XXIX.
From time to time Maverick had written in reply to the periodical reports of the Doctor, and always with unabating confidence in his discretion and kindness.
"I have remarked what you say" (he had written thus in a letter which had elicited the close attention of Miss Eliza) "in regard to the rosary found among the girlish treasures of Adèle. I am not aware how she can have come by such a trinket from the source named; but I must beg you to take as little notice as possible of the matter, and please allow her possession of it to remain entirely unremarked. I am specially anxious that no factitious importance be given to the relic by opposition to her wishes."
Heavy losses incident to the political changes of the year 1831 in France had kept him fastened at his post; and with the reviving trade under the peaceful régime of Louis Philippe, he had been more actively engaged even than before. Yet there was no interruption to his correspondence with Adèle, and no falling off in its expressions of earnest affection and devotion.
"I fancy you almost a woman grown now, dear Adèle. Those cheeks of yours have, I hope, not lost their roundness or their rosiness. But, however much you may have grown, I am sure that my heart would guide me so truly that I could single you out from a great crowd of the little Puritan people about you. I can fancy you in some simple New England dress,—in which I would rather see you, my child, than in the richest silks of those about me here,——gliding up the pathway that leads to the door of the old parsonage; I can fancy you dropping a word of greeting to the good Doctor within his study (he must be wearing spectacles now); and at evening I seem to see you kneeling in the long back dining-room, as the parson leads in family prayer. Well, well, don't forget to pray for your old father, my child. I shall be all the safer for it, in what the Doctor calls 'this wicked land.' And what of Reuben, whose mischief, you told me, threatened such fearful results? Sobered down, I suppose, long before this, wearing a stout jacket of homespun, driving home the 'keow' at night, and singing in the choir of a Sunday. Don't lose your heart, Adèle, with any of the youngsters about you. I claim the whole of it; and every day and every night mine beats for you, my child."
And Adèle writes back:—
"My heart is all yours, papa,—only why do you never come and take it? So many, many years that I have not seen you!
"Yes, I like Ashfield still; it is almost a home to me now, you know. New Papa is very kind, but just as grave and stiff as at the first. I know he loves me, but he never tells me so. I don't believe he ever told Reuben so. But when I sing some song that he loves to hear, I see a little quirk by his temple, and a glistening in his eye, as he thanks me, that tells it plain enough; and most of all when he prays, as he sometimes does after talking to me very gravely, with his arm tight clasped around me, oh, I am sure that he loves me!—and indeed, and indeed, I love him back again!
"It was funny what you said of Reuben; for you must know that he is living in the city now, and happens upon us here sometimes with a very grand air,—as fine, I dare say, as the people about Marseilles. But I don't think I like him any better; I don't know if I like him as well. Miss Eliza is, of course, very proud of him, as she always was."
As the nicer observing faculties of his child develop,—of which, ample traces appear in her letters,—Maverick begs her to detail to him as fully as she can all the little events of her every-day life. He has an eagerness, which only an absent parent can feel, to know how his pet is received by those about her; and would supply himself, so far as he may, with a full picture of the scenes amid which his child is growing up. Sheet after sheet of this simple, girlish narrative of hers Maverick delights himself with, as he sits upon his balcony, after business hours, looking down upon the harbor of Marseilles.
"After morning prayers, which are very early, you know, Esther places the smoking dishes on the table, and New Papa asks a blessing,—always. Then he says, 'I hope Adaly has not forgotten her text of yesterday.' And I repeat it to him. Such a quantity of texts as I can repeat now! Then Aunt Eliza says, 'I hope, too, that Adèle will make no mistake in her "Paradise Lost" to-day. Are you sure you've not forgotten that lesson in the parsing, child?' Indeed, papa, I can parse almost any page in the book.
"'I think,' says New Papa, appealing to Miss Eliza, 'that Larkin may grease the wheels of the chaise this morning, and, if it should be fair, I will make a visit or two at the north end of the town; and I think Adaly would like to go with me.'
"'Yes, dearly, New Papa,' I say,—which is very true.
"And Miss Eliza says, very gravely, 'I am perfectly willing, Doctor.'
"After breakfast is over, Miss Eliza will sometimes walk with me a short way down the street, and will say to me, 'Hold yourself erect, Adèle; walk trimly.' She walks very trimly. Then we pass by the Hapgood house, which is one of the grand houses; and I know the old Miss Hapgoods are looking through the blinds at us, though they never show themselves until they have taken out their curl-papers in the afternoon.
"Dame Tourtelot isn't so shy; and we see her great, gaunt figure in a broad sun-bonnet, stooping down with her trowel, at work among the flower-patches before her door; and Miss Almira is reading at an upper window, in pink muslin. And when the Dame hears us, she lifts herself straight, sets her old flapping bonnet as square as she can, and stares through her spectacles until she has made us out; then says,—
"'Good mornin', Miss Johns. You're 'arly this mornin'.'
"'Quite early,' says Miss Eliza. 'Your flowers are looking nicely, Mrs. Tourtelot.'
"'Well, the pi'nys is blowed pretty good. Wouldn't Adeel like a pi'ny?'
"It's a great red monster of a flower, papa; but I thank her for it, and put it in my belt. Then the Dame goes on to tell how she has shifted the striped grass, and how the bouncing-Bets are spreading, and where she means to put her nasturtiums the next year, and brandishes her trowel, as the brigands in the story-books brandish their swords.
"And Miss Eliza says, 'Almira is at her reading, I see.'
"'Dear me!' says the Dame, glancing up; 'she's always a-readin'. What with novils and histories, she's injurin' her health, Miss Johns, as sure as you're alive.'
"Then, as we set off again,—the Dame calling out some last word, and brandishing her trowel over the fence,—old Squire Elderkin comes swinging up the street with the 'Courant' in his hand; and he lifts his hat, and says, 'Good morning to you, Miss Johns; and how is the little French lady this morning? Bright as ever, I see,' (for he doesn't wait to be answered,)—'a peony in her belt, and two roses in her cheeks.' Yet my cheeks are not very red, papa; but it's his way....
"After school, I go for the drive with the Doctor, which I enjoy very much. I ask him about all the flowers along the way, and he tells me everything, and I have learned the names of all the birds; and it is much better, I think, than learning at school. And he always says, 'It's God's infinite love, my child, that has given us all these beautiful things, and these songsters that choir His praises.' When I hear him say it, I believe it, papa. I am very sure that the priest who came to see godmother was not a better man than he is.
"Then, very often, he lifts my hand in his, and says, 'Adaly, my dear, God is very good to us, sinners though we are. We cannot tell His meaning always, but we may be very sure that He has only a good meaning. You do not know it, Adaly, but there was once a dear one, whom I loved perhaps too well;—she was the mother of my poor Reuben; God only knows how I loved her! But He took her from me.'—Oh, how the hand of New Papa griped on mine, when he said this!—'He took her from me, my child; He has carried her to His home. He is just. Learn to love Him, Adaly. The love we give to Him we can carry with us always. He does not die and leave us. He is everywhere. The birds are messengers of His, when they sing; the flowers you love come from His bounty: oh, Adaly, can you not, will you not, love Him?'
"'I do! I do!' I said.
"He looked me full in the face, (I shall never forget how he looked,) 'Ah, Adaly, is this a fantasy of yours,' said he, 'or is it true? Could you give up the world and all its charms, could you forego the admiration and the love of all others, if only He who is the Saviour of us all would smile upon you?'
"I felt I could,—I felt I could, papa.
"But then, directly after, he repeated to me some of those dreary things I had been used to hear in the Catechism week after week. I was so sorry he repeated them, for they seemed to give a change to all my thought. I am sure I was trustful before, when he talked to me so earnestly; but when he repeated only what I had learned over and over, every Saturday night, then I am afraid my faith drooped.
"'Don't tell me that, New Papa,' said I, 'it is so old; talk to me as you were talking.'
"And then the Doctor looked at me with the keenest eyes I ever saw, and said,—
"'My child, are you right, and are the Doctors wrong?'
"'Is it the Catechism that you call the Doctors?' said I.
"'Yes,' said he.
"'But were they better men than you, New Papa?'
"'All men alike, Adaly, all struggling toward the truth,—all wearying themselves to interpret it in such way that the world may accept it, and praise God who has given us His Son a sacrifice, by whom, and whom only, we may be saved.' And at this he took my hand and said, 'Adaly, trust Him!'
"By this time" (for Adèle's letter is a true transcript of a day) "we have reached the door of some one of his people to whom he is to pay a visit. The blinds are all closed, and nothing seems to be stirring but a gray cat that is prowling about under the lilac bushes. Dobbins is hitched to the post, and the Doctor pounds away at the big knocker. Presently two or three white-headed children come peeping around the bushes, and rush away to tell who has come. After a little the stout mistress opens the door, and wipes her fingers on her apron, and shakes hands, and bounces into the keeping-room to throw up the window and open the blinds, and dusts off the great rocking-chair for the Doctor, and keeps saying all the while that they are 'very back'ard with the spring work, and she really had no time to slick up,' and asks after Miss Eliza and Reuben, and the Tourtelots, and all the people on the street, so fast that I wonder she can keep her breath; and the Doctor looks so calm, and has no time to say anything yet. Then she looks at me, 'Sissy is looking well,' says she, and dashes out to bring in a great plate of gingerbread, which I never like at all, and say, 'No.' But she says, 'It won't hurt ye; it a'n't p'ison, child.' So I find I must eat a little; and while I sit mumbling it, the Doctor and she talk on about a great deal I don't understand, and I am glad when she bounces up again, and says, 'Sis would like to get some posies, p'raps,' and leads me out of doors. 'There's lalocs, child, and flower-de-luce: pick what you want.'
"So I go wandering among the beds along the garden, with the bees humming round me; and there are great tufts of blue-bell, and spider-wort, and moss-pink; and the white-haired grandchildren come and put their faces to the paling, looking at me through the bars like animals in a cage; and if I beckon to them, they glance at each other, and dash away."
Thus much of Adèle's account. But there are three or four more visits to complete the parson's day. Possibly he comes upon some member of his flock in the field, when he draws up Dobbins to the fence, and his parishioner, spying the old chaise, leaves his team to blow a moment while he strides forward with his long ox-goad in hand, and, seating himself upon a stump within easy earshot, says,—
"Good mornin', Doctor."
And the parson, in his kindly way, "Good morning, Mr. Pettibone. Your family pretty well?"
"Waäl, middlin', Doctor,—only middlin'. Miss Pettibone is a-havin' faint-ish spells along back; complains o' pain in her side."
"Sorry, sorry," says the good man: and then, "Your team is looking pretty well, Mr. Pettibone."
"Waäl, only tol'able, Doctor. That nigh ox, what with spring work an' grass feed is gittin' kind o' thin in the flesh. Any news abaout, Doctor?"
"Not that I learn, Mr. Pettibone. We're having fine growing weather for your crops."
"Waäl, only tol'able, Doctor. You see, arter them heavy spring rains, the sun has kind o' baked the graound; the seed don't seem to start well. I don't know as you remember, but in '29, along in the spring, we had jist sich a spell o' wet, an' corn hung back that season amazin'ly."
"Well, Mr. Pettibone, we must hope for the best: it's all in God's hands."
"Waäl, I s'pose it is, Doctor,—I s'pose it is." And he makes a cut at a clover-head with the lash upon his ox-goad; then—as if in recognition of the change of subject—he says,—
"Any more talk on the street abaout repairin' the ruff o' the meetin'-house, Doctor?"
At sundown, all visits being paid, they go jogging into town again,—the Doctor silent by this time, and thinking of his sermon, Dobbins is tied always at the same post,—always the hitch-rein buckled in the third hole from the end.
After tea, perhaps, Phil and Rose come sauntering by, and ask if Adèle will go up 'to the house'? Which request, if Miss Eliza meet it with a nod of approval, puts Adèle by their side: Rose, with a beautiful recklessness common to New England girls of that day, wearing her hat drooping half down her neck, and baring her clear forehead to the falling night-dews. Phil, with a pebble in his hand, makes a feint of throwing into a flock of goslings that are waddling disturbedly after a pair of staid old geese, but is arrested by Rose's prompt "Behave, Phil!"
The Squire is reading his paper by the evening lamp, but cannot forbear a greeting to Adèle:—
"Ah, here we are again! and how is Madamòizel?" (this is the Squire's style of French,)—"and has she brought me the peony? Phil would have given his head for it,—eh, Phil?"
Rose is so bright, and glowing, and happy!
Mrs. Elderkin in her rocking-chair, with her gray hair carefully plaited under the white lace cap whose broad strings fall on either shoulder, is a picture of motherly dignity. Her pleasant "Good evening, Adèle," would alone have paid the warm-hearted exile for her walk.
Then follow games, chat, and an occasional noisy joke from the Squire, until the nine o'clock town-bell gives warning, and Adèle wends homeward under convoy of the gallant Phil.
"Good night, Adèle!"
"Good night, Phil!"
Only this at the gate. Then the Doctor's evening prayer; and after it,—in the quiet chamber, where her sweet head lay upon the pillow,—dreams. With recollections more barren than those of most of her years, of any early home, Adèle still dreamed as hopefully as any of a home to come.