Veronica's room was like no other place. I was in a new atmosphere there. A green carpet covered the floor, and the windows had light blue silk curtains.
"Green and blue together, Veronica?"
"Why not? The sky is blue, and the carpet of the earth is green."
"If you intend to represent the heavens and the earth here, it is very well."
The paper on the wall was ash-colored, with penciled lines. She had cloudy days probably. A large-eyed Saint Cecilia, with white roses in her hair, was pasted on the wall. This frameless picture had a curious effect. Veronica, in some mysterious way, had contrived to dispose of the white margin of the picture, and the saint looked out from the soft ashy tint of the wallpaper. Opposite was an exquisite engraving, which was framed with dark red velvet. At the end of an avenue of old trees, gnarled and twisted into each other, a man stood. One hand grasped the stalk of a ragged vine, which ran over the tree near him; the other hung helpless by his side, as if the wrist was broken. His eyes were fixed on some object behind the trees, where nothing was visible but a portion of the wall of a house. His expression of concentrated fury—his attitude of waiting—testified that he would surely accomplish his intention.
"What a picture!"
"The foliage attracted me, and I bought it; but when I unpacked it, the man seemed to come out for the first time. Will you take it?"
"No; I mean to give my room a somnolent aspect. The man is too terribly sleepless."
A table stood near the window, methodically covered with labelled blank-books, a morocco portfolio, and a Wedgewood inkstand and vase. In an arch, which she had manufactured from the space under the garret stairs, stood her bed. At its foot, against the wall, a bunch of crimson autumn leaves was fastened, and a bough, black and bare, with an empty nest on it.
"Where is the feminine portion of your furnishing?"
"Look in the closet."
I opened a door. What had formerly been appropriated by mother to blankets and comfortables, she had turned into a magazine of toilet articles. There were drawers and boxes for everything which pertained to a wardrobe, arranged with beautiful skill and neatness. She directed my attention to her books, on hanging shelves, within reach of the bed. Beneath them was a small stand, with a wax candle in a silver candlestick.
"You read o' nights?"
"Yes; and the wax candle is my pet weakness."
"Have you put away Gray, and Pope, and Thomson?"
"The Arabian Nights and the Bible are still there. Mother thought you would like to refurnish your room. It is the same as when we moved, you know."
"Did she? I will have it done. Good-by."
"Good-by."
She was at the window now, and had opened a pane.
"What's that you are doing?"
"Looking through my wicket."
I went back again to understand the wicket. It had been made, she said, so that she might have fresh air in all weathers, without raising the windows. In the night she could look out without danger of taking cold. We looked over the autumn fields; the crows were flying seaward over the stubble, or settling in the branches of an old fir, standing alone, midway between the woods and the orchard. The ground before us, rising so gradually, and shortening the horizon, reminded me of my childish notion that we were near the North Pole, and that if we could get behind the low rim of sky we should be in the Arctic Zone.
"The Northern Lights have not deserted us, Veronica?"
"No; they beckon me over there, in winter."
"Do you never tire of this limited, monotonous view—of a few uneven fields, squared by grim stone walls?"
"That is not all. See those eternal travelers, the clouds, that hurry up from some mysterious region to go over your way, where I never look. If the landscape were wider, I could never learn it. And the orchard—have you noticed that? There are bird and butterfly lives in it, every year. Why, morning and night are wonderful from these windows. But I must say the charm vanishes if I go from them. Surrey is not lovely." She closed the wicket, and sat down by the table. My dullness vanished with her. There might be something to interest me beneath the calm surface of our family life after all.
"Veronica, do you think mother is changed? I think so."
"She is always the same to me. But I have had fears respecting her health."
Outside the door I met Temperance, with a clothes-basket.
"Oh ho!" she said, "you are going the rounds. Verry's room beats all possessed, don't it? It is cleaned spick and span every three months. She calls it inaugurating the seasons. She is as queer as Dick's hatband. Have you any fine things to do up?"
Her question put me in mind of my trunks, and I hastened to them, with the determination of putting my room to rights. The call to dinner interrupted me before I had begun, and the call to supper came before anything in the way of improvement had been accomplished. My mind was chaotic by bed-time. The picture of Veronica, reading by her wax candle, or looking through the wicket, collected and happy in her orderly perfection, came into my mind, and with it an admiration which never ceased, though I had no sympathy with her. We seemed as far apart as when we were children.
I was eager for employment, promising to perform many tasks, but the attempt killed my purpose and interest. My will was nerveless, when I contemplated Time, which stretched before me—a vague, limitless sea; and I only kept Endeavor in view, near enough to be tormented.
One day father asked me to go to Milford, and I then asked him for money to spend for the adornment of my room.
"Be prudent," he replied. "I am not so rich as people think me. Although theLocke Morgesonwas insured, she was a loss. But you need not speak of this to your mother. I never worry her with my business cares. As for Veronica, she has not the least idea of the value of money, or care for what it represents."
When we went into the shops, I found him disposed to be more extravagant than I was. I bought a blue and white carpet; a piece of blue and white flowered chintz; two stuffed chairs, covered with hair-cloth (father remonstrated against these), and a long mirror to go between the windows, astonishing him with my vanity. What I wanted besides I could construct myself, with the help of the cabinet maker in Surrey.
In one of the shops I heard a familiar voice, which gave me a thrill of anger. I turned and saw Charlotte Alden, of Barmouth, the girl who had given me the fall on the tilt. She could not control an expression of surprise at the sight of the well-dressed woman before her. It was my dress that astonished her. Where couldIhave obtained style?
"Miss Alden, how do you do? Pray tell me whether you have collected any correct legends respecting my mother's early history. And do you tilt off little girls nowadays?"
She made no reply, and I left her standing where she was when I began speaking. When we got out of town, my anger cooled, and I grew ashamed of my spitefulness, and by way of penance I related the affair to father. He laughed at what I said to her, and told me that he had long known her family. Charlotte's uncle had paid his addresses to mother. There might have been an engagement; whether there was or not, the influence of his family had broken the acquaintance. This explained what Charlotte said to me in Miss Black's school about mother's being in love.
"You might have been angry with the girl, but you should not have felt hurt at the fact implied. Are you so young still as to believe that only those who love marry? or that those who marry have never loved, except each other?"
"I have thought of these things; but I am afraid that Love, likeTheology, if examined, makes one skeptical."
We jogged along in silence for a mile or two.
"Whether every man's children overpower him, I wonder? I am positively afraid of you and Veronica."
"What do you mean?"
"I am always unprepared for the demonstrations of character you and she make. My traditional estimate, which comes from thoughtfulness, or the putting off of responsibility, or God knows what, I find will not answer. I have been on my guard against that which everyday life might present—a lie, a theft, or a meanness; but of the undercurrent, which really bears you on, I have known nothing."
"If you happen to dive below the surface, and find the roots of our actions which are fixed beneath its tide—what then? Must you lament over us?"
"No, no; but this is vague talk."
Was he dissatisfied with me? What could he expect? We all went our separate ways, it is true; was it that? Perhaps he felt alone. I studied his face; it was not so cheerful as I remembered it once, but still open, honest, and wholesome. I promised myself to observe his tastes and consult them. It might be that his self-love had never been encouraged. But I failed in that design, as in all others.
"Much of my time is consumed in passing between Milford and Surrey, you perceive."
"I will go with you often."
According to habit, on arriving, I went into the kitchen. It was dusk there, and still. Temperance was by the fire, attending to something which was cooking.
"What is there for supper, Temperance? I am hungry."
"I spose you are," she answered crossly. "You'll see when it's on the table."
She took a coal of fire with the tongs, and blew it fiercely, to light a lamp by. When it was alight, she set it on the chimney-shelf, revealing thereby a man at the back of the room, balancing his chair on two legs against the wail; his feet were on its highest round, and he twirled his thumbs.
"Hum," he said, when he saw me observing him; "this is the oldest darter, is it?"
"Yes," Temperance bawled.
"She is a good solid gal; but I can't recollect her christened name."
"It is Cassandra."
"Why, 'taint Scriptur'."
"Why don't you go and take off your things?" Temperance asked, abruptly.
"I'll leave them here; the fire is agreeable."
"There is a better fire in the keeping-room."
"How are you, Mr. Handy?" father inquired, coming in.
"I should be well, if my grinders didn't trouble me; they play the mischief o'nights. Have you heard from theAdamant, Mr. Morgeson? I should like to get my poor boy's chist. The Lord ha' mercy on him, whose bones are in the caverns of the deep."
"Now, Abram, do shut up. Tea is ready, Mr. Morgeson. I'll bring in the ham directly," said Temperance.
There was no news from theAdamant. I lingered in the hope of discovering why Mr. Handy irritated Temperance. He was a man of sixty, with a round head, and a large, tender wart on one cheek; the two tusks under his upper lip suggested a walrus. Though he was no beauty, he looked thoroughly respectable, in garments whose primal colors had disappeared, and blue woolen stockings gartered to a miracle of tightness.
"Temperance," he said, "my quinces have done fust rate this year. I haint pulled 'em yet; but I've counted them over and over agin. But my pig wont weigh nothin' like what I calkerlated on. Sarved me right. I needn't have bought him out of a drove; if Charity had been alive, I shouldn't ha' done it. A man can't—I say, Tempy—a mancan'tgit along while here below, without a woman."
She gave my arm a severe pinch as she passed with the ham, and I thought it best to follow her. Mother looked at her with a smile, and said: "Deal gently with Brother Abram, Temperance."
"Brother be fiddlesticked!" she said tartly. "Miss Morgeson,doyou want some quinces?"
"Certainly."
"We'll make hard marmalade this year, then. You shall have the quinces to-morrow." And she retired with a softened face. I was told that Abram Handy was a widower anxious to take Temperance for a second helpmeet, and that she could not decide whether to accept or refuse him. She had confessed to mother that she was on the fence, and didn't know which way to jump. He was a poor, witless thing, she knew; but he was as good a man as ever breathed, and stood as good a chance of being saved as the wisest church-member that ever lived! Mother thought her inclined to be mistress of an establishment over which she might have sole control. Abram owned a house, a garden, and kept pigs, hens, and a cow; these were his themes of conversation. Mother could not help thinking he was influenced by Temperance's fortune. She was worth two thousand dollars, at least. The care of her wood-lot, the cutting, selling, or burning the wood on it, would be a supreme happiness to Abram, who loved property next to the kingdom of heaven. The tragedy of the old man's life was the loss of his only son, who had been killed by a whale a year since. TheAdamant, the ship he sailed in, had not returned, and it was a consoling hope with Abram that his boy's chist might come back.
"We heard of poor Charming Handy's death the tenth of September, about three months after Abram began his visits to Temperance," Veronica said.
"Was his name Charming?" I asked.
"His mother named him," Abram said, "with a name that she had picked out of Novel's works, which she was forever and 'tarnally reading."
"What day of the month is it, Verry?"
"Third of October."
"What happened a year ago to-day?"
"Arthur fell off the roof of the wood-house."
"Verry," he cried, "you needn't tell my sister of that; now she knows about my scar. You tell everything; she does not. You have scars," he whispered to me; "they look red sometimes. May I put my finger on your cheek?"
I took his hand, and rubbed his fingers over the cuts; they were not deep, but they would never go away.
"I wish mine were as nice; it is only a little hole under my hair. Soldiers ought to have long scars, made with great big swords, and I am a soldier, ain't I, Cassy?"
"Have I heard you sing, Cassy?" asked father. "Come, let us have some music."
"'And the cares which infest the day,'" added Verry.
I had scarcely been in the parlor since my return, though the fact had not been noticed. Our tacit compact was that we should be ignorant of each other's movements. I ran up to my room for some music, and, not having a lamp, stumbled over my shawl and bonnet and various bundles which somebody had deposited on the floor. I went down by the back way, to the kitchen; Fanny was there alone, standing before the fire, and whistling a sharp air.
"Did you carry my bonnet and shawl upstairs?"
"I did."
"Will you be good enough to take this music to the parlor for me?"
She turned and put her hands behind her. "Who was your waiter last year?"
"I had one," putting the leaves under her arm; they fluttered to the floor, one by one.
"You must pick them up, or we shall spend the night here, and father is waiting for me."
"Is he?" and she began to take them up.
"I am quite sure, Fanny, that I could punish you awfully. I am sick to try."
She moved toward the door slowly. "Don't tell him," she said, stopping before it.
"I'll tell nobody, but I am angry. Let us arrive."
She marched to the piano, laid the music on it, and marched out.
"By the way, Fanny," I whispered, "the bonnet and shawl are yours, if you need them."
"I guess I do," she whispered back.
When I returned to my room, I found it in order and the bundles removed.
One day some Surrey friends called. They told me I had changed very much, and I inferred from their tone they did not consider the change one for the better.
"How much Veronica has improved," they continued, "do not you think so?"
"You know," she interrupted, "that Cassandra has been dangerously ill, and has barely recovered."
Yes, they had heard of the accident, everybody had; Mr. Morgeson must be a loss to his family, a man in the prime of life, too.
"The prime of life," Veronica repeated.
She was asked to play, and immediately went to the piano. Strange girl; her music was so filled with a wild lament that I again fathomed my desires and my despair. Her eyes wandered toward me, burning with the fires of her creative power, not with the feelings which stung me to the quick. Her face was calm, white, and fixed. She stopped and touched her eyelids, as if she were weeping, but there were no tears in her eyes. They were in mine, welling painfully beneath the lids. I turned over the music books to hide them.
"That is a singular piece," said one. "Now, Cassandra, will you favor us? We expect to find you highly accomplished."
"I sang myself out before you came in."
In the bustle of their going, Veronica stooped over my hand and kissed it, unseen. It was more like a sigh upon it than a kiss, but it swept through me, tingling the scars on my face, as if the flesh had become alive again.
"Take tea with us soon, do. We do not see you in the street or at church. It must be dull for you after coming from a boarding-school. Still, Surrey has its advantages." And the doors closed on them.
"Still, Surrey has its advantages," Veronica repeated.
"Yes, the air is sleepy; I am going to bed."
I made resolutions before I slept that night, which I kept, for I said, "Let the dead bury its dead."
Helen's letters followed me. She had heard from Rosville all that had happened, but did not expatiate on it. Her letters were full of minute details respecting her affairs. It was her way of diverting me from the thoughts which she believed troubled me. "L.N." was expected soon. Since his last letter, she had caught herself more than once making inventories of what she would like to have in the way of a wardrobe for a particular occasion, which he had hinted at.
I heard nothing from Alice, and was content that it should be so. Our acquaintance would be resumed in good time, I had no doubt. Neither did I hear from Ben Somers. He very likely was investing in another plan. Of its result I should also hear.
My chief occupation was to drive with father. The wharves of Milford, the doors of its banks and shipping offices, became familiar. I witnessed bargains and contracts, and listened to talk of shipwrecks, mutinies, insurance cases, perjuries, failures, ruin, and rascalities. His private opinions, and those who sought him, were kept in the background; the sole relation between them was—Traffic. Personality was forgotten in the absorbed attention which was given to business. They appeared to me, though, as if pursuing something beyond Gain, which should narcotize or stimulate them to forget that man's life was a vain going to and fro.
Mother reproached father for allowing me to adopt the habits of a man.He thought it a wholesome change; besides, it would not last. WhileI was his companion there were moments when he left his ledger foranother book.
"You never call yourself a gambler, do you, Locke?" mother asked. "Strange, too, that you think of Cassy in your business life instead of me."
"Mary, could I break your settled habits. Cassy is afloat yet. I can guide her hither and yon. Moreover, with her, I dream of youth."
"Is youth so happy?" we both asked.
"We think so, when we see it in others."
"Not all of us," she said. "You think Cassandra has no ways of her own! She can make us change ours; do you know that?"
"May be."
A habit grew upon me of consulting the sea as soon as I rose in the morning. Its aspect decided how my day would be spent. I watched it, studying its changes, seeking to understand its effect, ever attracted by an awful materiality and its easy power to drown me. By the shore at night the vague tumultuous sphere, swayed by an influence mightier than itself, gave voice, which drew my soul to utter speech for speech. I went there by day unobserved, except by our people, for I never walked toward the village. Mother descried me, as she would a distant sail, or Aunt Merce, who had a vacant habit of looking from all the windows a moment at a time, as if she were forever expecting the arrival of somebody who never came. Arthur, too, saw me, as he played among the rocks, waded, caught crabs and little fish, like all boys whose hereditary associations are amphibious. But Veronica never came to the windows on that side of the house, unless a ship was arriving from a long voyage. Then her interest was in the ship alone, to see whether her colors were half-mast, or if she were battered and torn, recalling to mind those who had died or married since the ship sailed from port; for she knew the names of all who ever left Surrey, and their family relations.
Weeks passed before I had completed the furnishing of my room; I had been to Helen's wedding, and had returned, and it was still in progress. The ground was covered with snow. The sea was dark and rough under the frequent north wind, sometimes gray and silent in an icy atmosphere; sometimes blue and shining beneath the pale winter sun. The day when the room was ready, Fanny made a wood fire, which burned merrily, and encouraged the new chairs, tables, carpet, and curtains into a friendly assimilation; they met and danced on the round tops of the brass dogs. It already seemed to me that I was like the room. Unlike Veronica, I had nothing odd, nothing suggestive. My curtains were blue chintz, and the sofa and chairs were covered with the same; the ascetic aspect of my two hair-cloth arm-chairs was entirely concealed. The walls were painted amber color, and varnished. There were no pictures but the shining shadows. A row of shelves covered with blue damask was on one side, and my tall mirror on the other. The doors were likewise covered with blue damask, nailed round with brass nails. When I had nothing else to do I counted the nails. The wooden mantel shelf, originally painted in imitation of black marble, I covered with damask, and fringed it. I sent Fanny down for mother and Aunt Merce. They declared, at once, they were stifled; too many things in the room; too warm; too dark; the fringe on the mantel would catch fire and burn me up; too much trouble to take care of it. What was under the carpet that made it so soft and the steps so noiseless? How nice it was! Temperance, who had been my aid, arrived at this juncture and croaked.
"Did you ever see such a stived-up hole, Mis Morgeson?"
"I like it now," she answered, "it is so comfortable. How lovely this blue is!"
"It's a pity she wont keep the blinds shut. The curtains will fade to rags in no time; the sun pours on 'em."
"How could I watch the sea then?" I asked.
"Good Lord! it's a mystery to me how you can bother over that salt water."
"And the smell of the sea-weed," added Aunt Merce.
"And its thousand dreary cries," said mother.
"Do you like my covered doors?" I inquired.
"I vow," Temperance exclaimed, "the nails are put in crooked! And I stood over Dexter the whole time. He said it was damned nonsense, and that you must be awfully spoiled to want such a thing. 'You get your pay, Dexter,' says I, 'for what you do, don't you?' 'I guess I do,' says he, and then he winked. 'None of your gab,' says I. I do believe that man is a cheat and a rascal, I vow I do. But they are all so."
"In my young days," Aunt Merce remarked, "young girls were not allowed to have fires in their chambers."
"In our young days, Mercy," mother replied, "wewere not allowed to have much of anything."
"Fires are not wholesome to sleep by," Temperance added.
"Miss Veronica never has a fire," piped Fanny, who had remained, occasionally making a stir with the tongs.
"But she ought to have!" Temperance exclaimed vehemently. "I do wonder, Mis Morgeson, that you do not insist upon it, though it's none of my business."
Father was conducted upstairs, after supper. The fire was freshly made; the shaded lamp on the table before the sofa and the easy-chair pleased him. He came often afterward, and stayed so long, sometimes, that I fell asleep, and found him there, when I woke, still smoking and watching the fire.
Veronica looked in at bed-time. "I recognize you here," she said as she passed. But she came back in a few moments in a wrapper, with a comb in her hand, and stood on the hearth combing her hair, which was longer than a mermaid's. The fire was grateful to her, and I believe that she was surprised at the fact.
"Why not have a fire in your room, Verry?"
"A fire would put me out. One belongs in this room, though. It is the only reality here."
"What if I should say you provoke me, perverse girl?"
"What if you should?"
She gathered up her hair and shook it round her face, with the same elfish look she wore when she pulled it over her eyes as a child. It made me feel how much older I was.
"I do not say so, and I will not."
"I wish you would; I should like to hear something natural from you."
Fanny, coming in with an armful of wood, heard her. Instead of putting it on the fire, she laid it on the hearth, and, sitting upon it with an expression of enjoyment, looked at both of us with an expectant air.
"You love mischief, Fanny," I said.
"Is it mischief for me to look at sisters that don't love each other?" and, laughing shrilly, she pulled a stick from under her, and threw it on the fire.
Veronica's eyes shot more sparks than the disturbed coals, for Fanny's speech enraged her. Giving her head a toss, which swept her hair behind her shoulders, she darted at Fanny, and picked her up from the wood, with as much ease as if it had been her handkerchief, instead of a girl nearly as heavy as herself. I started up.
"Sit still," she said to me, in her low, inflexible voice, holding Fanny against the wall. "I must attend to this little demon. Do you dare to think," addressing Fanny with a gentle vehemence, "that what you have just said, is true ofme? Are you, with your small, starved spirit, equal to any judgment againsther?I admire her; you do, too. Iloveher, and I love you, you pitiful, ignorant brat."
Her strength gave way, and she let her go.
"All declarations in my behalf are made to third persons," I thought.
"I do believe, Miss Veronica," said Fanny, who did not express any astonishment or resentment at the treatment she had received, "that you are going to be sick; I feel so in my bones."
"Never mind your bones. Twist up my hair, and think, while you do it, how to get rid of your diabolical curiosity."
"I have had nothing to do all my life," she answered, carefully knotting Verry's hair, "but to be curious. I never found out much, though, till lately"; and she cast her eyes in my direction.
"Put her out, Cassandra," said Verry, "if you like to touch her."
"I'll sweep the hearth, if you please, first," Fanny answered. "I am a good drudge, you know. Good-night, ladies."
I followed Veronica, wishing to know if her room was uncomfortable. She had made slight changes since my visit to her. The flowers had been moved, the stand where the candle stood was covered with crimson cloth. The dead bough and the autumn leaves were gone; but instead there was a branch of waving grasses, green and fresh, and on the table was a white flower, in a vase.
"It is freezing here, but it looks like summer. Is it design?"
"Yes; I can't sit here much; still, I can read in bed, and write, especially under my new quilt, which you have not seen."
It was composed of red, black, and blue bits of silk, and beautifully quilted. Hepsey and Temperance had made it for her.
"How about the wicket, these winter nights?"
"I drag the quilt off, and wrap it round me when I want to look out."
We heard a bump on the floor, and Temperance appeared with warm bricks wrapped in flannel.
"You know that I will not have those things," Verry said.
"Dear me, how contrary you are! And you have not eaten a thing to-day."
"Carry them out."
Her voice was so unyielding, but always so gentle! Temperance was obliged to deposit the bricks outside the door, which she did with a bang.
"I should think you might sleep in Cassandra's room; her bed is big enough for three."
No answer was made to this proposition, but Verry said,
"You may undress me, if you like, and stay till you are convinced I shall not freeze."
"I've staid till I am in an ager. I might as well finish the night here, I spose."
She called me after midnight, for she had not left Verry, who had been attacked with one of her mysterious disorders.
"You can do nothing for her; but I am scared out, when she faints so dreadful; I don't like to be alone."
Veronica could not speak, but she shook her head at me to go away. Her will seemed to be concentrated against losing consciousness; it slipped from her occasionally, and she made a rotary motion with her arms, which I attempted to stop, but her features contracted so terribly, I let her alone.
"Mustn't touch her," said Temperance, whose efforts to relieve her were confined to replacing the coverings of the bed, and drawing her nightgown over her bosom, which she often threw off again. Her breath scarcely stirred her breast. I thought more than once she did not breathe at all. Its delicate, virgin beauty touched me with a holy pity. We sat by her bed in silence a long time, and although it was freezing cold, did not suffer. Suddenly she turned her head and closed her eyes. Temperance softly pulled up the clothes over her and whispered: "It is over for this time; but Lord, how awful it is! I hoped she was cured of these spells."
In a few minutes she asked, "What time is it?"
"It must be about eleven," Temperance replied; but it was nearly four. She dozed again, but, opening her eyes presently, made a motion toward the window.
"There's no help for it," muttered Temperance, "she must go."
I understood her, and put my arm under Verry's neck to raise her. Temperance wrapped the quilt round her, and we carried her to the window. Temperance pushed open the pane; an icy wind blew against us.
"It is the winter that kills little Verry," she said, in a childlike voice. "God's breath is cold over the world, and my life goes. But the spring is coming; it will come back."
I looked at Temperance, whose face was so corrugated with the desire for crying and the effort to keep from it, that for the life of me, I could not help smiling. As soon as I smiled I laughed, and then Temperance gave way to crying and laughing together. Veronica stared, and realized the circumstances in a second. She walked back to the bed, laughing faintly, too. "Go to bed, do. You have been here a long time, have you?"
I left Temperance tucking the clothes about her, kissing her, and calling her "deary and her best child."
I could not go to bed at once, for Fanny was on my hearth before the fire, which she had rekindled, watching the boiling of something.
"She has come to, hasn't she?" stirring the contents of the kettle. "I knew it was going to be so with her, she was so mad with me. She is like the Old Harry before she has a turn, and like an angel after. I am fond of people who have their ups and downs. I have seen her so before. She asked me to keep the doors locked once; they are locked now. But I couldn't keepyouout. The doctor said she must have warm drinks as soon as she was better. This is gruel."
"If it is done, away with you. Calamity improves you, don't it? You seem in excellent spirits."
"First-rate; I can be somebody then."
Before spring there were three public events in Surrey. A lighthouse was built on Gloster Point, below our house. At night there was a bridge of red, tremulous light between my window and its tower, which seemed to shorten the distance. A town-clock had been placed in the belfry of the new church in the western part of the village. Veronica could see the tips of its gilded hands from the top of her window, and hear it strike through the night, whether the wind was fair to bring the sound or not. She liked to hear the hours cry that they had gone. Soon after the clock was up, she recollected that Mrs. Crossman's dog had ceased to bark at night, as was his wont, and sent her a note inquiring about it, for she thought there was something poetical in connection with nocturnal noises, which she hoped Mrs. Crossman felt also. Fanny conveyed the note, and read it likewise, as Mrs. Crossman declared her inability to read writing with her new spectacles, which a peddler had cheated her with lately. She laughed at it, and sent word to Veronica that she was the curiousest young woman for her age that she had ever heard of; that the dog slept in the house of nights, for he was blind and deaf now; but that Crossman should get a new dog with a loud bark, if the dear child wanted it.
A new dog soon came, so fierce that Abram told Temperance that people were afraid to pass Crossman's. She guessed it wasn't the dog the people were afraid of, but of their evil consciences, which pricked them when they remembered Dr. Snell.
The third event was Mr. Thrasher's revival. It began in February, and before it was over, I heard the April frogs croaking in the marshy field behind the church. We went to all the meetings, except Veronica, who continued her custom of going only on Sunday afternoons. Mr. Thrasher endeavored to proselyte me, but he never conversed with her. His manner changed when he was at our house; if she appeared, the man tore away the mask of the minister. She called him a Bible-banger, that he made the dust fly from the pulpit cushions too much to suit her; besides, he denounced sinners with vituperation, larding his piety with a grim wit which was distasteful. He was resentful toward me, especially after he had seen her. It was needful, he said, from my influence in Surrey, that I should become an example, and asked me if I did not think my escape from sudden death in Rosville was an indication from Providence that I was reserved for some especial work?
Surrey was never so evangelical as under his ministration, and it remained so until he was called to a larger field of usefulness, and offered a higher salary to till it. We settled into a milder theocracy after he left us. Mr. Park renewed his zeal, about this time, resuming his discussions; but mother paid little attention to what he said. There were days now when she was confined to her room. Sometimes I found her softly praying. Once when I went there she was crying aloud, in a bitter voice, with her hands over her head. She was her old self when she recovered, except that she was indifferent to practical details. She sought amusement, indeed, liked to have me with her to make her laugh, and Aunt Merce was always near to pet her as of old, and so we forgot those attacks.
Abram Handy, inspired with religious fervor during the revival, was also inspired with the twin passion—love—to visit Temperance, and begged her, with so much eloquence, to marry him before his cow should calve, that she consented, and he was happy. He spent the Sunday evenings with her, coming after conference meeting, hymn-book in hand. She was angry and ashamed, if I happened to see them sitting in the same chair, and singing, in a quavering voice, "Greenland's Icy Mountains," and continued morose for a week, in consequence.
"What will Veronica do without me?" she said. "I vow I wish AbramHandy would keep himself out of my way; who wants him?"
"She will visit you, and so shall I."
"Certain true, will you, really?"
"If you will promise to return our visits, and leave Abram at home, for a week now and then."
"Done. I can mend your things and look after Mis Morgeson. Your mother is not the woman she was, and you and Veronica haven't a mite of faculty. What you are all coming to is more than I can fathom."
"Who will fill your place?"
"I don't want to brag, but you wont find a soul in Surrey to come here and live as I have lived. You will have to take a Paddy; the Paddies are spreading, the old housekeeping race is going. Hepsey and I are the last of the Mohicans, and Hepsey is failing."
She was right, we never found her equal, and when she went, in May, a Celtic dynasty came in. We missed her sadly. Verry refused to be comforted. Symptoms of disorganization appeared everywhere.
In the summer Helen visited Surrey. Her enlivening gayety was the means of our uniting about her. She was never tired of Veronica's playing, nor of our society; so we must stay where she and the piano were. We trimmed the parlor with flowers every day. Veronica transferred some of her favorite books to the round table, and privately sent for a set of flower vases. When they came, she said we must have a new carpet to match them, and although mother protested against it, she was loud in her admiration when she saw the handsome white Brussels, thickly covered with crimson roses. Helen's introduction proved an astonishing incentive; we set a new value on ourselves. I never saw so much of Veronica as at that time; her health improved with her temper. She threw us into fits of laughter with her whimsical talk, never laughing herself, but enjoying the effect she produced. To please her, Helen changed her style of dress, and bought a dress at Milford, which Veronica selected and made. The trying on of this dress was the means of her discovering the letters on Helen's arm, which never ceased to be a source of interest. She asked to see them every day afterward, and touched them with her fingers, as if they had some occult power.
"You think her strange, do you not?" I asked Helen.
"She has genius, but will be a child always."
"You are mistaken; she was always mature."
"She stopped in the process of maturity long ago. It is her genius which takes her on. You advance by experience."
"I shall learn nothing more."
"Of course you have suffered immensely, and endured that which isolates you from the rest of us."
"You are as wise as ever."
"Well, I am married, you know, and shall grow no wiser. Marriage puts an end to the wisdom of women; they need it no longer."
"You are nineteen years old?"
"What is the use of talking to you? Besides, if we keep on we may tell secrets that had better not be revealed. We might not like each other so well; friendship is apt to dull if there is no ground for speculation left. Let us keep the bloom on the fruit, even if we know there is a worm at the core."
I owed it to her that I never had any confidante. My proclivities were for speaking what I felt; but her strong common-sense influenced me greatly against it; her teaching was the more easy to me, as she never invaded my sentiments.
Her visit was the occasion of our exchanging civilities with our acquaintances, which we neglected when alone. Tea parties were always fashionable in Surrey. Veronica went with us to one, given by our cousin, Susan Morgeson. She had taken tea out but twice, since she was grown, she told us, then it was with her friend Lois Randall, a seamstress. To this girl she read the contents of her blank-books, and Lois in her turn confided to Veronica her own compositions. Essays were her forte. We met her at Susan Morgeson's, and, as I never saw her without her having on some article given her by Veronica, this occasion was no exception. She wore an exquisitely embroidered purple silk apron, over a dull blue dress. I saw Verry's grimace when her eyes fell on it, and could not help saying, "I hope Lois's essays are better than her taste in dress."
"She is an idiot in colors; but she admires what I wear so much that she fancies the same must become her."
"As they become you?"
"I make a study of dress—an anomaly must. It may be wicked, but what can I do? I love to look well."
The dress she wore then was an India stuff, of linen, with a cream-colored ground, and a vivid yellow silk thread woven in stripes through it; each stripe had a cinnamon-colored edge. There were no ornaments about her, except a band of violet-colored ribbon round her head. When tea was brought in, she asked me in a whisper whether it was tea or coffee in the cup which was given her.
"Why, Cass," said Helen, "are you making a wonderment because she does not know? It is strange that you have not known that she drinks neither."
"What does she drink?"
"Is it eccentric to drink milk?" Verry asked, swallowing the tea with an accustomed air. "I think this must be coffee, it stings my mouth so."
"It is green tea," said Helen; "don't drink it, Verry."
"Green tea," she said, in a dreamy voice. "We drank green tea ten years ago, in our old house; and I did not know it! Cassandra, do you remember that I drank four cups once, when mother had company? I laughed all night, and Temperance cried."
She contributed her share toward entertaining, and invariably received the most attention. My indifference was called pride, and her reserve was called dignity, and dignity was more popular than pride.
Before Helen went, Ben wrote me that he was going to India. It was a favorite journey with the Belemites. By the time the letter reached me he should be gone. Would I bear him in remembrance? He would not forget me, and promised me an Indian idol. In eighteen months he expected to be at home again; sooner, perhaps. P.S. Would I give his true regards to my sister? N.B. The property might be divided according to his grandfather's will, before his return, and he wanted to be out of the way for sundry reasons, which he hoped to tell me some day. I read the letter to Helen and Veronica. Helen laughed, and said "Unstable as water"; but Veronica looked displeased; she closed her eyes as if to recall him to mind, and asked Helen abruptly if she did not like him.
"Yes; but I doubt him. With all his strength of character he has a capacity for failure."
"I consider him a relation," I said.
"Ido not own him," said Veronica.
"At all events, he is not an affectionate one," Helen remarked. "You have not heard from him in a year."
"But I knew that I should hear," I said.
"We shallseehim," said Veronica, "again."
I was dull after I received his letter. My youth grew dim; somehow I felt a self-pity. I found no chance to embalm those phases of sensation which belonged to my period, and I grew careless; Helen's influence went with her. The observances so vital to Veronica, so charming in her, I became utterly neglectful of. For all this a mad longing sometimes seized me to depart into a new world, which should contain no element of the old, least of all a reminiscence of what my experience had made me.