"The breath of the great Lord God divineStirs the little red rose of a room."
"The breath of the great Lord God divineStirs the little red rose of a room."
This it is to keep house with a bread-knife and tumbler, a gridiron and an individual salt. This it is to vitally understand themultum in parvoof existence. This it is to have used and mastered civilization.
But the total pecuniary result is, that the rent of the very smallest room in central location—at the hub of the hub—will not be less than three dollars per week, without light, heat, or furniture. Fire, and a boy to make it, will be two dollars per week; light seventy-five cents if gas, twenty-five cents if kerosene; this, with board at three dollars, washing at one dollar per dozen, and the constant Tribune, etc., brings one up to the pretty little sum of ten dollars per week, without a single item of luxury, unless daily papers can be called luxurious. Or, should one go out to breakfasts and dinners, nothing tolerable can be had under five dollars per week; and this gives a total of twelve dollars. Then, to complete one's life, there must be clothing, literature, perhaps travel and hospitality, making nearly as much more; and to crown it, there must be the single woman's favorite lecturer orprima donna; for ah! we too, in some form, must have our cigars and champagne. A round thousand a year for ever so small a package of humanity!
And of course, as goods are higher in small quantities, so in living by this individual way it will be discovered that prices are prodigious, but that weights and measures are not. After opening the small purse regularly at half-hour intervals for several weeks, one at length finds herself opening it when there is nothing to be bought, from mere muscular habit. Altogether it is easy to spend as much as a second-rate Congressman, without any of his accommodations. This is wherein one does not master civilization.
Mr. McCulloch, in his Report on the Treasury, suggested an increase of salary for certain subordinates in his department, declaring that they could not support their families in due rank on four, five, or even six thousand dollars a year. It is easy to believe it. It is easy to believe anything that may be stated with regard to money, except that one will ever be able to get enough of it to cover these terrible charges. The entire fabric of things rests on money; and our prices would drive a respectable Frenchman into suicide. O poor Robin Ruff! alas for your grand visions that you sang so glowingly to dear Gaffer Green! In this age of the world, O what could you do, or where could you go, e'en on a thousand pounds a year, poor Robin Ruff?
And so long as each must keep her separate establishment, it will not be found possible to reduce living much below the present figures. But London has more wisely met the pressure of the times in those magnificent clubhouses, which have made Pall Mall almost a solid square of palaces hardly inferior to the homes of the nobility themselves. Each of these houses has its hundreds of members, who really fare sumptuously, having all the luxuries of wealth on the prices that one pays here for poverty. The food is furnished by the best purveyors, and charged to the consumers at cost; all other expenses of the establishment being met by the members' initiation fees, ranging from £32 entrance fee and £11 annual subscription, to £9 and £6 for entrance and subscription. Being admirably officered and planned throughout, these gigantic households are systematized to the beautiful smoothness of small ones; their phrase of "fare-well" is one of epicurean invitation, not of dismissal; while such are the combined luxuriousness and economy that,says one authority, "the modern London club is a realization of a Utopian cœnobium,—a sort of lay convent, rivalling the celebrated Abbey of Thelemé, with the agreeable motto ofFais ce que voudras, instead of monastic discipline."
Of course, New York also has followed suit, and there, too, clubs are trumps; but, according to "The Nation," with this remarkable exception, that "at these houses the leading idea seems to be, not to furnish the members at cost price, but to increase the finances with a view to some future expenditure." The writer reasonably observes, that "what a man wants is his breakfast or dinner cheaper than he can get it at the hotel, and not to pay thirty or sixty dollars annually in order that ten years hence the club may have a new building farther up town." And Boston has followed New York, with its trio of well-known clubs, differing also from those of London in having poorer appointments and the highest conceivable charges.
But most of these clubs do not include lodgings, and none of them include ladies. It remains for America to give us the club complete in both. There is every reason why women should secure elegant and economical homes in this way. Indeed, in the present state of things, there seems no other way to secure them. There is no remedy but in a system of judicious clubbing. Since this phase of the world seems made up for the family relation, then ladies must make themselves into a sort of family to face it. Where is the coming man who shall communicate this art of clubbing, which has not yet even been admitted into the feminine dialect? Mr. Mercer is doing for the women who wish to go out in the world that which womanly gratitude can but lightly repay.[F]Where is the kindly, honest-hearted Mr. Mercer who shall further a like enterprise here,—a provision of quarters for those who can pay reasonably and who do not wish to go away? This would be a genuine Stay-at-home Club, a Can't-get-away Club of the very happiest sort. And this alone can put life in our noble cities, where active-brained women love to be, on something like possible terms.
In Miss Howitt's "Art Student at Munich,"—a charming sketch, by the way, of women livingen bachelierabroad,—we find one young enthusiast idealizing upon this very need of feminine life, which she christens an Associated Home. In her artistic mind it takes the form of an outer and inner sisterhood,—the inner devoted to culture, the outer attending to the useful, ready alike to broil a steak or toe a stocking for the more ethereal ones of the household. This is all quite amiably intended, but no queen-bee and common-bee scheme of the sort seems to be either generous or practicable. It involves at once too much caste and too much contact. We do not wish to find servants or scrubs in our sisters, nor do we wish at all times even to see our sisters. There must be elbow-room for mood and temperament, as well as high walls of defence. The social element is too shy and elusive, and will not, like a monkey, perform on demand; therefore our plan abjures all these poetic organizations, which have a great deal of cant and very little good companionship; it has no sentimentalism to offer, proposing an association of purses rather than of persons,—a household on the base of protection rather than of society,—a mere combining for privileges and against prices. It is resolved into a simple matter of business; and the only help women need is that of an organizing brain to put themselves into this associate form, whereby they can meet the existing state of things with somewhat of human comfort.
Are we never to obtain even this, until the golden doors of the Millennium swing open? Ah, then indeed one must melt a little, looking regretfully back to Brook Farm, undismayed by the fearful Zenobia; looking leniently toward Wallingford, Lebanon, and Haryard.Anything for wholesome diet, free life, and a quiet refuge.
But whether to live alone or together, the first want is of houses,—which is another hitch in the social system. In the city a building-lot is an incipient fortune; and the large sum paid for it is the beginning of reasons for the large rent of the building that is put upon it. But then if ground is costly, air is cheap,—land is high, but sky is low; and one need have but very little earth to a great deal of house. A writer, describing the London of thirty years ago, speaks of the huge, narrow dwellings, full five stories high, and says that the agility with which the inmates "ran up and down, and perched on the different stories, gave the idea of a cage with its birds and sticks"; and the like figure seems to have occurred to the queer Mademoiselle Marchand of "Denise," who, as she toiled to her eyrie on the topmost landing, exclaimed, "One would think these houses were built by a winged race, who only used stairs when they were moulting!" But these same lofty houses are the very thing we must have to-day, all but the running up and down. Build us houses up, and up, as high as they will stand; give us plenty of sky-parlors, but also plenty of steam-elevators to go to and from "my lady's chamber." It is not a wise economy to devote one's precious power to this enormous amount of stair-work. It is not a kind of exercise that is sanitive. The Evans House and Hotel Pelham, for instance, are very pretty Bostonianisms, but all their rooms within range of ordinary means are beyond the range of ordinary strength. The achievement of twenty flights a day, back and forth, would leave but small surplus of vigor. While the steam power is there for heating purposes, why not use some of it to propel the passengers up and down that wilderness of rosy boudoirs? Is there any reason why this labor-saving machine, the steam-elevator, which we now associate with Fifth Avenue luxury, should not be the common possession of all our large tenanted buildings? And is there any reason, indeed, in our houses being no better appointed than the English houses of thirty years ago? Ruskin has been honorably named for renting a few cottages with an eye to his tenants as well as himself; but the men who in our crowded cities shall erect these mammoth rental establishments, with steam access to every story, will build their own best monuments for posterity. We commend it to capitalists as a chance to invest in a generous fame. Until this is done, we shall even disapprove of bestowing any more mansions upon our beloved General Grant. It is not gallant. Until then, too, how shall one ever pass that venerable Park Street Church of Boston, without the irreverent sigh of "What capital lodgings it would make!" Those three little windows in the curve, looking up and down the street, and into the ever-fascinating Atlantic establishment; the lucky tower, into which one might retreat, pen in hand, if not wishing to be at home to callers nor abroad to himself,—Carlyle-like, making the library at the top of the house; and all within glance of the dominating State-House, whither one might steal up for an occasional lunch of oratory or a digest of laws. We also hear of a new hotel being builded on Tremont Street, and wonder if there will be any rooms fit for ladies, and whether one of those in the loft will rent for as much as a charming villa should command.
But while we ask now for immediate relief by clubs and rental establishments, the great practical and artistic problem of America still remains in learning to manage its civilization; in acquiring a forecaste, a system, that meets individual wants; in adjusting resource to requirement. Then we shall not be driven into association. It is jocosely said, that in the West, whose rivers are shallow and uncertain, the steamers are built to run on a heavy dew. Allowing for the joke, this is not more nice than wise. To be dexterous, fine-fingered, facile! How perfect is the response in all the petty personalities of politics! In this America, where all men aspire, and more men get officethan one would think there were offices to get, what miracles of adroitness! It is one perpetual, Turn, turn again, Lord Mayor! If but half the genius were diverted from office-getting to house-building, what towering results! But since it is the misery of a republic that politics is supreme, and that a people who govern themselves can have little leisure for anything else, I have sometimes feared that the only way to get these woman questions through is by tacking them on to politics. If, then, any of our masculine friends now go to Congress on an amelioration of labor, Heaven speed the day when they can only go on an amelioration of lodgings.
But on this side of the question we as yet hold close to the leeward. For to make it political, women must have political power, the power of the ballot; and this claim she chooses to defer to the more oppressed race,—chooses first to secure justice to all men, before entering the long campaign of justice to women.
Meanwhile, we young housekeepers, who are neither capitalists to build what we need, nor politicians to procure it builded, can only live on these real-unreal lives as we may. But sometimes, when the city lamps are agleam in the early evening, we go out for a walk of romance upon the brilliant avenue near by, gazing eagerly into those superb drawing-rooms where the curtains are kindly lifted a little, and tempted to ring at the door on a false errand where they are not,—simply to get a peep at the captivating comfort inside. And thus we too possess houses and homes; with all these to enjoy and none of them to care for, why may not one easily remain the wealthiest person in the universe? Ah, no one knows what riches we have in our thoughts, and how little bliss there is in the world that we have not!
FOOTNOTES:[F]Since the above was written, there have been serious charges against Mr. Mercer, but our praise must remain until the case shall be more fairly made up.
[F]Since the above was written, there have been serious charges against Mr. Mercer, but our praise must remain until the case shall be more fairly made up.
[F]Since the above was written, there have been serious charges against Mr. Mercer, but our praise must remain until the case shall be more fairly made up.
Reuben, meantime, is leading a dashing life in the city. The Brindlock family have taken him to their arms again as freely and heartily as if he had never entered the fold over which the good Doctor exercised pastoral care, and as if he had never strayed from it again.
"I told you 't would be all right, Mabel," said Mr. Brindlock to his wife; and neither of them ever rallied him upon his bootless experience in that direction.
But the kindly aunt had not forborne (how could she?) certain pertinent inquiries in regard to the pretty Miss Maverick, under which Reuben had shown considerable disposition to flinch; although he vainly fancied that he stood the interrogation with a high hand. Mrs. Brindlock drew her own conclusions, but was not greatly disturbed by them. Why should she be, indeed? Reuben, with his present most promising establishment in business, and with a face and air that insured him a cordial welcome in that circle of wealthy acquaintances which Mrs. Brindlock especially cultivated, was counted abon parti, independent of his position as presumptive heir to a large share of the Brindlock estate.
Once or twice since his leave of Ashfield he has astonished the good people there by a dashing visit. Perhaps he has enjoyed (such things are sometimes enjoyed) setting forth before the quiet parishioners of his father his new consequence as a man of the world and of large moneyed prospects. It is evenpossible that he may have entertained agreeably the fancy of dazing the eyes of both Rose and Adèle with the glitter of his city distinctions. But their admiration, if they felt any, was not flatteringly expressed. Adèle, indeed, was always graciously kind, and, seeing his confirmed godlessness, tortured herself secretly with the thought that, but for her rebuff, he might have made a better fight against the bedevilments of the world, and lived a truer and purer life. All that, however, was irrevocably past. As for Rose, if there crept into her little prayers a touch of sentiment as she pleaded for the backslidden son of the minister, her prayers were none the worse for it. Such trace of sentimental color—like the blush upon her fair cheek—gave a completed beauty to her appeals.
Reuben saw that Phil was terribly in earnest in his love, and he fancied, with some twinges, that he saw indications on the part of Adèle of its being not wholly unacceptable. Rose, too, seemed not disinclined to receive the assiduous attentions of the young minister, who had become a frequent visitor in the Elderkin household, and who preached with an unction and an earnestness that touched her heart, and that made her sigh despondingly over the outcast son of the old pastor. Watching these things with a look studiedly careless and indifferent, Reuben felt himself cut off more than ever from such charms or virtues as might possibly have belonged to continued association with the companions of his boyhood, and nerved himself for a new and firmer grip upon those pleasures of the outer world which had not yet proved an illusion. There were moments—mostly drifting over him in silent night-hours, within his old chamber at the parsonage—when it seemed to him that he had made a losing game of it. The sparkling eyes of Adèle, suffused with tears,—as in that memorable interview of the garden,—beam upon him, promising, as then, other guidance; they gain new brilliance, and wear stronger entreaty, as they shine lovingly upon him from the distance—growing greater and greater—which now lies between them. Her beauty, her grace, her tenderness, now that they are utterly beyond reach, are tenfold enticing; and in that other sphere to which, in his night revery, they seem translated, the joyous face of Rose, like that of an attendant angel, looks down regretfully, full of a capacity for love to which he must be a stranger.
He is wakened by the bells next morning,—a Sunday morning, may be. There they go,—he sees them from the window,—the two comely damsels, picking their way through the light, fresh-fallen snow of March. Going possibly to teach the catechism; he sneers at this thought, for he is awake now. Has the world no richer gift in store for him? That Sophie Bowrigg is a great fortune, a superb dancer, a gorgeous armful of a woman. What if they were to join their fortunes and come back some day to dazzle these quiet townsfolk with the splendor of their life? His visits in Ashfield grow shorter and more rare. There is nothing particularly alluring. We shall not meet him there again until we meet him for the last time.
Mr. Catesby is an "acceptable preacher." He unfolds the orthodox doctrines with more grace than had belonged to the manner of the Doctor, and illustrates them from time to time with a certain youthful glow, and touches of passionate exhortation, which for many years the Ashfield pulpit had not known. The old ladies befriend him and pet him in their kindly way; and if at times his speculative humor (which he is not wholly without) leads him beyond the bounds of the accepted doctrines, he compounds the matter by strong assertion of those sturdy generalities which lie at the bottom of the orthodox creed.
But his self-control is not so apparent in his social intercourse; and before he has been three months in Ashfield, he has given tongue to gossip, and all the old ladies comment upon his enslavement to the pretty RoseElderkin. And they talk by the book; he is desperately enamored. Young clergymen have this way of falling, at sight, into the toils, which is vastly refreshing to middle-aged observers. But we have no occasion to detail his experience. An incident only of his recreative pursuits in this direction belongs to our narrative.
Upon one of the botanical excursions of later spring which he had inaugurated, and to which the maidenly modesty of Rose had suggested that Adèle should make a party, the young Catesby (who was a native of Eastern Massachusetts) had asked in hisnaïvemanner after her family connections. An uncle of his had known a Mr. Maverick, who had long been a resident of Europe.
"It may possibly be some relation of yours, Miss Maverick," said the young minister.
"Do you recall the first name?" said Rose.
Mr. Catesby hesitated in that interesting way in which lovers are wont to hesitate. No, he did not remember; but he was a jovial, generous-hearted man, (he had heard his uncle often describe him,) who must be now some fifty or sixty years old.—"Frank Maverick, to be sure; I have the name."
"Why, it is my father," said Adèle with a swift, happy rush of color to her face.
"O no, Miss Maverick," said the young Catesby with a smile, "that is quite impossible. The gentleman of whom I speak, and my uncle visited him only three years ago, is a confirmed bachelor, and he had rallied him, I remember, upon never having married."
The color left the cheeks of Adèle.
"Frank, did you say?" persisted Rose.
"Frank was the name," said the innocent young clergyman; "and he was a merchant, if I remember rightly, somewhere upon the Mediterranean."
"It's very strange," said Rose, turning to Adèle.
And Adèle, all her color gone, had the fortitude to pat Rose lovingly upon the shoulder, and to say, with a forced smile, "Life is very strange, Rose."
But from this time till they reached home,—fortunately not far away,—Adèle said nothing more. Rose remarked an unwonted pallor in her cheeks.
"You are tired, Adèle," said she; "you are so pale!"
"Child," said Adèle, tapping her again, in a womanly way that was strange to her companion, "you have color for us both."
At this, her reserve of dignity and fortitude being now wellnigh spent, she rushed away to her chamber. What wonder if she sought the little crucifix, sole memento of the unknown mother, and glued it to her lips, as she fell upon her knees by the bedside, and uttered such a prayer for help and strength as had never uttered before?
"It is true! it is true! I see it now. The child of shame! The child of shame! O my father, my father! what wrong have you done me!" And again she prays for help and strength.
There is not a doubt in her mind where the truth lies. In a moment her thought has flashed over the whole chain of evidence. The father's studied silence; her alienation from any home of her own; the mysterious hints of the Doctor; and the strange communication of Reuben,—all come up in stately array and confound her with the bitter truth. There is a little miniature of her father which she has kept among her choicest treasures. She seeks it now. Is it to throw it away in scorn? No, no, no. Our affections are after all not submissible to strict moral regimen. It is with set teeth and a hard look in her eye that she regards it at first; then her eyes suffuse with tears while she looks, and she kisses it passionately again and again.
"Can there be some horrible mistake in all this?" she asks herself. At the thought she slips on hat and shawl and glides noiselessly down the stairs, (not for the world would she have beeninterrupted!) and walks swiftly away to her old home at the parsonage.
Dame Tourtelot meets her and says, "Good evening, Miss Adeel."
And Adèle, in a voice so firm that it does not seem her own, says, "Good evening, Miss Tourtelot." She wonders greatly at her own calmness.
The Doctor is alone in his study when Adèle comes in upon him, and she has reached his chair and dropped upon her knees beside him before he has time to rise.
"New Papa, you have been so kind to me! I know the truth now,—the mystery, the shame";—and she dropped her head upon his knees.
"Adaly, Adaly, my dear child!" said the old man with a great tremor in his voice, "what does this mean?"
She was sobbing, sobbing.
"Adaly, my child, what can I do for you?"
"Pray for me, New Papa!" and she lifted her eyes upon him with a tender, appealing look.
"Always, always, Adaly!"
"Tell me, New Papa,—tell me honestly,—is it not true that I can call no one mother,—that I never could?"
The Doctor trembled: he would have given ten years of his life to have been able to challenge her story, to disabuse her mind of the belief which he saw was fastened past all recall. "Adaly," said he, "Christ befriended the Magdalen,—how much more you, then, if so be you are the unoffending child of——"
"I knew it! I knew it!" and she fell to sobbing again upon the knee of the old gentleman, in a wild, passionate way.
In such supreme moments the mind reaches its decisions with electrical rapidity. Even as she leaned there, her thought flashed upon that poor Madame Arles who had so befriended her,—against whom they had cautioned her, who had shown such intense emotion at their first meeting, who had summoned her at the last, and who had died with that wailing cry, "Ma fille!" upon her lip. Yes, yes, her mother indeed, who died in her arms! (she can never forget that death-clasp.)
She hints as much to the Doctor, who, in view of his recent communication from Maverick, will not gainsay her.
When she moved away at last, as if for a leave-taking, silent and humiliated, the old man said to her, "My child, are you not still my Adaly? God is no respecter of persons; his ministers should be like him."
Whereupon Adèle came and kissed him with a warmth that reminded him of days long past.
She rejoiced in not having encountered the gray, keen eyes of the spinster. She knew they would read unfailingly the whole extent of the revelation that had dawned upon her. That the spinster herself knew the truth, and had long known it, she was sure; and she recalled with a shudder the look of those uncanny eyes upon the evening of their little frolic at the Elderkins. She dreaded the thought of ever meeting them again, and still more the thought of listening to the stiff, cold words of consolation which she knew she would count it her duty to administer.
It was dusk when she left the Doctor's door; he would have attended, but she begged to be alone. It was an April evening, the chilliness of the earth just yielding to the coming summer; the frogs clamorous in all the near pools, and filling the air with the harsh uproar of their voices; the delicate grass-blades were just thrusting their tips through the brown web of the old year's growth, and in sunny, close-trodden spots showing a mat of green, while the fleecy brown blossoms of the elm were tufting all the spray of the embowering trees. Here and there a village loiterer greeted her kindly. They all knew Miss Adèle. "They will all know it to-morrow," she thought, "and then—then—"
With a swift but unsteady step she makes her way to the little graveyard; she had gone there often, and there were those who said wantonly that shewent to say her prayers before the little cross upon the tombstone she had placed over the grave of Madame Arles. Now she threw herself prone upon the little hillock, with a low, sharp cry of distress, like that of a wounded bird,—"My mother! my mother!"
Every word, every look of tenderness which the dead woman had lavished, she recalls now with a terrible distinctness. Those loud, vague appeals of her delirium come to her recollection with a meaning in them that is only too plain; and then the tight, passionate clasp, when, strained to her bosom, relief came at last. Adèle lies there unconscious of the time, until the night dews warn her away; she staggers through the gate. Where next? She fancies they must know it all at the Elderkins',—that she has no right there. Is she not an estray upon the world? Shall she not—as well first as last—wander forth, homeless as she is, into the night? And true to these despairing thoughts, she hurries away farther and farther from the town. The frogs croak monotonously in all the marshes, as if in mockery of her grief. On some near tree an owl is hooting, with a voice that is strangely and pitifully human. Presently an outlying farm-house shows its cheery, hospitable light through the window-panes, and she is tempted to shorten her steps and steal a look into the room where the family sits grouped around the firelight. No such sanctuary for her ever was or ever can be. Even the lowing of a cow in the yard, and the answering bleat of a calf within the barn, seem to mock the outcast.
On she passes, scarce knowing whither her hurrying steps are bearing her, until at last she spies a low building in the fields away upon her right, which she knows. It is the home of that outlawed woman where Madame Arles had died. Here at least she will be met with sympathy, even if the truth were wholly known; and yet perhaps last of all places would she have it known there. She taps at the door; she has wandered out of her way, and asks for a moment's rest. The little boy of the house, when he has made out the visitor by a few furtive peeps from behind the mother's chair, comes to her fawningly and familiarly; and as Adèle looks into his bright, fearless eyes, a new courage seems to possess her. God's children, all of us; and He careth even for the sparrows. She will conquer her despairing weakness; she will accept her cross and bear it resolutely. By slow degrees she is won over by the frolicsome humor of the curly-pated boy, who never once quits her side, into cheerful prattle with him. And when at last, fairly rested, she would set off on her return, the lone woman says she will see her safely as far as the village street; the boy, too, insists doggedly upon attending them; and so, with her hand tightly clasped in the hand of the lad, Adèle makes her way back into the town. Along the street she passes, even under the windows of the parsonage, with her hand still locked in that of the outlawed boy; and she wonders if in broad day the same courage would be meted to her? They only part when within sight of the broad glow of light from the Elderkin windows; and here Adèle, taking out her purse, counts out the half of her money and places it in the hands of the boy.
"We will share and share alike, Willie," said she, "But never tell who gave you this."
"But, Miss Maverick, it's too much," said the woman.
"No, it's not," said the boy, clutching it eagerly.
With a parting good-night, Adèle darted within the gate, and opened softly the door, determined to meet courageously whatever rebuffs might be in store for her.
Rose has detailed the story of the occurrence, with the innocent curiosity of girlhood, to the Squire and Mrs. Elderkin (Phil being just now away). The Squire, as he hears it, has passed a significant look across to Mrs. Elderkin.
"It's very queer, isn't it?" asked Rose.
"Very," said the Squire, who had for some time cherished suspicions of certain awkward relations existing between Maverick and the mother of Adèle, but never so decided as this story would seem to warrant. "And what said Adèle?" continued he.
"It disturbed her, I think, papa; she didn't seem at all herself."
"Rose, my dear," said the kindly old gentleman, "there is some unlucky family difference between Mr. and Mrs. Maverick, and I dare say the talk was unpleasant to Adèle; if I were you, I wouldn't allude to it again; don't mention it, please, Rose."
If it could be possible, good Mrs. Elderkin greeted Adèle as she came in more warmly than ever. "You must be careful, my dear, of these first spring days of ours; you are late to-night."
"Yes," says Adèle, "I was gone longer than I thought. I rambled off to the churchyard, and I have been at the Doctor's."
Again the old people exchanged glances.
Why does she find herself watching their looks so curiously? Yet there is nothing but kindness in them. She is glad Phil is not there.
The next morning the Squire stepped over at an early hour to the parsonage, and by an adroit question or two, which the good Doctor had neither the art nor the disposition to evade, unriddled the whole truth with respect to the parentage of Adèle. The Doctor also advised him of the delusion of the poor girl with respect to Madame Arles, and how he had considered it unwise to attempt any explanation until he should hear further from Mr. Maverick, whose recent letter he counted it his duty to lay before Mr. Elderkin.
"It's a sad business," said he.
And the Doctor, "The way of the wicked is as darkness; they know not at what they stumble."
The Squire walks home in a brown study. Like all the rest, he has been charmed with the liveliness and grace of Adèle; over and over he has said to his boy, "How fares it, Phil? Why, at your age, my boy, I should have had her in the toils long ago."
Since her domestication under his own roof, the old gentleman's liking for her had grown tenfold strong; he had familiarized himself with the idea of counting her one of his own flock. But, the child of a French——
"Well, well, we will see what the old lady may say," reflected he. And he took the first private occasion to lay the matter before Mrs. Elderkin.
"Well, mother, the suspicions of last night are all true,—true as a book."
"God help the poor child, then!" said Madam, holding up her hands.
"Of course He'll do that, wife. But what say you to Phil's marriage now? Does it look as tempting as it did?"
The old lady reflected a moment, lifting her hand to smooth the hair upon her temple, as if in aid of her thought, then said,—"Giles, you know the world better than I; you know best what may be well for the boy. I love Adèle very much; I do not believe that I should love her any less if she were the wife of Phil. But you know best, Giles; you must decide."
"There's a good woman!" said the Squire; and he stayed his pace up and down the room to lay his hand approvingly upon the head of the old lady, touching as tenderly those gray locks as ever he had done in earlier years the ripples of golden brown.
In a few days Phil returns,—blithe, hopeful, winsome as ever. He is puzzled, however, by the grave manner of the Squire, when he takes him aside, after the first hearty greetings, and says, "Phil, my lad, how fares it with the love matter? Have things come to a crisis, eh?"
"What do you mean, father?" and Phil blushes like a boy of ten.
"I mean to ask, Philip," said the old gentleman, measuredly, "if you have made any positive declaration to Miss Maverick."
"Not yet," said Phil, with a modest frankness.
"Very good, my son, very good. And now, Phil, I would wait a little,—take time for reflection; don't do anything rashly. It's an important step to take."
"But, father," says Phil, puzzled by the old gentleman's manner, "what does this mean?"
"Philip," said the Squire, with a seriousness that seemed almost comical by its excess, "would you really marry Adèle?"
"To-morrow, if I could," said Phil.
"Tut, tut, Phil! It's the old hot blood in him!" (He says this, as if to himself.) "Philip, I wouldn't do so, my boy."
And thereupon he gives him in his way a story of the revelations of the last few days.
At the first, Phil is disposed to an indignant denial, as if by no possibility any indignity could attach to the name or associations of Adèle. But in the whirl of his feeling he remembered that interview with Reuben, and his boast that Phil could not affront the conventionalities of the world. It confirmed the truth to him in a moment. Reuben then had known the whole, and had been disinterestedly generous. Should he be any less so?
"Well, father," said Phil, after a minute or two of silence, "I don't think the story changes my mind one whit. I would marry her to-morrow, if I could," and he looked the Squire fairly and squarely in the face.
"Gad, boy," said the old gentleman, "you must love her as I loved your mother!"
"I hope I do," said Phil,—"that is if I win her. I don't think she's to be had for the asking."
"Aha! the pinch lies there, eh?" said the Squire, and he said it in better humor than he would have said it ten days before. "What's the trouble, Philip?"
"Well, sir, I think she always had a tenderness for Reuben; I think she loves him now in her heart."
"So, so! The wind lies there, eh? Well, let it bide, my boy; let it bide awhile. We shall know something more of the matter soon."
And there the discourse of the Squire ended.
Meantime, however, Rose and Adèle are having a little private interview above stairs, which in its subject-matter is not wholly unrelated to the same theme.
"Rose," Adèle had said, as she fondled her in her winning way, "your brother Phil has been very kind to me."
"He always meant to be," said Rose, with a charming glow upon her face.
"He alwayshasbeen," said Adèle; "but, dear Rose, I know I can talk as plainly to you as to another self almost."
"You can,—you can, Ady," said she.
"I have thought," continued Adèle, "though I know it is very unmaidenly in me to say it, that Phil was disposed sometimes to talk even more warmly than he has ever talked, and to ask me to be a nearer friend to him even than you, dear Rose. May be it is only my own vanity that leads me sometimes to suspect this."
"O, I hope it may be true!" burst forth Rose.
"I hopenot," said Adèle, with a voice so gravely earnest that Rose shuddered.
"O Ady, you don't mean it! you who are so good, so kind! Phil's heart will break."
"I don't think that," said Adèle, with a faint hard smile, in which her womanly vanity struggled with her resolution. "And whatever might have been, that which I have hinted atmustnot be now, dear Rose. You will know some day why—why it would be ungrateful in me to determine otherwise. Promise me, darling, that you will discourage any inclination toward it, wherever you can best do so. Promise me, dear Rose!"
"Do you really, truly mean it?" said the other, with a disappointment she but poorly concealed.
"With all my heart, I do," said Adèle.
And Rose promised, while she threw herself upon the neck of Adèle and said, "I am so sorry! It will be such a blow to poor Phil!"
After this, things went on very much in their old way. To the great relief of Adèle there was no explosive village demonstration of the news which had come home so cruelly to herself. The Doctor had given an admonition to the young minister, and the old Squire had told him, in a pointed and confidential way, that he had heard of his inquiries and assertions with respect to Mr. Maverick, and begged to hint that the relations between the father and the mother of Adèle were not of the happiest, and it was quite possible that Mr. Maverick had assumed latterly the name of a bachelor; it was not, however, a very profitable subject of the speculation or of gossip, and if he valued the favor of the young ladies he would forbear all allusion to it. A suggestion which Mr. Catesby was not slow to accept religiously, and scrupulously to bear in mind.
Phil was as hot a lover as ever, though for a time a little more distant: and the poor fellow remarked a new timidity and reserve about Adèle, which, so far from abating, only fed the flame; and there is no knowing to what reach it might have blazed out, if a trifling little circumstance had not paralyzed his zeal.
From time to time, Phil had been used to bring home a rare flower or two as a gift for Adèle, which Rose had always lovingly arranged in some coquettish fashion, either upon the bosom or in the hair of Adèle; but a new and late gift of this kind—a little tuft of the trailing arbutus which he has clambered over miles of woodland to secure—is not worn by Adèle, but by Rose, who glances into the astounded face of Phil with a pretty, demure look of penitence.
"I say, Rose," says he, seizing his chance for a private word,—"that's not for you."
"I know it, Phil; Adèle gave it to me."
"And that's her favorite flower."
"Yes, Phil," and there is a shake in her voice now. "I think she's grown tired of such gifts, Phil";—whereat she glances keenly and pitifully at him.
"Truly, Rose?" says Phil, with the color on a sudden quitting his cheeks.
"Truly,—truly, Phil,"—and in spite of herself the pretty hazel eyes are brimming full, and, under pretence of some household duty, she dashes away. For a moment Phil stands confounded. Then, through his set teeth, he growls, "I was a fool not to have known it!"
But Phil was not a fool, but a sturdy, brave-hearted fellow, who bore whatever blows fortune gave him, or seemed to give, with a courage that had a fine elastic temper in it. He may have made his business engagements at the river or in the city a little more frequent and prolonged after this; but always there was the same deferential show of tender feeling toward his father's guest, whenever he happened in Ashfield. Indeed, he felt immensely comforted by a little report which Rose made to him in her most despairing manner. Adèle had told her that she "would never, never marry."
There are a great many mothers of fine families who have made such a speech at twenty or thereabout; and Phil knew it.
We by no means intend to represent our friend Adèle as altogether a saint. Such creatures are very rare, and not always the most lovable, according to our poor human ways of thinking; but she may possibly grow into saintship, in view of a certain sturdy religious sense of duty that belongs to her, and a faith that is always glowing. At present she is a high-spirited, sensitive girl,—not without her pride and her lesser vanities, not without an immense capacity for loving and being loved, but just now trembling under that shock to her sensibilities which we have detailed,—but never fainting, never despairing. Not even relinquishing her pride, but guarding it with triple defences, by her reserve in respect to Phil, as well as by a certain new dignity of manner which has grown out of her conflict with the opprobriumthat seems to threaten, for no fault of her own.
Adèle sees clearly now the full burden of Reuben's proposal to cherish and guard her against whatever indignities might threaten; she sees more clearly than ever the rich, impulsive generosity of his nature reflected, and it disturbs her grievously to think that she had met it only with reproach. The thought of the mad, wild, godless career upon which he may have entered, and of which the village gossips are full, is hardly more afflictive to her than her recollection of that frank, self-sacrificing generosity, so ignobly requited. She longs in her heart to clear the debt,—to tell him what grateful sense she has of his intended kindness. But how? Should she,—being what she is,—even by a word, seem to invite a return of that devotion which may be was but the passion of an hour, and which it were fatal to renew? Her pride revolts at this. And yet—and yet—so brave a generosity shall not be wholly unacknowledged. She writes:—
"Reuben, I know now the full weight of the favor of what you promised to bestow upon me when I so blindly reproached you with intrusion upon my private griefs. Forgive me, Reuben! I thank you now, late as it is, with my whole heart. It is needless to tell you how I came to know what, perhaps, I had better never have known, but which must always have overhung me as a dark cloud charged with a blasting fate. This knowledge, dear Reuben, which separates us so surely and so widely, relieves me of the embarrassment which I might otherwise have felt in telling you of my lasting gratitude, and (if as a sister I may say it) my love. If your kind heart could so overflow with pity then, you will surely pity me the more now; yet nottoo much, Reuben, for my pride as a woman is as strong as ever. The world was made for me, as much as it was made for others; and if I bear its blight, I will find some flowers yet to cherish. I do not count it altogether so grim and odious a world,—even under the broken light which shines upon it for me,—as in your last visits you seemed disposed to reckon it.
"And this reminds me, Reuben, that I have told you frankly how the cloud which overhung me has opened with a terrible surety. How is it with the cloud that lay upon you? Is there any light? Ah, Reuben, when I recall those days in which long ago your faith in something better beyond this world than lies in it seemed to be so much stronger and firmer than mine, and when your trust was so confident as to make mine stronger, it seems like a strange dream to me,—all the more when now you, who should reason more justly than I, believe in 'nothing,' (was not that your last word?)—and yet, dear Reuben, I cling,—I cling. Do you remember the old hymn I sung in those days:—