. Dear child said SK my dear child. He said it in that tight way in which people speak when they care very much. And he pressed my hand between both of his. What are you talking of over there. Devlin looking up from her work and I gave an answer which did not surprise her for everyone did talk of them a great deal. If not exactly the sort SK and I had touched that day. We're discussing mystery said I write at a desk looking down at me. And then it came in trembling a T wagon ahead of him. I saw that he had Aunt Penelope's best service on it. Little cakes and paper cases and big pink roses on the mapkins. It looked pretty festive and good. It is day of love said it. We have fancy tea. The end of section 24. End of Natalie page by Catherine have been Taylor.