XXXV.
Maverick hurried his departure from the city; and Adèle, writing to Rose to announce the programme of her journey, says only this much of Reuben:—"We have of course seen R——, who was very attentive and kind. He has grown tall,—taller, I should think, than Phil; and he is quite well-looking and gentlemanly. I think he has a very good opinion of himself."
The summer's travel offered a season of rare enjoyment to Adèle. The lively sentiment of girlhood was not yet wholly gone, and the thoughtfulness of womanhood was just beginning to tone, without controlling, her sensibilities. The delicate attentions of Maverick were more like those of a lover than of a father. Through his ever watchful eyes, Adèle looked upon the beauties of Nature with a new halo on them. How the water sparkled to her vision! How the days came and went like golden dreams!
Ah, happy youth-time! The Hudson, Lake George, Saratoga, the Mountains, the Beach,—to us old stagers, who have breasted the tide of so many years, and flung off long ago all the iridescent sparkles of our sentiment, these are only names of summer thronging-places. Upon the river we watch the growth of the crops, or ask our neighbors about the cost of our friend Faro's new country-seat; we lounge upon the piazzas of the hotels, reading price-lists, or (if not too old) an editorial; we complain of the windy currents upon the lake, and find our chiefest pleasure in a trout boiled plain, with a dressing of Champagne sauce; we linger at Fabian's on a sunny porch, talking politics with a rheumatic old gentleman in his overcoat, while the youngsters go ambling through the fir woods and up the mountains with shouts and laughter. Yet it was not always thus. There were times in the lives of us old travellers—let us say from sixteen to twenty—when the great river was a glorious legend trailing its storied length through the Highlands; when in every opening valley there lay purple shadows whereon we painted castles; when the corridors and shaded walks of the "United States" were like a fairy land, with flitting skirts and waving plumes, and some delicately gloved hand beating its reveille upon the heart; and when every floating film of mist along the sea, whether at Newport or Nahant, tenderly entreated the fancy.
But we forget ourselves, and we forget Adèle. In her wild exuberance of joy Maverick shares with a spirit that he had believed to be dead in him utterly. And if he finds it necessary to check from time to time the noisy effervescence of her pleasure, as he certainly does at the first, he does it in the most tender and considerate way; and Adèle learns, what many of her warm-hearted sisters never do learn, that a well-bred control over our enthusiasms in no way diminishes the exquisiteness of their savor.
Maverick should be something over fifty now, and his keenness of observation in respect to feminine charms is not perhaps so great as it once was; but even he cannot fail to see, with a pride that he makes no great effort to conceal, the admiring looks that follow the lithe, graceful figure of Adèle, wherever their journey may lead them. Nor, indeed, were there any more comely toilettes for a young girl to be met with anywhere than those which had been provided for the young traveller under the advice of Mrs. Brindlock.
It may be true—what his friend Papiol had predicted—that Maverick will be too proud of his child to keep her in a secluded corner of New England. For his pride there is certainly abundant reason; and what father does not love to see the child of whom he is proud admired?
Yet weeks had run by and Maverick had never once broached the question of a return. The truth was, that the new experience was so charming and so engrossing for him, the sweet, intelligent face ever at his side was so full of eager wonder, and he so delightfully intent upon providing new sources of pleasure and calling out again and again the gushes of her girlish enthusiasm, that he shrunk instinctively from a decision in which must be involved so largely her future happiness.
At last it was Adèle herself who suggested the inquiry,—
"Is it true, dear papa, what the Doctor tells me, that you may possibly take, me back to France with you?"
"What say you, Adèle? Would you like to go?"
"Dearly!"
"But," said Maverick, "your friends here,—can you so easily cast them away?"
"No, no, no!" said Adèle,—"not cast them away! Couldn't I come again some day? Besides, there is your home, papa; I should love any home of yours, and love your friends."
"For instance, Adèle, there is my book-keeper, a lean Savoyard, who wears a red wig and spectacles,—and Lucille, a great, gaunt woman, with a golden crucifix about her neck, who keeps my little parlor in order,—and Papiol, a fat Frenchman, with a bristly moustache and iron-gray hair, who, I dare say, would want to kiss the pet of his dear friend,—and Jeannette, who washes the dishes for us, and wears great wooden sabots"——
"Nonsense, papa! I am sure you have other friends; and then there's the good godmother."
"Ah, yes,—she indeed," said Maverick; "what a precious hug she would give you, Adèle!"
"And then—and then—should I see mamma?"
The pleasant humor died out of the face of Maverick on the instant; and then, in a slow, measured tone,—
"Impossible, Adèle,—impossible! Come here, darling!" and as he fondled her in a wild, passionate way, "I will love you for both, Adèle; she was not worthy of you, child."
Adèle, too, is overcome with a sudden seriousness.
"Is she living, papa?" And she gives him an appealing look that must be answered.
And Maverick seems somehow appalled by that innocent, confiding expression of hers.
"May-be, may-be, my darling; she was living not long since; yet it can never matter to you or me more. You will trust me in this, Adèle?" And he kisses her tenderly.
And she, returning the caress, but bursting into tears as she does so, says,—
"I will, I do, papa."
"There, there, darling!"—as he folds her to him; "no more tears,—no more tears, chérie!"
But even while he says it, he is nervously searching his pockets, since there is a little dew that must be wiped from his own eyes. Maverick's emotion, however, was but a little momentary contagious sympathy with the daughter,—he having no understanding of that unsatisfied yearning in her heart of which this sudden tumult of feeling was the passionate outbreak.
Meantime Adèle is not without her little mementos of the life at Ashfield, which come in the shape of thick double letters from that good girl Rose,—her dear, dear friend, who has been advised by the little traveller to what towns she should direct these tender missives; and Adèle is no sooner arrived at these postal stations than she sends for the budget which she knows must be waiting for her. And of course she has her own little pen in a certain travelling-escritoire the good papa has given her; and she plies her white fingers with it often and often of an evening, after the day's sight-seeing is over, to tell Rose, in return, what a charming journey she is having, and how kind papa is, and what a world of strange things she is seeing; and there are descriptions of sunsets and sunrises, and of lakes and of mountains, on those close-written sheets of hers, which Rose, in her enthusiasm, declares to be equal to many descriptions in print. We dare say they were better than a great many such.
Poor Rose feels that she has only very humdrum stories to tell in return for these; but she ekes out her letters pretty well, after all, and what they lack in novelty is made up in affection.
"There is really nothing new to tell," she writes, "except it be that our old friend, Miss Almira Tourtelot, astonished us all with a new bonnet last Sunday, and with new saffron ribbons; and she has come out, too, in the new tight sleeves, in which she looks drolly enough. Phil is very uneasy, now that his schooling is done, and talks of going to the West Indies about some business in which papa is concerned. I hope he will go, if he doesn't stay too long. He is such a dear, good fellow! Madame Arles asks after you, when I see her, which is not very often now; for since the Doctor has come back from New York, he has had a new talk with mamma, and has quite won her over to his view of the matter. So good bye to French for the present! Heigho! But I don't know that I'm sorry, now that you are not here, dear Ady.
"Another queer thing I had almost forgotten to tell you. The poor Boody girl,—you must remember her? Well, she has come back on a sudden; and they say her father would not receive her in his house,—there are terrible stories about it!—and now she is living with an old woman far out upon the river-road,—only a little garret-chamber for herself and the child she brought back with her. Of course nobody goes near her, or looks at her, if she comes on the street. But—the queerest thing!—when Madame Arles heard of it and of her story, what does she do but walk far out to visit her, and talked with her in her broken English for an hour, they say. Papa says she (Madame A.) must be a very bad woman or a very good woman. Miss Johns says she always thought she was a bad woman. The Bowriggs are, of course, very indignant, and I doubt if Madame A. comes to Ashfield again with them."
And again, at a later date, Rose writes,—
"The Bowriggs are all off for the winter, and the house closed. Reuben has been here on a flying visit to the parsonage; and how proud Miss Eliza was of her nephew! He came over to see Phil, I suppose; but Phil had gone two weeks before. Mamma thinks he is fine-looking. I fancy he will never live in the country again. When shall I see you again, dear, dear Ady? I have so much to talk to you about!"
A month thereafter Maverick and his daughter find their way back to Ashfield. Of course Miss Johns has made magnificent preparations to receive them. She surpassed herself in her toilette on the day of their arrival, and fairly astonished Maverick with the warmth of her welcome to his child. Yet he could not help observing that Adèle met it more coolly than was her wont, and that her tenderest words were reserved for the good Doctor. And how proud she was to walk with her father upon the village street, glancing timidly up at the windows from which she knew those stiff old Miss Hapgoods must be peeping out! How proud to sit beside him in the parson's pew, feeling that the eyes of half the congregation were fastened on the tall gentleman beside her! Ah, happy daughter! may your beautiful filial pride never have a fall!
Important business letters command Maverick's early presence abroad; and, after conference with the Doctor, he decides to leave Adèle once more under the roof of the parsonage.
"Under God, I will do for her what I can," said the Doctor.
"I know it, I know it, my good friend," says Maverick. "Teach her self-reliance; she may need it some day. And mind what I have said of this French woman. Adèle seems to have a tendresse that way. Those French women are very insidious, Johns."
"You know their ways better than I," said the Doctor, dryly.
"Good! a smack of the old college humor there, Johns. Well, well, at least you don't doubt the sacredness of my love for Adèle?"
"I trust, Maverick, I may never doubt the sacredness of your love in any direction. I only hope you may direct it where I fear you do not."
"God bless you, Johns! I wish I were as good a man as you."
A little afterwards Maverick was humming a snatch from an opera under the trees of the orchard; and Adèle went bounding toward him, to take the last walk with him for so long,—so long!