The next September we moved. Our new house was large and handsome. On the south side there was nothing between it and the sea, except a few feet of sand. No tree or shrub intercepted the view. To the eastward a promontory of rocks jutted into the sea, serving as a pier against the wash of the tide, and adding a picturesqueness to the curve of the beach. On the north side flourished an orchard, which was planted by Grandfather Locke. Looking over the tree-tops from the upper north windows, one would have had no suspicion of being in the neighborhood of the sea. From these windows, in winter, we saw the nimbus of the Northern Light. The darkness of our sky, the stillness of the night, mysteriously reflected the perpetual condition of its own solitary world. In summer ragged white clouds rose above the horizon, as if they had been torn from the sky of an underworld, to sail up the blue heaven, languish away, or turn livid with thunder, and roll off seaward. Between the orchard and the house a lawn sloped easterly to the border of a brook, which straggled behind the outhouses into a meadow, and finally lost itself among the rocks on the shore. Up by the lawn a willow hung over it, and its outer bank was fringed by the tangled wild-grape, sweet-briar, and alder bushes. The premises, except on the seaside, were enclosed by a high wall of rough granite. No houses were near us, on either side of the shore; up the north road they were scattered at intervals.
Mother said I must be considered a young lady, and should have my own room. Veronica was to have one opposite, divided from it by a wide passage. This passage extended beyond the angle of the stairway, and was cut off by a glass door. A wall ran across the lower end of the passage; half the house was beyond its other side, so that when the door was fastened, Veronica and myself were in a cul-de-sac.
The establishment was put on a larger footing. Mrs. Hepsey Curtis was installed mistress of the kitchen. Temperance declared that she could not stand it; that she wasn't a nigger; that she must go, but she had no home, and no friends—nothing but a wood lot, which was left her by her father the miller. As the trees thereon grew, promising to make timber, its value increased; at present her income was limited to the profit from the annual sale of a cord or two of wood. So she staid on, in spite of Hepsey. There were also two men for the garden and stable. A boy was always attached to the house; not the same boy, but a Boy dynasty, for as soon as one went another came, who ate a great deal—a crime in Hepsey's eyes—and whose general duty was to carry armfuls of wood, pails of milk, or swill, and to shut doors.
We had many visitors. Though father had no time to devote to guests, he was continually inviting people for us to entertain, and his invitations were taken as a matter of course, and finally for granted. A rich Morgeson was a new feature in the family annals, and distant relations improved the advantage offered them by coming to spend the summer with us, because their own houses were too hot, or the winter, because they were too cold! Infirm old ladies, who were not related to us, but who had nowhere else to visit, came. As his business extended, our visiting list extended. The captains of his ships whose homes were elsewhere brought their wives to be inconsolable with us after their departure on their voyages. We had ministers often, who always quarter at the best houses, and chance visitors to dinner and supper, who made our house a way-station. There was but small opportunity to cultivate family affinities; they were forever disturbed. Somebody was always sitting in the laps of our Lares and Penates. Another class of visitors deserving notice were those who preferred to occupy the kitchen and back chambers, humbly proud and bashfully arrogant people, who kept their hats and bonnets by them, and small bundles, to delude themselves and us with the idea that they "had not come to stay, and had no occasion for any attention." These people criticised us with insinuating severity, and proposed amendments with unrelenting affability. To this class Veronica was most attracted—it repelled me; consequently she was petted, and I was amiably sneered at.
This period of our family life has left small impression of dramatic interest. There was no development of the sentiments, no betrayal of the fluctuations of the passions which must have existed. There was no accident to reveal, no coincidence to surprise us. Hidden among the Powers That Be, which rule New England, lurks the Deity of the Illicit. This Deity never obtained sovereignty in the atmosphere where the Morgesons lived. Instead of the impression which my after-experience suggests to me to seek, I recall arrivals and departures, an eternal smell of cookery, a perpetual changing of beds, and the small talk of vacant minds.
Despite the rigors of Hepsey in the kitchen, and the careful supervision of Temperance, there was little systematic housekeeping. Mother had severe turns of planning, and making rules, falling upon us in whirlwinds of reform, shortly allowing the band of habit to snap back, and we resumed our former condition. She had no assistance from father in her ideas of change. It was enough for him to know that he had built a good house to shelter us, and to order the best that could be bought for us to eat and to wear. He liked, when he went where there were fine shops, to buy and bring home handsome shawls, bonnets, and dresses, wholly unsuited in general to the style and taste of each of us, but much handsomer than were needful for Surrey. They answered, however, as patterns for the plainer materials of our neighbors. He also bought books for us, recommended by their covers, or the opinion of the bookseller. His failing was to buy an immense quantity of everything he fancied.
"I shall never have to buy this thing again," he would say; "let us have enough."
Veronica and I grew up ignorant of practical or economical ways. We never saw money, never went shopping. Mother was indifferent in regard to much of the business of ordinary life which children are taught to understand. Father and mother both stopped at the same point with us, but for a different reason; father, because he saw nothing beyond the material, and mother, because her spiritual insight was confused and perplexing. But whatever a household may be, the Destinies spin the web to their will, put of the threads which drop hither and thither, floating in its atmosphere, white, black, or gray.
From the time we moved, however, we were a stirring, cheerful family, independent of each other, but spite of our desultory tastes, mutual habits were formed. When the want of society was felt, we sought the dining-room, sure of meeting others with the same want. This room was large and central, connecting with the halls, kitchen, and mother's room. It was a caravansary where people dropped in and out on their way to some other place. Our most public moments were during meal-time. It was known that father was at home at breakfast and supper, and could be consulted. As he was away at our noonday dinner, generally we were the least disturbed then, and it was a lawless, irregular, and unceremonious affair. Mother establisher her arm-chair here, and a stand for her workbasket. Hepsey and Temperance were at hand, the men came for orders, and it was convenient for the boy to transmit the local intelligence it was his vocation to collect. The windows commanded a view of the sea, the best in the house. This prospect served mother for exercise. Her eyes roved over it when she wanted a little out-of-doors life. If she desired more variety, which was seldom, she went to the kitchen. After we moved she grew averse to leaving the house, except to go to church. She never quitted the dining-room after our supper till bedtime, because father rarely came from Milford, where he went on bank days, and indeed almost every other day, till late, and she liked to be by him while he ate his supper and smoked a cigar. All except Veronica frequented this room; but she was not missed or inquired for. She liked the parlor, because the piano was there. As soon as father had bought it she astonished us by a persistent fingering of the keys, which produced a feeble melody. She soon played all the airs she had heard. When I saw what she could do, I refused to take music lessons, for while I was trying to learn "The White Cockade," she pushed me away, played it, and made variations upon it. I pounded the keys with my fist, by way of a farewell, and told her she should have the piano for her own.
One winter morning before daylight, Veronica came to my room, and asked me if I had heard any walking about the house during the night. She had, and was going to inquire about it. She soon returned with, "You have a brother. Temperance says my nose is broken. He will be like you, I suppose, and have everything he asks for. I don't care for him; but," crying out with passion, "get up. Mother wants to seeyou, I know."
I dressed quickly, and went downstairs with a feeling of indignation that such an event should have happened without my knowledge.
There was an unwonted hush. A bright fire was burning on the dining-room hearth, the lamps were still lighted, and father was by the fire, smoking in a meditative manner. He put out his hand, which I did not take, and said, "Do you like his name—Arthur?"
"Yes," I mumbled, as I passed him, and went to the kitchen, where Hepsey and Temperance were superintending the steeping of certain aromatic herbs, which stood round the fire in silver porringers and earthen pitchers.
"Another Morgeson's come," said Temperance. "There's enough of them, such as they are—not but what they are good enough," correcting herself hastily.
"Go into your mother's room, softly," said Hepsey, rubbing her fingers against her thumb—her habit when she was in a tranquil frame of mind.
"Youare mighty glad, Hepsey," said Temperance.
"Locke Morgeson ought to have a son," she replied, "to leave his money to."
"I vow," answered Temperance, "girls are thought nothing of in this 'ligous section; they may go to the poor house, as long as the sons have plenty."
An uncommon fit or shyness seized me, mixed with a feeling of dread, as I crept into the room where mother was. My eyes first fell upon an elderly woman, who wore a long, wide, black apron, whose strings girded the middle of her cushion-like form. She was taking snuff. It was the widow Mehitable Allen, a lady whom I had often seen in other houses on similar occasions.
"Shoo," she whispered nasally.
I was arrested, but turned my eyes toward mother; hers were closed. Presently she murmured, "Thank God," opened them, and saw me. A smile lighted her pale countenance. "Cassy, my darling, kiss me. I am glad it is not a woman." As I returned her kiss her glance dropped on a small bunch by her side, which Mehitable took and deftly unrolled, informing me as she did so that it was a "Rouser."
Aunt Mercy came the next day. She had not paid us a visit in a long time, being confined at home with the care of her father, Grandfather Warren. She took charge of Veronica and me, if taking charge means a series of guerilla skirmishes on both sides. I soon discovered, however, that she was prone to laughter, and that I could provoke it; we got on better after that discovery; but Veronica, disdaining artifice, was very cross with her. Aunt Mercy had a spark of fun in her composition, which was not quite crushed out by her religious education. She frequented the church oftener than mother, sang more hymns, attended all the anniversary celebrations, but she had no dreams, no enthusiasm. Her religion had leveled all needs and all aspirations. What the day brought forth answered her. She inspired me with a secret pity; for I knew she carried in her bosom the knowledge that she was an old maid.
Before mother left her room Veronica was taken ill, and was not convalescent till spring. Delicacy of constitution the doctor called her disorder. She had no strength, no appetite, and looked more elfish than ever. She would not stay in bed, and could not sit up, so father had a chair made for her, in which she could recline comfortably. Aunt Merce put her in it every morning, and took her out every evening. My presence irritated her, so I visited her but seldom. She said I looked so well, it hurt her, and wished me to keep out of her sight, begged me never to talk loud in the vicinity of her room, my voice was so breezy. She amused herself in her own strange way. One of her amusements was to cut off her hair, lock by lock, and cut it short before she was well enough to walk about. She played on a jewsharp, and on a little fife when her breath permitted, and invented grotesque costumes out of bits of silk and lace. Temperance was much engaged, at her dictation, in the composition of elaborate dishes, which she rarely ate, but forced Temperance to. She was more patient with her than any other person; with us she was excessively high-tempered, especially with father. She could not bear to catch a glimpse of the sea, nor to hear it; if she heard it echoing in the house, she played on her fife, or jewsharp, or asked Aunt Merce to sing some old song. But she liked the view from the north windows, even when the boughs were bare and the fields barren. When the grass came, she ordered handfuls to be brought her and put in saucers of water. With the coming of the blossoms she began to mend. As for me, I was as much an animal as ever—robust in health—inattentive, and seeking excitement and exhilaration. I went everywhere, to Bible class, to Sunday school, and to every funeral which took place within our precincts. But I never looked upon the dead; perhaps that sight would have marred the slumbrous security which possessed me—the instinctive faith in the durability of my own powers of life.
But a change was approaching. Aunt Merce considered my present state a hopeless one. She was outside the orbit of the family planet, and saw the tendency of its revolutions, perceiving that father and mother were absorbed in their individual affairs. She called mother's attention to my non-improvement, and proposed that I should return to Barmouth with her for a year, and become a pupil in a young lady's school, which had been recently established there, by a graduate of the Nipswich Female Seminary, a school distinguished for its ethics. Mother looked astonished, when she heard this proposal. "What!" she began with vehemence, "shall I subject"—but checked herself when she caught my eye, and continued more calmly: "We will decide soon."
It was decided that I should go, without my being consulted in the matter. I felt resentful against mother, and could not understand till afterward, why she had consented to the plan. It was because she wished me to comprehend the influences of her early life, and learn some of the lessons she had been taught. At first, father "poohed" at the plan, but finally said it was a good place to tame me. When Veronica heard that I was going, she told me that I would be stifled, if I lived at Grandfather Warren's; but added that the plums in his garden were good, and advised me to sit on the yellow stone doorstep, under which the toads lived. She also informed me that she was glad of it, and hoped I would stay forever.
To Barmouth I went, and in May entered Miss Black's genteel school. Miss Black had a conviction that her vocation was teaching. Necessity did not compel it, for she was connected with one of the richest families in Barmouth. At the end of the week my curiosity regarding my new position was quenched, and I dropped into the depths of my first wretchedness. I frantically demanded of father, who had stopped to see me on his way to Milford, to be taken home. He firmly resisted me. Once a month, I should go home and spend a Sunday, if I chose, and he would come to Barmouth every week.
My agitation and despair clouded his face for a moment, then it cleared, and pinching my chin, he said, "Why don't you look like your mother?"
"But sheislike her mother," said Aunt Merce.
"Well, Cassy, good-by"; and he gave me a kiss with cruel nonchalance.I knew my year must be stayed out.
My life at Grandfather Warren's was one kind of penance and my life in Miss Black's school another. Both differed from our home-life. My filaments found no nourishment, creeping between the two; but the fibers of youth are strong, and they do not perish. Grandfather Warren's house reminded me of the casket which imprisoned the Genii. I had let loose a Presence I had no power over—the embodiment of its gloom, its sternness, and its silence.
With feeling comes observation; after that, one reasons. I began to observe. Aunt Mercy was not the Aunt Merce I had known at home. She wore a mask before her father. There was constraint between them; each repressed the other. The result of this relation was a formal, petrifying, unyielding system,—a system which, from the fact of its satisfying neither, was kept up the more rigidly; on the one side from a morbid conscience, which reiterated its monitions against the dictates of the natural heart; on the other, out of respect and timidity.
Grandfather Warren was a little, lean, leather-colored man. His head was habitually bent, his eyes cast down; but when he raised them to peer about, their sharpness and clear intelligence gave his face a wonderful vitality. He chafed his small, well-shaped hands continually; his long polished nails clicked together with a shelly noise, like that which beetles make flying against the ceiling. His features were delicate and handsome; gentle blood ran in his veins, as I have said. All classes in Barmouth treated him with invariable courtesy. He was aboriginal in character, not to be moved by antecedent or changed by innovation—a Puritan, without gentleness or tenderness. He scarcely concealed his contempt for the emollients of life, or for those who needed them. He whined over no misfortune, pined for no pleasure. His two sons, who broke loose from him, went into the world, lived a wild, merry life, and died there, he never named. He found his wife dead by his side one morning. He did not go frantic, but selected a text for the funeral sermon; and when he stood by the uncovered grave, took off his hat and thanked his friends for their kindness with a loud, steady voice. Aunt Mercy told me that after her mother's death his habit of chafing his hands commenced; it was all the difference she saw in him, for he never spoke of his trouble or acknowledged his grief by sign or word.
Though he had been frugal and industrious all his life, he had no more property than the old, rambling house we lived in, and a long, narrow garden attached to it, where there were a few plum and quince trees, a row of currant bushes, Aunt Mercy's beds of chamomile and sage, and a few flowers. At the end of the garden was a peaked-roof pigsty; it was cleanly kept, and its inhabitant had his meals served with the regularity which characterized all that Grandfather Warren did. Beautiful pigeons lived in the roof, and were on friendly terms with the occupant on the lower floor. The house was not unpicturesque. It was built on a corner, facing two streets. One front was a story high, with a slanting roof; the other, which was two-storied, sloped like a giraffe's back, down to a wood-shed. Clean cobwebs hung from its rafters, and neat heaps of fragrant chips were piled on the floor.
The house had many rooms, all more or less dark and irregularly shaped. The construction of the chambers was so involved, I could not get out of one without going into another. Some of the ceilings slanted suddenly, and some so gradually that where I could stand erect, and where I must stoop, I never remembered, until my head was unpleasantly grazed, or my eyes filled with flakes of ancient lime-dust. A long chamber in the middle of the house was the shop, always smelling of woolen shreds. At sunset, summer or winter, Aunt Mercy sprinkled water on the unpainted floor, and swept it. While she swept I made my thumb sore, by snipping the bits of cloth that were scattered on the long counter by the window with Grand'ther's shears, or I scrawled figures with gray chalk, where I thought they might catch his eye. When she had finished sweeping she carefully sorted the scraps, and put them into boxes under the counter; then she neatly rolled up the brown-paper curtains, which had been let down to exclude the afternoon sun; shook the old patchwork cushions in the osier-bottomed chairs; watered the rose-geranium and the monthly rose, which flourished wonderfully in that fluffy atmosphere; set every pin and needle in its place, and shut the door, which was opened again at sunrise. Of late years, Grand'ther's occupation had declined. No new customers came. A few, who did not change the fashion of their garb, still patronized him. His income was barely three hundred dollars a year—eked out to this amount by some small pay for offices connected with the church, of which he was a prominent member. From this income he paid his pulpit tithe, gave to the poor, and lived independent and respectable. Mother endeavored in an unobtrusive way to add to his comfort; but he would only accept a few herrings from the Surrey Weir every spring, and a basket of apples every fall. He invariably returned her presents by giving her a share of his plums and quinces.
I had only seen Grand'ther Warren at odd intervals. He rarely came to our house; when he did, he rode down on the top of the Barmouth stagecoach, returning in a few hours. As mother never liked to go to Barmouth, she seldom came to see me.
It was five o'clock on Saturday afternoon when father left me. Aunt Mercy continued her preparations for tea, and when it was ready, went to the foot of the stairs, and called, "Supper." Grand'ther came down immediately followed by two tall, cadaverous women, Ruth and Sally Aikin, tailoresses, who sewed for him spring and fall. Living several miles from Barmouth, they stayed through the week, going home on Saturday night, to return on Monday morning. We stood behind the heavy oak chairs round the table, one of which Grand'ther tipped backward, and said a long grace, not a word of which was heard; for his teeth were gone, and he prayed in his throat. Aunt Mercy's "Moltee" rubbed against me, with her back and tail erect. I pinched the latter, and she gave a wail. Aunt Mercy passed her hand across her mouth, but the eyes of the two women were stony in their sockets. Grand'ther ended his grace with an upward jerk of his head as we seated ourselves. He looked sharply at me, his gray eyebrows rising hair by hair, and shaking a spoon at me said, "You are playing over your mother's capers."
"The caper-bush grows on the shores of the Mediterranean sea,Grand'ther. Miss Black had it for a theme, out of thePennyMagazine; it is full of themes."
"She had better give you a gospel theme."
He was as inarticulate when he quoted Scripture as when he prayed, but I heard something about "thorns"; then he helped us to baked Indian pudding—our invariable Saturday night's repast. Aunt Mercy passed cups of tea; I heard the gulping swallow of it in every throat, the silence was so profound. After the pudding we had dried apple-pie, which we ate from our hands, like bread. Grand'ther ate fast, not troubling himself to ask us if we would have more, but making the necessary motions to that effect by touching the spoon in the pudding or knife on the pie. Ruth and Sally still kept their eyes fixed on some invisible object at a distance. What a disagreeable interest I felt in them! What had they in common with me? What could they enjoy? How unpleasant their dingy, crumbled, needle-pricked fingers were! Sally hiccoughed, and Ruth suffered from internal rumblings. Without waiting for each other when we had finished, we put our chairs against the wall and left the room. I rushed into the garden and trampled the chamomile bed. I had heard that it grew faster for being subjected to that process, and thought of the two women I had just seen while I crushed the spongy plants. Hadtheybeen trampled upon? A feeling of pity stung me; I ran into the house, and found them on the point of departure, with little bundles in their hands.
"Aunt Mercy will let me carry your bundles a part of the way for you; shall I?"
"No, indeed," said Ruth, in a mild voice; "there's no heft in them; they are mites to carry."
"Besides," chimed Sally, "you couldn't be trusted with them."
"Are they worth anything?" I inquired, noticing then that both wore better dresses, and that the bundles contained their shop-gowns.
"What made you pinch the moltee's tail?" asked Sally. "If you pinched my cat's tail, I would give you a sound whipping."
"How could she, Sally," said Ruth, "when our cat's tail is cut short off?"
"For all the world," remarked Sally, "that's the only way she can be managed. If things are cut off, and kept out of sight, or never mentioned before her, she may behave very well; not otherwise."
"Good-by, Miss Ruth, and Sally, good-by," modulating my voice to accents of grief, and making a "cheese."
They retreated with a less staid pace than usual, and I sought Aunt Mercy, who was preparing the Sunday's dinner. Twilight drew near, and the Sunday's clouds began to fall on my spirits. Between sundown and nine o'clock was a tedious interval. I was not allowed to go to bed, nor to read a secular book, or to amuse myself with anything. A dim oil-lamp burned on the high shelf of the middle room, our ordinary gathering-place. Aunt Mercy sat there, rocking in a low chair; the doors were open, and I wandered softly about. The smell of the garden herbs came in faintly, and now and then I heard a noise in the water-butt under the spout, the snapping of an old rafter, or something falling behind the wall. The toads crawled from under the plantain leaves, and hopped across the broad stone before the kitchen door, and the irreverent cat, with whom I sympathized, raced like mad in the grass. Growing duller, I went to the cellar door, which was in the front entry, opened it, and stared down in the black gulf, till I saw a gray rock rise at the foot of the stairs which affected my imagination. The foundation of the house was on the spurs of a great granite bed, which rose from the Surrey shores, dipped and cropped out in the center of Barmouth. It came through the ground again in the woodhouse, smooth and round, like the bald head of some old Titan, and in the border of the garden it burst through in narrow ridges full of seams. As I contemplated the rock, and inhaled a moldy atmosphere whose component parts were charcoal and potatoes, I heard the first stroke of the nine o'clock bell, which hung in the belfry of the church across the street. Although it was so near us that we could hear the bellrope whistle in its grooves, and its last hoarse breath in the belfry, there was no reverberation of its clang in the house; the rock under us struck back its voice. It was an old Spanish bell, Aunt Mercy told me. How it reached Barmouth she did not know. I recognized its complaining voice afterward. It told me it could never forget it had been baptized a Catholic; and it pined for the beggar who rang it in the land of fan-leaved chestnuts! It would growl and strangle as much as possible in the hands of Benjamin Beals, the bell-ringer and coffin-maker of Barmouth. Except in the morning when it called me up, I was glad to hear it. It was the signal of time past; the oftener I heard it, the nearer I was to the end of my year. Before it ceased to ring now Aunt Mercy called me in a low voice. I returned to the middle room, and took a seat in one of the oak chairs, whose back of upright rods was my nightly penance. Aunt Mercy took the lamp from the shelf, and placed it upon a small oak stand, where the Bible lay. Grand'ther entered, and sitting by the stand read a chapter. His voice was like opium. Presently my head rolled across the rods, and I felt conscious of slipping down the glassy seat. After he had read the chapter he prayed. If the chapter had been long, the prayer was short; if the chapter had been short, the prayer was long. When he had ceased praying, he left the room without speaking, and betook himself to bed. Aunt Mercy dragged me up the steep stairs, undressed me, and I crept into bed, drugged with a monotony which served but to deepen the sleep of youth and health. When the bell rang the next morning, Aunt Mercy gave me a preparatory shake before she began to dress, and while she walked up and down the room lacing her stays entreated me to get up.
If the word lively could ever be used in reference to our life, it might be in regard to Sunday. The well was so near the church that the house was used as an inn for the accommodation of the church-goers who lived at any distance, and who did not return home between the morning and afternoon services. A regular set took dinner with us, and there were parties who brought lunch, which they ate off their handkerchiefs, on their knees. It was also a watering-place for the Sunday-school scholars, who filed in troops before the pail in the well-room, and drank from the cocoanut dipper. When the weather was warm our parlor was open, as it was to-day. Aunt Mercy had dusted it and ornamented the hearth with bunches of lilacs in a broken pitcher. Twelve yellow chairs, a mahogany stand, a dark rag-carpet, some speckled Pacific sea-shells on the shelf, among which stood a whale's tooth with a drawing of a cranky ship thereon, and an ostrich's egg that hung by a string from the ceiling, were the adornments of the room. When we were dressed for church, we looked out of the window till the bell tolled, and the chaise of the Baxters and Sawyers had driven to the gate; then we went ourselves. Grand'ther had preceded us, and was already in his seat. Aunt Mercy went up to the head of the pew, a little out of breath, from the tightness of her dress, and the ordeal of the Baxter and Sawyer eyes, for the pew, though off a side aisle, was in the neighborhood of the elite of the church; a clove, however, tranquilized her. I fixed my feet on a cricket, and examined the bonnets. The house filled rapidly, and last of all the minister entered. The singers began an anthem, singing in an advanced style of the art, I observed, for they shouted "Armen," while our singers in Surrey bellowed "Amen." When the sermon began I settled myself into a vague speculation concerning my future days of freedom; but my dreams were disturbed by the conduct of the Hickspold boys, who were in a pew in front of us. As in the morning, so in the afternoon and all the Sundays in the year. The variations of the season served but to deepen the uniformity of my heartsickness.
Aunt Mercy had not introduced me to Miss Black as the daughter of Locke Morgeson, the richest man in Surrey, but simply as her niece. Her pride prevented her from making any exhibition of my antecedents, which was wise, considering that I had none. My grandfather, John Morgeson, was a nobody,—merely a "Co."; and though my great-grandfather, Locke Morgeson, was worthy to be called a Somebody, it was not his destiny to make a stir in the world. Many of the families of my Barmouth schoolmates had the fulcrum of a moneyed grandfather. The knowledge of the girls did not extend to that period in the family history when its patriarchs started in the pursuit of Gain. Elmira Sawyer, one of Miss Black's pupils, never heard that her grandfather "Black Peter," as he was called, had made excursions, in an earlier part of his life, on the River Congo, or that he was familiar with the soundings of Loango Bay. As he returned from his voyages, bringing more and more money, he enlarged his estate, and grew more and more respectable, retiring at last from the sea, to become a worthy landsman; he paid taxes to church and state, and even had a silver communion cup, among the pewter service used on the occasion of the Lord's Supper; but he never was brought to the approval of that project of the Congregational Churches,—the colonization of the Blacks to Liberia. Neither was Hersila Allen aware that the pink calico in which I first saw her was remotely owing to West India Rum. Nor did Charlotte Alden, the proudest girl in school, know that her grandfather's, Squire Alden's, stepping-stone to fortune was the loss of the brigCapricorn, which was wrecked in the vicinity of a comfortable port, on her passage out to the whaling-ground. An auger had been added to the meager outfit, and long after the sea had leaked through the hole bored through her bottom, and swallowed her, and the insurance had been paid, the truth leaked out that the captain had received instructions, which had been fulfilled. Whereupon two Insurance Companies went to law with him, and a suit ensued, which ended in their paying costs, in addition to what they had before paid Squire Alden, who winked in a derisive manner at the Board of Directors when he received its check.
There were others who belonged in the category of Decayed Families, as exclusive as they were shabby. There were parvenus, which included myself. When I entered the school it was divided into clans, each with its spites, jealousies, and emulations. Itsesprit de corps, however, was developed by my arrival; the girls united against me, and though I perceived, when I compared myself with them, that they were partly right in their opinions, their ridicule stupefied and crushed me. They were trained, intelligent, and adroit; I uncouth, ignorant, and without tact. It was impossible for Miss Black not to be affected by the general feeling in regard to me. Her pupils knew sooner than I that she sympathized with them. She embarrassed me, when I should have despised her. At first her regimen surprised, then filled me with a dumb, clouded anger, which made me appear apathetic.
Miss Emily Black was a young woman, and, I thought, a handsome one. She had crenelated black hair, large black eyes, a Roman nose, and long white teeth. She bit her nails when annoyed, and when her superiority made her perceive the mental darkness of others she often laughed. Being pious, she conducted her school after the theologic pattern of the Nipswich Seminary, at which she had been educated. She opened the school each day with a religious exercise, reading something from the Bible, and commenting upon it, or questioning us regarding our ideas of what she read. She often selected the character of David, and was persistent in her efforts to explain and reconcile the discrepancies in the history of the royal Son of Israel.
"MissC.Morgeson, we will call you," she said, in our first interview; "the name of Cassandra is too peculiar."
"My Grandfather Locke liked the name; my sister's is Veronica; do you like that better?"
"It is of no consequence in the premises what your sister may be named," she replied, running her eyes over me. "What will she study, Miss Warren?"
Aunt Mercy's recollections of my studies were dim, and her knowledge of my school days was not calculated to prepossess a teacher in my favor; but after a moment's delay, she said: "What you think best."
"Very well," she answered; "I will endeavor to fulfill my Christian duty toward her. We will return to the school-room."
We had held the conversation in the porch, and now Aunt Mercy gave me a nod of encouragement, and bidding Miss Black "Good day," departed, looking behind her as long as possible. I followed my teacher. As she opened the door forty eyes were leveled at me; my hands were in my way suddenly; my feet impeded my progress; how could I pass that wall of eyes? A wisp of my dry, rough hair fell on my neck and tickled it; as I tried to poke it under my comb, I glanced at the faces before me. How spirited and delicate they were! The creatures had their heads dressed as if they were at a party—in curls, or braids and ribbons. An open, blank,noli me tangereexpression met my perturbed glance. I stood still, but my head went round. Miss Black mounted her desk, and surveyed the school-room. "Miss Charlotte Alden, the desk next you is vacant; Miss C. Morgeson, the new pupil, may take it."
Miss Charlotte answered, "Yes mim," and ostentatiously swept away an accumulation of pencils, sponges, papers, and books, to make room for me. I took the seat, previously stumbling against her, whereat all the girls, whose regards were fixed upon me, smiled. That was my initiation.
The first day I was left to myself, to make studies. The school-room was in the vestry of the church, a building near grand'ther's house. Each girl had a desk before her. Miss Black occupied a high stool in a square box, where she heard single recitations, or lectured a pupil. The vestry yard, where the girls romped, and exercised with skipping ropes, a swing, and a set of tilting-boards, commanded a view of grand'ther's premises; his street windows were exposed to the fire of their eyes and tongues.
After I went home I examined myself in the glass, and drew an unfavorable conclusion from the inspection. My hair was parted zigzag; one shoulder was higher than the other; my dress came up to my chin, and slipped down to my shoulder-blades. I was all waist; no hips were developed my hands were red, and my nails chipped. I opened the trunk where my wardrobe was packed; what belonged to me was comfortable, in reference to weather and the wash, but not pretty. I found a molasses-colored silk, called Turk satin—one of mother's old dresses, made over for me, or an invidious selection of hers from the purchases of father, who sometimes made a mistake in taste, owing to the misrepresentations of shopkeepers and milliners. While thus engaged Aunt Mercy came for me, and began to scold when she saw that I had tumbled my clothes out of the trunk.
"Aunt Mercy, these things are horrid, all of them. Look at this shawl," and I unrolled a square silk fabric, the color of a sick orange. "Where did this come from?"
"Saints upon earth!" she exclaimed, "your father bought it at the best store in New York. It was costly."
"Now tell me, why do the pantalettes of those girls look so graceful?They do not twirl round the ankle like a rope, as mine do."
"I can't say," she answered, with a sigh. "But you ought to wear long dresses; now yours are tucked, and could be let down."
"And these red prunella boots—they look like boiled crabs." I put them on, and walked round the room crab-fashion, till she laughed hysterically. "Miss Charlotte Alden wears French kid slippers every day, and I must wear mine."
"No," she said, "you must only wear them to church."
"I shall talk to father about that, when he comes here next."
"Cassy, did Charlotte Alden speak to you to-day?"
"No; but she made an acquaintance by stares."
"Well, never mind her if she says anything unpleasant to you; theAldens are a high set."
"Are they higher than we are in Surrey? Have they heard of my father, who is equal to the President?"
"We are all equal in the sight of God."
"You do not look as if you thought so, Aunt Mercy. Why do you say things in Barmouth you never said in Surrey?"
"Come downstairs, Cassandra, and help me finish the dishes."
Our conversation was ended; but I still had my thoughts on the clothes question, and revolved my plans.
After the morning exercises the next day, Miss Black called me in to her desk. "I think," she said, "you had better study Geology. It is important, for it will lead your mind up from nature to nature's God. My young ladies have finished their studies in that direction; therefore you will recite alone, once a day."
"Yes 'em," I replied; but it was the first time that I had heard of Geology. The compendium she gave me must have been dull and dry. I could not get its lessons perfectly. It never inspired me with any interest for land or sea. I could not associate any of its terms, or descriptions, with the great rock under grand'ther's house. It was not for Miss Black to open the nodules of my understanding, with her hammer of instruction. She proposed Botany also. The young ladies made botanical excursions to the fields and woods outside Barmouth; I might as well join the class at once. It was now in the family of the Legumes. I accompanied the class on one excursion. Not a soul appeared to know that I was present, and I declined going again. Composition I must write once a month. A few more details closed the interview. I mentioned in it that father desired me to study arithmetic. Miss Black placed me in a class; but her interests were in the higher and more elegant branches of education. I made no more advance in the humble walks of learning than in those adorned by the dissection of flowers, the disruption of rocks, or the graces of composition. Though I entered upon my duties under protest, I soon became accustomed to their routine, and the rest of my life seemed more like a dream of the future than a realization of the present. I refused to go home at the end of the month. I preferred waiting, I said, to the end of the year. I was not urged to change my mind; neither was I applauded for my resolution. The day that I could have gone home, I asked father to drive me to Milford, on the opposite side of the river which ran by Barmouth. I shut my eyes tight, when the horse struck the boards of the long wooden bridge between the towns, and opened them when we stopped at an inn by the water side of Milford. Father took me into a parlor, where sat a handsome, fat woman, hemming towels.
"Is that you, Morgeson?" she said. "Is this your daughter?"
"Yes; can I leave her with you, while I go to the bank? She has not been here before."
"Lord ha' mercy on us; you clip her wings, don't you? Come here, child, and let me pull off your pelisse."
I went to her with a haughty air; it did not please me to hear my father called "Morgeson," by a person unknown to me. She understood my expression, and looked up at father; they both smiled, and I was vexed with him for his unwarrantable familiarity. Pinching my cheek with her fat fingers, which were covered with red and green rings, she said, "We shall do very well together. What a pretty silk pelisse, and silver buckles, too."
After father went out, and my bonnet was disposed of, Mrs. Tabor gave me a huge piece of delicious sponge-cake, which softened me somewhat.
"What is your name, dear?"
"Morgeson."
"It is easy to see that."
"Well, Cassandra."
"Oh, what a lovely name," and she drew from her workbasket a paper-covered book; "there is no name in this novel half so pretty; I wish the heroine's name had been Cassandra instead of Aldebrante."
"Let me see it," I begged.
"There is a horrid monk in it"; but she gave it to me, and was presently called out. I devoured its pages, and for the only time in that year of Barmouth life, I forgot my own wants and woes. She saw my interest in the book when she came back, and coaxed it from me, offering me more cake, which I accepted. She told me that she had known father for years, and that he kept his horse at the inn stables, and dined with her. "But I never knew that he had a daughter," she continued. "Are you the only child?"
"I have a sister," and after a moment remembered that I had a brother, too; but did not think it a fact necessary to mention.
"I have no children."
"But you have novels to read."
She laughed, and by the time father returned we were quite chatty. After dinner I asked him to go to some shops with me. He took me to a jeweler's, and without consulting me bought an immense mosaic brooch, with a ruined castle on it, and a pretty ring with a gold stone.
"Is there anything more?" he asked, "you would like?"
"Yes, I want a pink calico dress."
"Why?"
"Because the girls at Miss Black's wear pink calico."
"Why not get a pink silk?"
"I must have a pink French calico, with a three-cornered white cloud on it; it is the fashion."
"The fashion!" he echoed with contempt. But the dress was bought, and we went back to Barmouth.
When I appeared in school with my new brooch and ring the girls crowded round me.
"What does that pin represent, whose estate?" inquired one, with envy in her voice.
"Don't the ring make the blood rush into your hand?" asked another; "it looks so."
"Does it?" I answered; "I'll hold up my hand in the air, as you do, to make it white."
"What is your father's business?" asked Elmira Sawyer, "is he a tailor?"
Her insolence made my head swim; but I did not reply. When recess was over a few minutes afterward, I cried under the lid of my desk. These girls overpowered me, for I could not conciliate them, and had no idea of revenge, believing that their ridicule was deserved. But I thought I should like to prove myself respectable. How could I? Grand'therwasa tailor, and I could not demean myself by assuring them that my father was a gentleman.
In the course of a month Aunt Mercy had my pink calico made up by the best dressmaker in Barmouth. When I put it on I thought I looked better than I ever had before, and went into school triumphantly with it. The girls surveyed me in silence; but criticised me. At last Charlotte Alden asked me in a whisper if old Mr. Warren made my dress. She wrote on a piece of paper, in large letters—"Girls, don't let's wear our pink calicoes again," and pushing it over to Elmira Sawyer, made signs that the paper should be passed to all the girls. They read it, and turning to Charlotte Alden nodded. I watched the paper as it made its round, and saw Mary Bennett drop it on the floor with a giggle.
It was a rainy day, and we passed the recess indoors. I remained quiet, looking over my lesson. "The first period ends with the carboniferous system; the second includes the saliferous and magnesian systems; the third comprises the oolitic and chalk systems; the fourth—" "How attentive some people are to their lessons," I heard Charlotte Alden say. Looking up, I saw her near me with Elmira Sawyer.
"What is that you say?" I asked sharply.
"I am not speaking to you."
"I am angry," I said in a low tone, and rising, "and have borne enough."
"Who areyouthat you should be angry? We have heard about your mother, when she was in love, poor thing."
I struck her so violent a blow in the face that she staggered backward. "You are a liar," I said, "and you must let me alone." Elmira Sawyer turned white, and moved away. I threw my book at her; it hit her head, and her comb was broken by my geological systems. There was a stir; Miss Black hurried from her desk, saying, "Young ladies, what does this mean? Miss C. Morgeson, your temper equals your vulgarity, I find. Take your seat in my desk."
I obeyed her, and as we passed Mary Bennett's desk, where I saw the paper fall, I picked it up. "See the good manners of your favorite, Miss Black; read it." She bit her lips as she glanced over it, turned back as if to speak to Charlotte Alden, looked at me again, and went on: "Sit down, Miss C. Morgeson, and reflect on the blow you have given. Will you ask pardon?"
"I will not; you know that."
"I have never resorted to severe punishment yet; but I fear I shall be obliged to in your case."
"Let me go from here." I clenched my hands, and tried to get up. She held me down on the seat, and we looked close in each other's eyes. "You are a bad girl." "And you are a bad woman," I replied; "mean and cruel." She made a motion to strike me, but her hand dropped; I felt my nostrils quiver strangely. "For shame," she said, in a tremulous voice, and turned away. I sat on the bench at the back of the desk, heartily tired, till school was dismissed; as Charlotte Alden passed out, courtesying, Miss Black said she hoped she would extend a Christian forgiveness to Miss C. Morgeson, for her unladylike behavior. "Miss C. Morgeson is a peculiar case."
She gave her a meaning look, which was not lost upon me. Charlotte answered, "Certainly," and bowed to me gracefully, whereat I felt a fresh sense of my demerits, and concluded that I was worsted in the fray.
Miss Black asked no explanation of the affair; it was dropped, andnone of the girls alluded to it by hint or look afterward. When I toldAunt Mercy of it, she turned pale, and said she knew what CharlotteAlden meant, and that perhaps mother would tell me in good time.
"We had a good many troubles in our young days, Cassy."