CHAPTER LXIV.
I have stated, elsewhere, that the dogma of the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures was held, at this period, throughout the length and breadth of Virginia. It was held, in truth, in a way to warm the heart of a thoroughgoing theologian; for to doubt it was to be totally bereft of reason. But many of my middle-aged fellow-citizens who are accustomed to laugh at the Catholic doctrine of papal infallibility, will be surprised when I remind them that, at that day, we believed, also, in something very nearly akin to the plenary inspiration of sermons (those of our own sect, of course).
And my Bushwhackerish candor compels me to go further, and to add that it seems to me that we Virginia Protestants, at that day, carried the dogma of parsonic infallibility to even greater lengths than Catholics do that of the papal. For, as I understand it, it is only in matters of faith that the Pope cannot err (and if he be infallible more than that, I kiss his holiness’s toe and beg absolution); whereas, our Protestant pontiffs did not hesitate to pronounce on all manner of questions,—questions of hygiene, for example; going so far as to add an eleventh commandment. As it is short, I will give it:
“Thou shalt not dance!” they cried in thunder tones; and, trembling, their flocks obeyed!
Yet dancing is (as you may find in the first dictionary you shall lay your hands on)—dancing is but the rhythmic capering of the young of our species for a brief season (ah, how brief and fleeting!). The rhythmic capering of the boys and girls, reinforced, perhaps, by an occasional widower (vivacious, high-prancing, nor hard to please), or else a sporadic widow or so, forgetting her first and for getting her second.
This capering our Protestant pontiffs put down. Motion, per se, they argued, was harmless; for the lamb, most scriptural of animals, frisketh where he listeth. ’Twas the rhythm of motion that was hurtful.
“Miss Sally,” cried a colored slave and sister to her young mistress, “you jump de rope and swing in de hammock, and you a member o’ de church!” [Her very words; nor were they the remains of a half-forgotten African fetich. They were a legitimate deduction from the theology current in my young days.]
“Thou shalt not dance!” they thundered.
As though one bade the birds cease singing. And Virginia bowed her head and obeyed.
We had our youthful sinners, of course, who wickedly refused to be content with Blind Man’s Buff and Who’s Got the Thimble? (just as His Holiness is bothered with his heretics). The Pope, however, wisely remembering that this is the nineteenth century, would probably leave it to the astronomers to say whether the earth revolves around its axis; but as to the exclusively physiological question whether it were injurious to dance a Virginia reel, no Virginian of those days ever dreamed of consulting his family physician.
Am I beyond the mark, reader, when I say that the papal infallibility pales in presence of the parsonic?
Can you wonder, then, that our poor little Mary was pale as ashes as she hurried home that day?
Her mother walked beside her in silence. That was bitter; for during these two months past Mrs. Rolfe had been more and more won over to the side of the Don by what she had heard, not only from Mrs. Carter and Alice, but from several of her acquaintance who had met him in Leicester during the winter; and the aggregate of her favorable impressions had been greatly strengthened by a little incident that had recently come to her ears.
It appears that Mrs. Poythress had been greatly interested in having a new roof and other repairs put upon the old church, and had succeeded in raising the whole amount, with the exception of eighty dollars. Now, one Sunday, as she was coming out of church with the congregation, a negro man, taking off his hat, handed her a small parcel, saying, “I were inquested to han’ you dis, ma’am,” and immediately bowed himself around the corner of the building and disappeared. When this was opened it was found to contain five twenty-dollar gold-pieces and a strip of paper on which was written the word roof in a disguised hand. The incident made some stir, as such things will, in a country neighborhood. Who was this, who was hiding from his left hand what his right hand did? The negro was hunted down by amateur female detectives, and proved to be none other than our friend Sam (who, it will be remembered, caught Charley and Alice at their love-making in the Argo). But nothing could be gotten out of honest Sam. “I was not to name no names,”—that was all he would say (adding thereunto, in the Elmington kitchen that night, that eff a five-dollar note wouldn’t shet a nigger mouf, twan’t no use to wase stickin’-plaster on him).
It was never discovered who had contributed the hundred dollars, but it was generally believed that it was the Don. As for Mrs. Rolfe, she never doubted for one moment that it was he, basing, too, upon this conclusion, half a dozen inferences, all favorable to the young man,—first, that his not going to church was a transient eccentricity; secondly, that he was a man of means; and, thirdly, that he was freehanded with the said means, etc., etc., etc.
This trait, as I presume everybody knows, is that which, next to personal courage, women most admire in a man. With what enthusiasm will a bevy of girls hail a bouquet, costly beyond the means of the giver, while the recipient of it, as she passes it from nose to nose, actually tosses hers with pride,—yes,—because her lover has not had the prudence to lay by what he gave for it against a rainy day and shoes for the children. Which is enough to make a philosopher rage; and it is all I can do to restrain my hand from levelling a sneer at the whole sex; and I’ll do it yet, one of these days, and come out as a wit,—one of these days when I can manage to forget that I once had a mother.
The more, therefore, Mrs. Rolfe heard of the Don, the more favorable she grew to his suit; and the more favorable she grew to his suit the more frequently did she allude to the absolute necessity of Mr. Rolfe’s seeing the young man and hearing his account of himself, before he could be allowed even to look at her Mary. It would be time enough, etc., etc.; but let a cloud appear on her daughter’s brow,—let her come down to breakfast pale and worn—
“I believe, Mary,” Alice used to say, “that you often assume a rueful countenance simply to lead your mother on to sing his praises.”
Never, in truth, had Mary felt herself so drawn to her mother as during this trying period of her young life; and to her ineffably tender, maternal solicitude her heart made answer with an unspoken yet passionate gratitude.
And now this mother, who was always ready with a soothing word, walked by her side in silence.
And Alice,—Alice, the merry and the brave,—where was she? Why does she, contrary to her custom, hang back so far in the rear, talking to Mr. Whacker in undertones? See, she has crossed over, and is walking down the street on the other side! Has she, too, deserted me? Oh, that terrible, terrible sermon! She ran up-stairs, locked her door, and threw herself upon the lounge.
Mary was right. The same words of the preacher which had stunned her had staggered her mother and Alice. Such was the power of the pulpit in those days. To both, as they stepped from the church-door into the street, the responsibility of combating the fulminations of their pastor seemed too heavy for their shoulders.
But our plucky little Alice was only staggered, and soon rallied. She would not go to see Mary that evening, so she told me; next morning would be better.
And so the shades of evening came, and the shades of evening deepened into night; and still she came not. Is it not enough that my mother should desert me? The clock struck nine. No hope! There, the bell rang! A soft tap on her door; not Alice’s merry rub-a-dub. A young slave and sister announced the cousin. Mary sprang to her feet: “I won’t see him,” she almost screamed; “tell him that!” cried she, advancing upon her late pupil in Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress” with looks so fierce and gestures so vehement as to drive her back in alarm upon the door which she had just entered with a smile.
“Yes, ma’am, yes, ma’am,” stammered the Pilgrim, fumbling over the door-knob in her confused effort to escape. “Yes, ma’am, I’ll tell him,” added she, courtesying herself out, and shutting the door softly behind her.
“Hi!” half whispered, half thought she to herself, as she stood upon the landing, collecting her breath and her wits. “Hi, what de matter wid Miss Mary? Fore Gaud, I was afeard she was gwine to bite me, I was! What he done do, I wonder? Oh, I tell you. She done git tired o’ him a-comin’ round and a-comin’ round, and f’reverlahstin’ coughin’, and coughin’ and coughin’, same like one o’ dese here little fice-dogs what bark and bark and never tree nothin’, dough he do drive off de oder varmints dat you mought cotch; and no gal don’t like dat, be she white or black. He’s a nice gent’mun, I don’t ’spute dat; but he are powerful wizzened up, dat’s a fac’. Howsomdever, I ain’t got de heart to give him no sich message. A gent’mun is a gent’mun, for all dat, and I ain’t had no sich raisin’. Nebberdeless, I ain’t a-blamin’ Miss Mary. She tired o’ dat kind. Well, I likes ’em spry and sassy myself, I does, and I s’pose folks is folks, dough dey be diff’ent colors. Ahem! Ahem!”
She was nearing the parlor-door, and was clearing her throat for a polite paraphrase, when she saw the front door gently close.
He had heard, and was gone.
Mary never saw him again. When he died, about a year afterwards, she said that she had forgiven him; but I doubt if she knew her own heart. There are some things a woman can never pardon.
Nor do I think that Alice has ever quite forgiven herself for her delay at this crisis. For she feels to this day, I suspect, that had she gone to see Mary that evening this story might have ended like a fairy-tale, with everybody happy, just as it fares in real life. But she waited till next morning.
And she awoke with the first twittering salutations of the birds to the dawn; the dawn of a lovely April day. She too (for she was young and happy) saluted Aurora; but with a sleepy smile; and readjusting the pillow to her fair head, dozed off again; dozed off again, just as her friend across the way, exhausted with pacing her room, had thrown herself, all dressed as she was, upon her bed. Her mother, stealing softly in, found her lying there, shortly afterwards, pale, haggard, breathing hard, her features bearing, even while she slept, traces of the struggle through which she had passed. And every now and then her overwrought frame shook with a quick nervous tremor. Her mother wrung her hands in silence, and turned to leave the room.
There was a letter, scaled and addressed, lying upon the table at which her daughter wrote; while all about her chair lay fragments of other letters, begun, but torn in pieces, and thrown upon the floor, though a basket stood near at hand. “This will not do,” thought her mother. “She must tell me what is in that letter before she mails it. We must look into this matter, carefully, before any irrevocable step be taken. Shall I take possession of it now? No, I will speak to her after breakfast. Poor child! Poor child!” And she stole out on tiptoe.
This was not the first time that Mrs. Rolfe had visited her daughter that night. At two o’clock in the morning, detecting the sound of footsteps in Mary’s room, she had gone up-stairs and found her pacing her room. She had entreated her to go to bed,—begged her to compose herself,—had pressed her daughter to her heart and wept upon her shoulder and bidden her good-night. Mary, hearing her mother coming, had hoped for a word of encouragement. But Mrs. Rolfe had not dared to give it, with the words of the preacher still resounding in her ears.
“It is all over, then,” she thought, when her mother closed the door; and seizing her pen, began to write. Wrote letter after letter, each in a different vein; each to be torn in pieces in turn. At last she wrote one which was barely two pages long. As she folded the letter there fell upon it a big tear, which she quickly dried with her handkerchief.
That tear-stain, poor child, had you left it there,—but it was not to be.
Another fell upon the address, blotting it. She got another envelope. This time, as she wrote the address, she averted her head. The hot tears fell upon the table.
That would tell no tales.
Her mother had seen the letter lying there, and was startled. She would talk to her daughter after breakfast.
After breakfast. That was Alice’s plan, too, you remember.
Mr. Rolfe, that man of peace, had slept through all the turmoil of the night. “Where is Mary?” asked he, as he seated himself at table, next morning; a question which evoked two simultaneous, though divergent replies: one from Mrs. Rolfe that Mary was rather indisposed, and would hardly be down to breakfast; the other from the Pilgrim, to the effect that her young mistress had gone out, betimes, for a walk. “D’yar she is now,” she added, as Mary’s footsteps were heard in the front hall.
Mr. Rolfe greeted his daughter with a smile of bright benignity. He praised the roses in her cheeks. After all, there was nothing like fresh air and exercise. As she bent over him and kissed him with unusual affection, he patted her cheek; accompanying each tap with a sort of cooing little murmur, which was his way when she caressed him. He was delighted. He couldn’t remember when he had seen her so gay. She must walk before breakfast every morning. What would she have? No doubt her walk had made her ravenous. No? Yes, we all lose our appetites in spring.
But her mother’s eye saw no roses painted by the breath of morning, but a burning flush, rather; and when she took her daughter’s hand in hers, it was icy cold. Her gayety, too, which rejoiced her father’s heart, made her mother’s ache.
Presently, and while our party still lingered around the breakfast-table, Alice came tripping in, fresh and cheery, the very personification of that April which was abroad in the land.
Alice was not long in detecting the hysteria which lurked beneath Mary’s assumed joyousness. What had happened? An acute attack of curiosity, complicated with anxiety, seized upon her; and in less than a quarter of an hour she and Mary stood in the hallway across the street, exchanging a few words with Mrs. Carter.
“Let us go up to my room,” said Alice.
“State secrets, I suppose,” said Mrs. Carter.
“Oh, of course.” And the two girls tripped lightly up the stairs.
“How jolly you are to-day, Mary,” called out Mrs. Carter.
“Oh,” replied she from the first landing, “as merry as a lark. It’s the bright spring weather, I suppose.”
“Well, that’s right; be happy while the sun shines, my child. The clouds will come soon enough.”
No sooner had the girls entered Alice’s room than her face became serious. “Sit down in that chair,” said she, in her quick, business-like manner. “And now,” added she, drawing a seat close beside Mary, and taking her hand, “now tell me,—what is all this?”
“I am happy, that’s all.”
“Happy?”
“Yes, it is all over—and I am free—and so-o-o-o ha-ha-ha-happy!” And throwing herself on Alice’s neck, she sobbed convulsively.
Alice stroked her friend’s hair in silence, waiting till she should recover from this paroxysm of bliss. At last Mary began to speak.
“It is all over,” she sobbed. “It was more than my strength could bear. After that sermon—” and she shivered.
“How all over?”
“I have broken off the engagement.”
“How? when? where?”
“I wrote the letter last night.”
“Oh,” said Alice, with a sigh of relief. “Will you just be so kind as to let me have that letter?” added she, reaching out her hand.
“It is already mailed.”
“Mailed!” shouted Alice, springing to her feet.
“Yes. I took it to the post-office myself before breakfast.”