THE HOUSE OF YORKE.
CHAPTER IX.
TWO YEARS AFTER
A heavy heart is a wonderful assistant in acquiring repose of manner, it weighs so on the impulses and desires, and thus keeps them in order—fortunately for Mrs. Jane Rowan. On the whole, she behaved very well in her new situation, and did not fret herself nor the family too much. By the gentleman of the house and his daughter she was not treated as a hired servant, but as Mr. Williams's sister might have been treated, if he had had one to take charge of his establishment. With the sister-in-law, Mrs. Bond, and the servants, it was otherwise. The former was one of those persons who merit pity, from the fact that they can never feel the delight of a generous emotion. She worshipped the guinea's stamp, but the preciousness of fine gold she knew not: for her, the guinea might as well have been made of copper. If she had been born to a servile estate, she would have remained there, and adorned her position; but she had been associated with persons of respectability and even of eminence. The advantages of this association she showed in that the arrogance with which she treated her supposed inferiors was cold and quiet, and her subservience to her acknowledged superiors had an air of personal fondness.
This woman's greatest fear was lest some one should marry her brother-in-law, in consequence of which she labored incessantly to remove from him all dangerous acquaintances: her second source of terror was that her niece might be captivated by some ineligible person, and the result was that every hovering monsieur and professor who assisted in educating the young woman was watched as if he had been a pick-pocket. Helen Williams used to complain bitterly to the housekeeper of this espionage, and Mrs. Bond used as strenuously to invoke the aid of the housekeeper in watching; so that the unfortunate woman was between two fires, and scorched pro and con. But the great trial of her life was the servants. Over these potentates she was supposed to exercise some authority, and for some of their doings she was held responsible; but the fact was that they laughed her to scorn. As to commanding them, Mrs. Rowan would as soon have thought of commanding the lancers or the cadets, and indeed the lancers or the cadets would quite as soon have thought of obeying her. But through all these mean annoyances, thanks to sorrow, the quieter, she walked with a gentle patience which saved her from serious hurt.
Happily, the person on whom her fortunes most depended put her quite at ease in his regard. Mr. Williams was moderately kind, not expressively polite, and did not scruple to make her useful. He had also certain habits which soothed her sense of inferiority, since she did not consider them polite: he reached across the table sometimes in a shocking manner to help himself, he bolted his food when he was in haste, he smoked a pipe in the sitting-room without asking leave, and, while smoking, habitually assumed a position contrary to the apparent intention of nature, by placing his feet higher than his head. There were times when the housekeeper dared to think that she was almost as much a lady as Mr. Williams was a gentleman. But she liked him all the better for his deficiencies. She liked him, too, for the interest he took in her son.
In the fall, Mr. Williams and Major Cleaveland had entered into partnership, and enlarged their shipping interests, and the former had said to Mrs. Rowan of Dick, "If the boy continues to do well, we must give him a ship."
The mother's heart beat high. In two years Dick would come back, and then perhaps Mr. Williams would remember his promise. That her son would deserve such favor she never doubted. Young Mr. Rowan had the power of inspiring every one who knew him with entire confidence. So the mother set herself to endure and count away the months to the coming home of her son. The winter melted, and spring came—six months nearer! The summer glowed, and grew chilly into autumn—only a year longer! A second winter wore itself away—but six months left! and what you can have back again in six months, you touch already. Six months is only twenty-four weeks; and, while you are counting them, the four have slipped away. What signifies five months? One sleeps through nearly a third of them, which leaves three months of conscious waiting. Hearts do not count fractions. Three months—and now they begin to drag. It is July, and that month has so many days, and the days have so many hours in them, and the hours are so long. You begin to fancy that heat dilates time as well as metals. You say that it is just your luck that the only time in the year when two months in succession have thirty-one days should be precisely this time. Good-by to July! I would have spoken you more courteously, O month of Cæsar! had you not stood between my friend and me. Not Cæsar's self may do that! Two months now; but much may happen in that time: kingdoms have been lost and won in less. Fade, O summer flowers! for ye can bloom again when love is dead. Hasten, O fruitful autumn! and bring the harvest long waited for. The weeks grow less, and only one is left; but you dare not rejoice; so much may happen in a week! Days roll round with an audible jar, as if you heard the earth buzz on her axis, and only one is left. O God! how much may happen in a day! The pendulum swings entangled in your heart-strings, the minutes march like armed men. Merciful Father! hearts have broken in a minute. Yes; but hearts that were sinking have grown glad in a minute, shall grow glad, Deo volente. The terrible if that held his skeleton finger up before the face of your hope, that drove sleep from your eyes, that weighed upon you ceaselessly, shall fade to a shadow, and the shadow shall disappear in sunshine—Deo volente!
The sea was smooth—perhaps the prayers of the mother had smoothed it; the sky was sunny—it may have been for that mother's sake; and one blessed tide that came running up the harbor, ripple after ripple falling on the shore like breathless messengers, brought a ship in from the East with a precious freight for the owners, and for Mrs. Rowan a freight more precious than if the ship had been piled for her mast-high with gold.
A young man's handsome bronzed face looked eagerly through the rigging, and saw a carriage drawn up close to the wharf, a man standing beside the open door of it, and a woman's pale face leaning out. The pale face turned red as he looked, and his mother's hands were stretched toward him.
"O Dick! my own boy!"
"Jump right in and go home with your mother," said Mr. Williams. "I want to see the captain."
And this reminds us that we are before our story. Several notable incidents had occurred in Mrs. Rowan's life before that happy day. One was that, on the first of September, just a month before, Mr. Williams had asked her to be his wife. The two were sitting together after tea, Helen having gone to a concert with her aunt. Mrs. Rowan was hemming handkerchiefs for Mr. Williams, and thinking of Dick, wondering where he was and what he might be doing just at that moment, and Mr. Williams was glancing over the Evening Post, and thinking of himself and his companion.
If the President of the United States, at that time General Taylor, had sent Daniel Webster as his ambassador to invite Mrs. Rowan to preside over the White House for him, she could not have been more astonished.
There was nothing amazing in the manner of the proposal, however. Mr. Williams had just been reading an editorial on the "Wilmot proviso," and, having finished it, took his pipe from his mouth, glanced across the table on which his elbow leaned, and said quietly, "I've been thinking that we may as well get married, as we shall probably always live together. Helen and Dick will some time build nests of their own, and they won't want either of us. I shall treat you as well as I always have, and I hope you will be satisfied with that, and I shall do something for Dick. I'm rather in love with the fellow. I really cannot see why you should object, though I give you credit for being surprised. If you had expected me to ask you, I should have disappointed you. Suppose we should be married before Dick gets home, for a pleasant surprise for him!"
Mrs. Rowan had dropped her work, and sat staring at Mr. Williams, to see if he were jesting.
"I am in earnest," he said. "How does the idea strike you?"
"It strikes me"—she stammered faintly, and stopped there.
"So I perceive," was the dry comment with which he put his pipe between his lips again. "Take time. Don't be in a hurry to answer; I am not a frantic lover of twenty."
Mrs. Rowan sat with her hands clasped on the pile of handkerchiefs in her lap, and tried to think. It would be good for Dick, it would be better for Dick, it would be best for Dick. On Dick's account, she could not dream of refusing; indeed, she would not have presumed to refuse, even had there been no Dick in the case. But, for all that, Mr. Williams's last sentence rang in her ears, and made her eyes fill. Once upon a time—so long ago!—she was young and pretty, and then there was somebody handsomer, better educated, more talented than this man, who was a frantic lover of twenty when he asked her to be his wife. If she had known better then, been more earnest and serious, that blossom day of her life had borne good fruit, perhaps, instead of an apple of Sodom, and her husband might have been still living. If she had loved him less weakly, she might have saved him.
"Well?" said Mr. Williams, having given her ten minutes by the clock.
She started, and came back to the present. In the pain of the past she was momentarily strong. "I suppose you know best for yourself," she said quietly; "and I have no objection for Dick's sake."
Mr. Williams had been a little afraid of a scene, and her quiet and the tears in her eyes touched him. "I don't believe you will be sorry for it, Jane," he said kindly. "I have heard that you have had one sad experience, and I can promise you that you shall have nothing like that from me."
A slight shadow, almost a frown, passed over her face. "You are very kind," she said in a cold voice. "But as to the past, no one is to blame but me. I stand by the man I married when I was a young girl. I loved him then and always, and I hope to meet him again. He was too good for me."
"All right!" replied the merchant cheerfully, but with some surprise. He had not thought that the widow possessed so much spirit. "We need not disagree about him. We can enter into a partnership for the rest of our lives. As to the other world, I'll ask for no mortgages on that. If you run away with Mr. Rowan when we get there, I won't run after you. May be somebody else will be claiming me. I'm satisfied, if you are. We are too old for sentiment."
So saying, he turned again to the Evening Post, and pursued his reading.
Too old for sentiment! She looked at him with eyes in which, for a moment, a high and shining wonder dilated. Why, if Richard had lived and prospered, and she had made him happy, she could have run to meet him with roses of joy in her cheeks, though she were half a century old. She could have been as watchful of his looks and tones, as quick to tune her own by them, as when she was a girl. Too old for sentiment! Well, it takes all sorts of people to make a world, she thought.
An hour of silence passed, the woman sewing, the man reading. At ten o'clock Mrs. Rowan rose to go to bed. Mr. Williams looked up. "Let's see, this is September first," he said. "Suppose we call in the parson about the tenth?"
She stopped—she and her breath.
"You know we need not bother about a bridal tour," he said. "And I think we may as well keep our own counsel. When it is all over, I'll introduce you to Mrs. Bond as a new sister-in-law. Don't be afraid: I will make her keep the peace. I am a justice, you know."
"Very well," said Mrs. Rowan. "Do as you like."
There was no more said that night; but the next morning Mr. Williams gave the widow a short lecture on the manner in which he wished her to conduct herself toward those about her. "You are too humble and yielding," he said. "Of course, I do not expect you to change your character; but, recollect, you have me to stand by you. If Sarah Bond should annoy you, stand your ground. If the servants are impudent, dismiss them. If anything whatever happens displeasing to you, tell me the minute I get home, and I will set the matter right."
With that he went.
An hour after, a carriage drew up at the door, and a woman came into the house, and asked to see Mrs. Rowan. She was a woman of middle age, and looked nervous and worried.
"I am Miss Bird, Miss Clinton's companion," she announced. "Miss Clinton wants to see you right away. She has sent the carriage for you."
"Who is Miss Clinton?" Mrs. Rowan asked; "and what does she want of me?"
The companion looked at her in astonishment. Not know who Miss Clinton was! But it must be true that she did not, or she would not have presumed to ask the other question. "Miss Clinton is one of the first ladies in Boston," Miss Bird said, with quite a grand air. "When you go to her, she will probably tell you what she wants."
"Cannot she come to see me?" Mrs. Rowan asked.
This last piece of assumption was from the future Mrs. Williams, not from Mr. Williams's housekeeper.
"Why, what can you be thinking of?" the woman cried. "Miss Clinton must be eighty years old, if not ninety. I am not sure but she is a hundred."
Having ventured so much, after a slight pause, Miss Bird went on. "And she is like cider, the older she grows, the sourer she grows."
"Oh! then, I will go," Mrs. Rowan said at once. "I didn't know she was so old."
She did not hurry, however. She arrayed herself deliberately from head to foot, and came down to find Miss Bird pacing the entry in a fever of impatience.
"Dear me! do come!" exclaimed that frightened creature, and unceremoniously pulled Mrs. Rowan into the carriage. "Drive for your life!" she called out then to the coachman.
"Is anything the matter with Miss Clinton?" inquired Mrs. Rowan anxiously.
"Oh! bless us!" sighed the companion. "Something is always the matter with Miss Clinton when she has to wait."
They reached the house—a large, old-fashioned one in a most respectable locality—entered, and went up-stairs to a sunny parlor with windows looking into a garden. The four walls of this room were entirely covered with pictures, the central places being occupied by four portraits of a lady, the same lady, painted in different costumes, and at different ages. It was a handsome face, not without signs of talent. The original of these portraits sat in an arm-chair near one of the windows. The silvery curls of a wig clustered about her wrinkled face, a scarlet India shawl was wrapped around her tall, upright form, and her small hands glittered with rings. On a table at her elbow were her hand-bell, eye-glasses, scent-bottle, snuff-box, and bonbonnière.
As the two entered the room, the old lady snatched her glasses, and put them up with a shaking hand. "So you have got here at last!" she cried out. "Have you been taking Mr. What's-his-name's housekeeper a drive on the Mill-dam, Bird?"
"I was obliged to wait for Mrs. Rowan," Bird said meekly. "She will tell you."
"I came as soon as I was ready, ma'am," interposed Mrs. Rowan. "I did not want to take the trouble to come at all. If you have no business with me, I will go home again."
Miss Clinton turned and stared at the speaker, noticing her for the first time.
"I have business with you," she said in a sharp voice, after having looked the widow over deliberately. "Come here! Bird, bring a chair, and then go out of the room."
Bird obeyed.
"I want to know about that Yorke girl," the old lady began, when they were alone. "If you wish to befriend her, you had better tell me all you know. As for Amy Arnold, she deserves to be poor. I will not give her a dollar. She was always a sentimental simpleton, with her fine ideas. Not but fine ideas are good in their place: I always had them, but I had common sense too. I kept my sentiments, as I keep my rings and brooches, for ornament; that is the way sensible people do; but she must pave the common way with hers. Fancy a girl with absolute beauty, and money in expectation, if she behaved herself, marrying a poor artist because, forsooth, they had congenial souls! Congenial fiddlesticks! If I had had the power, I would have shut her up till she came to her senses. I am thankful to be able to say that I did box her ears soundly. Fortunately, the fellow died in a year, and Mr. Charles Yorke took pity on her. Charles Yorke is a respectable man, but I am not fond of him. I was fond of Robert till he treated Alice Mills so. Though, indeed, it was an escape for Alice; for he would have broken her heart. Robert didn't know enough to love a plain woman.
"The little Pole knew how to make him behave himself. I rather liked that girl, and I would have done something for them if Alice had not been my friend. What is the child like? Tell me all about her."
The door opened. "I won't see anybody!" Miss Clinton screamed, waving the servant away. Then, as he was going, she called him back. "Who is it? Alice Mills? The very one I want! Show her in!"
Mrs. Rowan looked with eager interest at this visitor, and saw a lady of medium size, graceful figure, and plain face. Was she plain, though? That was the first impression; but when she had taken Miss Clinton's hand, and kissed her cheek tenderly, putting her other hand on the other cheek, in a pretty, caressing way, and had asked sweetly of the old lady's health, Mrs. Rowan found her beautiful. So still and gentle, and yet so bright, was she, all harmony seemed to have entered the room with her. Even Miss Clinton's harsh face softened as she looked up at her with a gaze of fondness that had something imploring in it, and clung to her hand a moment.
"You have come in good time, my dear," she said then, in a voice far gentler than she had spoken with before. "This is the person who had charge of Robert Yorke's daughter."
The lady had seated herself close to Miss Clinton's side, with a hand still resting on the arm of her chair. At this announcement she turned rather quickly, but with instinctive courtesy, and looked searchingly at Mrs. Rowan. Then she went to take her hand. "I had a letter from Edith to-day," she said, "and she mentioned you very affectionately. I thought when I read it that I would go to see you."
"Ahem!" coughed Miss Clinton harshly. "Come here, Alice! I have sent for Mrs. What's-her-name to tell us all about the child, so you are saved the trouble of going to her."
Mrs. Rowan's impulse had been to kiss the gentle hand that touched hers, but this interruption checked her. Miss Mills went back to her seat, and the catechism began. It was not a pleasant one. More than once the widow thought that "one of the first ladies in Boston" was a very rude and impudent old woman; but for the sake of that sweet face, which seemed to entreat her forbearance, she answered civilly.
The questioning ended. "Now you may go," said Miss Clinton, and, turning her back on Mrs. Rowan, began to talk to her friend.
"O my friend! how can you?" exclaimed Miss Mills reproachfully. "You are so kind, Mrs. Rowan," rising to take leave of her. "I am glad to have seen you."
Mrs. Rowan's face was crimson. What would Dick say to see his mother so treated? and what would Mr. Williams say?
"Why, Alice, she is that John Williams's housekeeper," the old woman said, when Mrs. Rowan had gone.
"And what are you?" was the question which rose almost to the younger lady's indignant lips. But she suppressed it, and only showed her disapproval by sitting silent a moment.
"Did you expect me to get up and make a court courtesy?" pursued Miss Clinton. "Why, I wouldn't do that for you, my dear. And why should I not tell her to go? I had no more to say to her, and I dare say she was glad to get away. If people fell in love with me as they do with you, you soft creature! then I might be sweeter with them; but they hate me, and so I can afford to be sincere. It saves trouble, besides."
"If every one practised that sort of sincerity, we should soon lapse into barbarism," was the quiet reply.
"If you only came here to lecture and scold me, you had better have staid away," the old woman cried, beginning to tremble.
The other said nothing, only sat and looked steadily at her. With Alice Mills, charity was a virtue, not a weakness. She beheld with pain and terror this woman, whose whole life had been one of utter selfishness, who was going down to the grave with no love in her heart for God nor her neighbor. She knew that she was the only one who dared to speak the truth to Miss Clinton, and therefore she dared not be silent. She knew that she was the only one in whom the lonely old sinner believed, or whom she could be influenced by; and it was one of the prayerful studies of her life how best to use that power. To yield to pity, and refrain from reproof, would be to encourage faults which had become habitual; so, instead of coaxing and soothing, she only waited for submission, not to herself, but to right and justice. The time for Miss Clinton's conversion was so short, and the progress had been so slow, this friend was almost tempted to despair. "Final impenitence" seemed to be written in those hard old eyes, on that bitter old mouth.
Miss Clinton scolded, then complained, then bemoaned herself, finally submitted. "You know, Alice, I have got so in the habit of ordering people about, and most people are so slavish, I do not think," she said, wiping her eyes.
That was all her friend asked—a sense of having done wrong. Then came the time for soothing, and for bright and cheerful talk.
After such a regimen, it might reasonably be supposed that Miss Clinton would treat her next visitor with decent civility; and the immediate happy result of the lesson was that for that day Bird escaped further abuse.
When, a fortnight later, Miss Mills told the old lady that Mr. Williams and Mrs. Rowan were married, Miss Clinton was astounded. "That accounts for her turning so red when I told her to go," she said. "Well, well, I must be polite to Bird. For anything I know, she may be engaged to John C. Calhoun."
Mr. Calhoun was one of the old lady's idols.
"Married his housekeeper!" she pursued dreamily. "What a potpourri society is becoming! Though now I think of it, John Williams came from nothing."
"We all came from nothing, dear," said the other softly, "and soon we shall return to nothing."
Yes, Mrs. Rowan was married, and quite at home in her new character. Mrs. Bond had been met in open field, challenged, engaged, and routed. At present she was at home nursing her wounds; but we may confidently expect that in time she will hand in her submission to the powers that be. They were quite willing to wait: their impatience was not devouring. Their minds were pleasantly occupied about this time by several things. Dick's return was the principal joyful event. Besides that, Major Cleaveland was visiting them. He had come up to superintend the refurnishing of his town-house for the reception of a bride. His marriage was to take place in a week or two at Seaton, and his partner, with his new wife and step-son, were invited to go down and be present at the ceremony. Mrs. Rowan-Williams had hesitated very much about accepting the invitation, but it was urged by the bridegroom-elect; Mr. Williams was disposed to go, Dick looked his desire to go, Edith had written a coaxing letter, and even Hester Yorke had sent a very pretty note, hoping that they would come. So it was decided that they should go.
Why should Hester Yorke's invitation be of special consequence, does any one ask? Having been put off as long as was possible, the truth must be told at last, though with great dissatisfaction. Miss Hester Yorke is to be the bride. Instead of fixing his affections on Melicent, who was twenty years his junior, or Clara, who was twenty two, nothing would satisfy this man but Hester, the youngest, and Hester he won.
But it was a good while before he won the father and mother. Mr. Yorke consented first, rather ungraciously, but Mrs. Yorke did not yield till the last minute, and then only to her husband's solicitations.
"If Hester is satisfied to marry a man old enough to be her father," he said, "we may as well consent. The age is the only objection."
"Hester is satisfied now," the mother said anxiously; "but she is only a child. We do not know how it will be ten years hence, when her character will be more developed. She will then be twenty-eight, and he fifty. "Oh! I have no patience with these ridiculous widowers!" And the lady wrung her hands.
"You misjudge Hester, my dear," the husband said. "She has developed all she ever will. She is no pomegranate in the bud, but a cherry fully ripened. Have you never observed that whatever is hers is always perfect in her eyes? She is ready now to maintain to the world that this is the most beautiful house that ever was built; that rat-holes are an advantage; that our furniture is the more desirable for being worn; that our roses are finer than any others, our vines more graceful, our birds more musical. Why, my dear, she thinks that I am a beauty!"
A soft little laugh rippled over Mrs. Yorke's lips. "So do I!" she said.
"That is because you look at me with such beautiful eyes," replied the gentleman gallantly. It was not often that his personal appearance was complimented. "But, to return: Hester will be the same to her husband. Once married to him, she will be absolutely convinced that there is not to be found his equal. I have no fear but that, ten years hence, if Major Cleaveland should be placed by the side of the most magnificent man on earth, Hester would maintain boldly that her husband was the superior. No; I anticipate no trouble for a long while. The only disagreeable view I take is, that when Hester is fifty, the golden middle age for a healthy woman, she will be nursing a childish old man of seventy-four, instead of having an equal friend and companion."
"Dear me!" exclaimed the wife, "I cannot possibly weep over what may happen thirty-two years hence."
And so the matter was settled; and now the Major was doing his utmost in honor of the event. The house in Seaton had been already put in perfect order, and the house in town was now, as we see, being adorned. They were to come there immediately, after a quiet wedding at Hester's home.
When Major Cleaveland returned to Seaton, a week after the wedding, he carried two offerings from Mrs. Rowan, one for the bride-elect, the other for Edith. Hester's present was quite simple, a package of photographic views taken in the city of Peking, and, seen through a stereoscope, almost as good as a visit to that city. But Dick's offering to Edith was an extravagant one: it was a Maltese cross set with emeralds.
This gift created a warm discussion in the Yorke family, who were almost unanimous against Edith's accepting it. Carl was especially indignant. "Edith is almost a young lady," he said; "and the fellow is presuming in sending her such a present. If he does not know better, he should be taught." Even Mrs. Yorke was disposed to be strict. But when they had all spoken, it was found that Edith had a voice.
They were in the sitting-room with Major Cleaveland, who had just arrived, and Mrs. Yorke was in the centre of the group. She had opened the box, and held the cross up glittering against her white hand. Edith had not touched it. She stood beside her aunt's chair, and listened while the discussion went on. Her eyes were cast down, and she seemed perfectly quiet; but, while she listened, into her usually pale cheeks a color grew, deepening from pink to a glowing crimson.
"I shall not refuse Dick's present," she said decidedly, when they came to a pause; and as she spoke up went her eyelids. Finding that Dick had no other friend but her, that he had enemies, perhaps, that his feelings were not to be counted, instantly she came to the rescue. As her glance flashed swiftly around the circle, it was as though a blade had been swung before their eyes.
"But, my dearest Edith," began Melicent, and then went over the whole argument again in her most suave and convincing manner.
"I know it all," Edith replied firmly. "I know what people consider proper about presents; but this is not a common case. I would not take that cross from Carl, nor from any other gentleman. But Dick is like no one else to me, and he shall not be hurt nor offended. He took pains to get the present, and thought a good deal about it, and brought it over the ocean for me, and was in hopes that I would be pleased; and I will not disappoint him."
Mrs. Yorke took the girl's hand affectionately, the disputed jewel dropping in her lap. "I would not hurt his feelings for the world, my love," she said. "Leave it all to me. I will explain to him so that he cannot be offended."
"Aunt Amy, no one in the world can explain between Dick Rowan and me," said Edith, withdrawing her hand. "You have been good to me, all of you, and I love you, and will obey you when it is right. But this isn't right: it is only what people who know nothing about it think proper. Dick was good to me first of all. Mamma used to have him take care of me when I was a tiny little girl; and, after mamma died, he did everything for me. If I wanted anything, he got it for me if he could; and if I broke his playthings and tore his books, he never scolded me. I remember once I hit him with a stick, and almost put his eye out; and when I cried, he kissed me and said, 'I know you didn't mean to, dear,' before his eye had stopped aching. That was the way he always did. And afterward, when the children laughed at me, because I was poor and queer, and they threw mud and stones at me here in the streets of Seaton, Dick fought them, he alone against the whole. And I never cried but he comforted me. I could not tell all that he did for me, though I should talk a week. I won't turn him off now. If he wanted to die for me, I'd let him; for it would be more than cruel to refuse. So, Aunt Amy, please to give me the cross. I am going to wear it always."
They were all silent at this first outbreak of her who had often won from Carl the greeting of Coriolanus to his wife, "My gracious silence, hail!" No one had the heart to refuse any longer, whatever might be the consequences of yielding.
Edith took the chain, and hung it about her neck, looking down on the cross a moment as it rested on her bosom. "Green means hope," she said.
Carl left the room. No one else said anything. Her address had struck too near home. They might forget the time when she had been poor and homeless, but she was not obliged to; and they could not in conscience quite disentangle her from her past.
"Dearest Aunt Amy, do smile again!" Edith entreated, putting her arms around Mrs. Yorke's neck. "You are not displeased with me! Don't you remember you told Dick that ingratitude is the vice of slaves?"
"Dear child, you do as you will with me," her aunt sighed; and so the dispute ended.
One day of the next week, as the steamer came ploughing up the Narrows into Seaton Bay, Mrs. Williams and her son sat in a corner of the deck by themselves. Mr. Williams, slightly sea-sick, was below. There were not many passengers that day, and no one seemed to have recognized these two. They sat leaning on the rail and looking off over the water. It could scarcely be expected that they would not feel some emotion on such a return to their native town after such a departure, and Dick held his mother's trembling hand tight in his, which, indeed, was scarcely steady.
A low, sandy island lay before them, and seemed to toss on the surface of the bay. "I wish I could go over there before we go home again," the mother whispered, looking up wistfully into her son's face.
"No!" he answered. "We shall be commented on and watched sufficiently as it is. Let the dead past bury its dead. It is a shame and disgrace. I cannot have it dragged up again."
He spoke firmly, and his mother was silenced. She feared her son in his rare moods of sternness. They awed her far more than his earlier passions had. Those she had understood, and could soothe; but now he was growing out of her knowledge. Besides, she did not dream what an ordeal his meeting with Edith's family was to be to him. To her simplicity, Hester's invitation and Edith's allowed intercourse with them seemed an entire adoption; but he knew better. On the whole, it was a time above all when he least desired to be remembered of his father.
As they neared the wharf, they saw Major Cleaveland standing there, with a tall, slim girl beside him. She wore a black riding-cap and feather, and a glimpse of scarlet petticoat showed as she gathered up her riding-skirt. The disengaged hand was flung out with a quick welcoming gesture as she saw them, and a flush went over her face.
Mr. Rowan drew back to let Mr. and Mrs. Williams land first, and waited till his mother had received the first greeting. Then he took Edith's hand, and looked down at her as she looked up at him. Her eyes sparkled, and she breathed quickly with joy. There was not, he saw, a cloud over the delight with which she met him.
"Dick," she said ecstatically, after a minute, "I think that you are perfectly splendid!"
In the old times they had used each other's eyes for mirrors: why not now?
"You do!" said the young man, tossing his head with a slight laugh.
"Thank you!"
"But you have grown," she pursued, contemplating him with great admiration. "And have not I grown tall?"
She stood back blushingly to be inspected.
"You're a pretty fair height," Dick said with an air of moderation.
"Come, they're waiting for us. Is this your pony?"
He lifted her to the saddle, then stepped into the carriage, and she rode alongside. He looked at her, and every nerve in him vibrated with triumph. She wore his cross on her bosom! They had not thought how much he had dared to mean by that. "If they let her take the cross, they will let her take me," he had said. If the gift had been refused, he would never have seen Edith again.
"It is most beautiful," she said, catching his glance. "I got Father Rasle to bless it, and I wear it all the time."
Presently Edith began to take notice of Mrs. Williams; and as she looked, her wonder grew. Mrs. Rowan had possessed only a wisp of faded hair: Mrs. Williams had a profuse and shining chevelure. Mrs. Rowan's teeth had been few and far between: Mrs. Williams's smile disclosed two unbroken and immaculate rows of ivory. But for the lingering lines in the forehead, and the kind eyes, and the simple ways, Edith would scarcely have recognized her old friend.
It was time for an early dinner when they reached the house, and Edith was to stay all day, and be hostess. It had been agreed that, under the circumstances, no hospitable cares could be expected from their host. His visitors were to use his house as a hotel, and do quite as they pleased in it. But in the afternoon, Major Cleaveland insisted that Mr. Rowan should go with him and call upon Hester, who wished to thank him without delay for the pretty present he had sent her. Dick would much have preferred remaining where he was; but he went, and was received with the utmost cordiality by all but Carl, who was not visible.
But Carl came up in the evening to escort Edith home, and had then "the honor of making Mr. Rowan's acquaintance" in a remarkably cool and ceremonious fashion.
"Mother thought you had better come home early, Edith, because we must all be up early in the morning," he said, after a little very polite and very constrained talk. "Besides," he added, with a slight smile, "I believe Patrick does not allow his horse to be out after nine o'clock. He lent him to me very grudgingly."
The night was one of perfect silence as the two rode homeward under the stars, and they were not talkative. Scarcely a word was spoken till they had crossed the bridge, and were riding up North Street. Then Edith spoke in a low voice:
"Are you tired, Carl?"
"No, thank you. Are you?"
"No."
Then there was silence for a while, till Edith began again:
"Carl, do not you think that Mrs. Williams is pleasant?"
"I did not observe," he replied coolly. "I scarcely heard her speak. I do not doubt that she is pleasant to you."
"Oh! you talked with Mr. Williams," she said. "Did you like him?"
"Not particularly."
Another silence. They had turned from the public road, and were being enclosed in the forest.
"How did you like Dick Rowan, Carl?" The question came with a faint sense of strain in the voice, and it was not answered immediately.
"I hope you will not expect me to be as fond of him as you are," he said presently. "He may be like a brother to you, but to me he is a stranger."
"But what do you think of him?" she persisted.
"He is very handsome," Carl said in a quiet tone, "and he looks like an honest fellow. I have no fault to find with him."
They turned up the avenue, alighted, and went up the steps together.
"Carl," said Edith wistfully, "are you troubled about anything?"
"What should trouble me, child?" he asked, with a touch of kindness in his voice.
"I do not know," she sighed. "Then are you vexed with me about anything?"
"No, Edith," he said, "I have no reason to be vexed with any one but myself. Good-night, dear!"
She echoed the good-night, and went up-stairs, not nearly so happy as she had expected to be that night.
The next morning the marriage took place. For Hester's sake we will say that the bride was lovely, and the wedding a pretty one. But we will not further celebrate Major Cleaveland's anachronistic nuptials.
The Williamses were to leave town in the evening. They dined at the Yorkes', and went away immediately after dinner. Edith was to walk down to the hotel with him, and stay there till the stage-coach should come for him.
"And we will walk the very longest way, Dick," she said. "I have hardly had a chance to speak to you yet. We have plenty of time, for they have to go up after their valises."
While Edith ran up-stairs for her hat, Mr. Rowan took leave of the others, and Mrs. Yorke walked out into the portico with him. The lady seemed to find difficulty in uttering something which she wished to say. But when she heard her niece coming, she spoke hastily. "Mr. Rowan, Edith is but a child!"
His face blushed up. "I do not forget that, Mrs. Yorke," he said; "but also, I do not forget that she is a child I have many a time carried in my arms."
"A very headstrong young man!" thought Mrs. Yorke, as she watched the two go down the steps together.
They went up the road, to strike into East Street, instead of down; and as the road, after passing the house, ceased almost entirely, they soon found themselves in a narrow forest track. Over their heads hung the splendid crimson and gold canopy of maples and beeches mingled, and vines ran through every glowing tone from garnet-black up to rose-color, or hung in deep purple masses. The mountain-ash bent to offer its clusters of red berries, and there was no tiniest shrub nor leaf but had its gala autumn dress. A blue mist showed faintly through the long forest reaches, and rich earth-odors rose on the moist air.
The immense conversation which was to have been held seemed to be forgotten; scarcely a word was said till they came out into the eastern road. Then Edith pointed across the way, and said, "Is it not lovely?" and they stopped a moment to look.
There was a tract of low swampy land there silvered over with mist, that seemed scarcely to rise a foot above it. Through this mist showed a fine emerald-green thick with pink and purple blooms, and over it swam a yellow-bird, in smooth undulations, as if it floated on a tide.
The two stood there for some time in silence, till that picture was perfectly painted on the memory of each. Then they walked on into the village. In a few minutes after they reached the hotel, the coach came down from Major Cleaveland's with Mr. and Mrs. Williams in it, the fare-wells were said, and they were gone.
CHAPTER X.
A DESPAIRING CHAPTER.
After all, no person's story can be truly told without beginning at the creation of the world. Not that we would invoke Darwinian aid, or inquire into the family peculiarities of the sponge—"O philoprogenitive sponge!" Nor would we intimate that the soul is as passive to circumstances as a rudderless ship to wind and wave, but assert rather that it is like the steamer, the great struggling creature, with a will at heart. But circumstances are strong, even very old circumstances, and our ancestors have a word to say, not as to our final destination, but as to the road by which we shall reach it. Coarser natures get their bent after the manner commemorated by the Mohammedan legend: some Eblis of an ancestor spurned their clay with his foot when the angels had kneaded it, and the dent is long in filling out; but finer souls are strung like the wind-harp, and from the long line-gale of ghosts preceding them is stretched now and then a viewless finger, which sets vibrating some silent inherited chord. Is it a vanishing and perpetually recurring strain of a Gregorian chant, breaking awfully into the pauses of a godless life? Is it an airily riotous Bacchic wreathing the slow minims of a choral? Catch up the strain and repeat it as you will, all your life shall be a palimpsest with Te Deum laudamus written largely over the fading errors; still the merit of good-will is not all your own. Or trip as your dutiful measure may, tangled in that wild song; the fault is not all yours. Many a Cassius may claim indulgence on the score of some rash inherited humor.
Does the reader perceive that we are trying to excuse somebody?
The truth is, Carl has disappointed us. We meant him to be an exquisite and heroic creation, perfect in every way; and we had a right to expect that our intentions would be realized; did not we make him ourself? But just as the clay model was finished, and we were complacently admiring it, into our atelier stepped the grand antique mother, Nature. She came with a sound of scornful sweet laughter, which seemed to roll cloud-wise under her feet, and curl up around the strong and supple form, and wreathe the wide slope of her shoulders. "Look you," she said, and pointed her finger, a little shaken with merriment, "that is not the way I make men. There are no muscles in those limbs, there is no sight under that brow, there is no live heart beating in that narrow chest. You have left no chance for a soul to get into your manikin." So saying, she stretched her finger yet further, and mockingly pushed it through the skull of our model; then disappeared, leaving all the air behind her tremulous with mirth.
Let us hurry over the present of this Carl with a hole in his head, out of which all his ideal perfections are escaping, but into which his true soul may some day enter. Outwardly he is studying law, inwardly he is studying chaos. What books Mr. Griffeth gave him to read, we know not; but we do know that the sentences were like smooth, strong fingers untying from him many of the restraints of his former education. With Theodore Parker, he could call the sacred Scriptures the "Hebrew mythology," and describe baptism as "being ecclesiastically sprinkled with water;" and having got so far—"What," said he, "is the use of Mr. Theodore Parker?" and so dropped him. The conversations Mr. Griffeth held with him we know little of, but may presume that they were not profitable. We only know that they were frequent. The two were constantly together, more constantly than suited Mr. Yorke, who lost faith in the minister. "He has no pity," he said. "He seems to have studied theology only to see how many sins he can commit without losing his soul." But this disapprobation of his step-father's had no effect on the young man, who was perfectly infatuated with his new friend. This quiet life of Carl's had produced a mental stagnation, from which arose all sorts of miasmata. He dimly knew them as such, but that did not prevent his breathing and poisoning himself with them. Perhaps he also suspected that Mr. Griffeth's wings would melt off if he were exposed to a strong and searching light; but the companionship was fascinating, and Carl fancied that he had found his like. It was not so; they were alike only as sharp six and flat seven are; they had identical moods; but Carl stooped to where his new friend rose.
One of the fine things the young man learned was the use of opium. "It makes you feel like a god while it lasts," says Mr. Griffeth, "puts you into a perfectly Olympian state. But I warn you," he added, with a tardy touch of conscience, "it does not last long, and from Olympia you sink to Hades."
"And then," says Carl, "you go about as Dante did, with your hands folded under your mantle, and people stand aside, and whisper about you. I will take the dark with the bright."
So saying, he measured out the drops, and drank them with the invocation: "Come, winged enchantment, and bear me wherever thou wilt."
Reader, didst thou ever see one dear to thee made tipsy with liquor? and dost thou remember the mingled pain, and pity, and contempt with which thou didst look on his abasement? A man, a king of the earth, a brother of saints, a friend of the Crucified, a child of the Most High, grovelling thus!
One comfort, nature, and not we, made this man fall so. O better comfort! he is earning mountain-loads of self-contempt, which shall one day be paid with interest.
Only a few other items have we to record at this time. The young ladies had made their proposed literary venture—Melicent with signal failure, Clara with partial success. Publishers had twenty-five different reasons, each better than the last, why a volume of European travels would not be at that particular time a fortunate venture, and were unanimously unable to say at what future period the prospect would be brighter. Miss Yorke was not entirely blind. She perceived that her book was a failure, and withdrew it. Whether she contemplated any other work, her family did not know. She maintained a profound silence on the subject. They suspected, however, that she was studying out a novel. Clara's first story, read with great applause to the family at home, was modestly offered to a respectable second-class magazine, and accepted, with a request for more. So Miss Clara occupies the proud position of being independent in the matter of pocket-money, and an occasional benefactor to the others.
Of more consequence to us is the fact that Father Rasle is now settled in Seaton, and building a church there. Something else is also being built in Seaton—a "Native American" society, alias Know-nothing. This society excited much attention and enthusiasm, especially in Mr. Griffeth's congregation, and among their friends. All the young men joined it. It seemed precisely to suit the genius of Seaton.
Against this party Mr. Charles Yorke fought with all his strength. It was contrary to the spirit of the constitution, he persisted; it had nothing in common with the Declaration of Independence. The views and aims of the party were narrow and bigoted, and their leaders were ignorant demagogues.
But all that he gained by his denunciations was unpopularity, and the party prospered yet more. It had not only the young and the infidel for active members; it had a sly encouragement from Mr. Griffeth, a cool approval from Doctor Martin, and an earnest help from the Rev. Mr. Conway, the gentleman whom we left in a soiled state half-way from Bragon to Seaton. He had preached the next Sunday with acceptance to his congregation, and was now settled among them. We may remark that he has not yet forgiven Mr. Griffeth the mistake about the pulpit, nor will he be convinced that it was a mistake. In consequence of this obduracy, the two ministers live in a state of feud, in which their congregations take part, to the slight disedification of old-fashioned people.