University of Virginia Library

14. XIV.
PHŒBE'S GOOD-BY.

Holgrave, plunging into his tale with the energy and
absorption natural to a young author, had given a good
deal of action to the parts capable of being developed and
exemplified in that manner. He now observed that a certain
remarkable drowsiness (wholly unlike that with which
the reader possibly feels himself affected) had been flung over
the senses of his auditress. It was the effect, unquestionably,
of the mystic gesticulations by which he had sought
to bring bodily before Phœbe's perception the figure of the
mesmerizing carpenter. With the lids drooping over her
eyes, — now lifted, for an instant, and drawn down again, as
with leaden weights, — she leaned slightly towards him, and
seemed almost to regulate her breath by his. Holgrave
gazed at her, as he rolled up his manuscript, and recognized
an incipient stage of that curious psychological
condition, which, as he had himself told Phœbe, he possessed
more than an ordinary faculty of producing. A
veil was beginning to be muffled about her, in which she
could behold only him, and live only in his thoughts and
emotions. His glance, as he fastened it on the young
girl, grew involuntarily more concentrated; in his attitude
there was the consciousness of power, investing his hardly
mature figure with a dignity that did not belong to its physical
manifestation. It was evident, that, with but one wave
of his hand, and a corresponding effort of his will, he could
complete his mastery over Phœbe's yet free and virgin
spirit: he could establish an influence over this good, pure,

and simple child, as dangerous, and perhaps as disastrous
as that which the carpenter of his legend had acquired and
exercised over the ill-fated Alice.

To a disposition like Holgrave's, at once speculative and
active, there is no temptation so great as the opportunity
of acquiring empire over the human spirit; nor any
idea more seductive to a young man than to become the
arbiter of a young girl's destiny. Let us, therefore, —
whatever his defects of nature and education, and in spite
of his scorn for creeds and institutions, — concede to the
daguerreotypist the rare and high quality of reverence for
another's individuality. Let us allow him integrity, also,
forever after to be confided in; since he forbade himself to
twine that one link more which might have rendered his
spell over Phœbe indissoluble.

He made a slight gesture upward with his hand.

“You really mortify me, my dear Miss Phœbe!” he exclaimed,
smiling half-sarcastically at her. “My poor story,
it is but too evident, will never do for Godey or Graham!
Only think of your falling asleep at what I hoped the
newspaper critics would pronounce a most brilliant, powerful,
imaginative, pathetic, and original winding up! Well,
the manuscript must serve to light lamps with;— if, indeed,
being so imbued with my gentle dulness, it is any longer
capable of flame!”

“Me asleep! How can you say so?” answered Phœbe,
as unconscious of the crisis through which she had passed
as an infant of the precipice to the verge of which it has
rolled. “No, no! I consider myself as having been very
attentive; and, though I don't remember the incidents
quite distinctly, yet I have an impression of a vast deal of
trouble and calamity, — so, no doubt, the story will prove
exceedingly attractive.”

By this time, the sun had gone down, and was tinting

the clouds towards the zenith with those bright hues which
are not seen there until some time after sunset, and when
the horizon has quite lost its richer brilliancy. The moon,
too, which had long been climbing overhead, and unobtrusively
melting its disk into the azure, — like an ambitious
demagogue, who hides his aspiring purpose by assuming the
prevalent hue of popular sentiment, — now began to shine
out, broad and oval, in its middle pathway. These silvery
beams were already powerful enough to change the character
of the lingering daylight. They softened and embellished
the aspect of the old house; although the shadows
fell deeper into the angles of its many gables, and lay brooding
under the projecting story, and within the half-open
door. With the lapse of every moment, the garden grew
more picturesque; the fruit-trees, shrubbery and flower-bushes,
had a dark obscurity among them. The common-place
characteristics, — which, at noontide, it seemed to
have taken a century of sordid life to accumulate, — were
now transfigured by a charm of romance. A hundred mysterious
years were whispering among the leaves, whenever
the slight sea-breeze found its way thither and stirred them.
Through the foliage that roofed the little summer-house
the moonlight flickered to and fro, and fell silvery white on
the dark floor, the table and the circular bench, with a continual
shift and play, according as the chinks and wayward
crevices among the twigs admitted or shut out the glimmer.

So sweetly cool was the atmosphere, after all the feverish
day, that the summer eve might be fancied as sprinkling
dews and liquid moonlight, with a dash of icy temper in
them, out of a silver vase. Here and there, a few drops of
this freshness were scattered on a human heart, and gave it
youth again, and sympathy with the eternal youth of
nature. The artist chanced to be one on whom the reviving
influence fell. It made him feel — what he sometimes

almost forgot, thrust so early as he had been into the rude
struggle of man with man — how youthful he still was.

“It seems to me,” he observed, “that I never watched
the coming of so beautiful an eve, and never felt anything
so very much like happiness as at this moment. After all,
what a good world we live in! How good, and beautiful!
How young it is, too, with nothing really rotten or age-worn
in it! This old house, for example, which sometimes
has positively oppressed my breath with its smell of decaying
timber! And this garden, where the black mould
always clings to my spade, as if I were a sexton, delving in
a grave-yard! Could I keep the feeling that now possesses
me, the garden would every day be virgin soil, with the
earth's first freshness in the flavor of its beans and squashes;
and the house! — it would be like a bower in Eden, blossoming
with the earliest roses that God ever made. Moonlight,
and the sentiment in man's heart responsive to it,
are the greatest of renovators and reformers. And all other
reform and renovation, I suppose, will prove to be no better
than moonshine!”

“I have been happier than I am now; at least, much
gayer,” said Phœbe, thoughtfully. “Yet I am sensible of
a great charm in this brightening moonlight; and I love to
watch how the day, tired as it is, lags away reluctantly, and
hates to be called yesterday so soon. I never cared much
about moonlight before. What is there, I wonder, so beautiful
in it, to-night?”

“And you have never felt it before?” inquired the artist,
looking earnestly at the girl, through the twilight.

“Never,” answered Phœbe; “and life does not look the
same, now that I have felt it so. It seems as if I had looked
at everything, hitherto, in broad daylight, or else in the ruddy
light of a cheerful fire, glimmering and dancing through a
room. Ah, poor me!” she added, with a half-melancholy

laugh. “I shall never be so merry as before I knew Cousin
Hepzibah and poor Cousin Clifford. I have grown a great
deal older, in this little time. Older, and, I hope, wiser, and,
— not exactly sadder, — but, certainly, with not half so
much lightness in my spirits! I have given them my sunshine,
and have been glad to give it; but, of course, I cannot
both give and keep it. They are welcome, notwithstanding!”

“You have lost nothing, Phœbe, worth keeping, nor
which it was possible to keep,” said Holgrave, after a pause.
“Our first youth is of no value; for we are never conscious
of it, until after it is gone. But sometimes — always, I suspect,
unless one is exceedingly unfortunate — there comes a
sense of second youth, gushing out of the heart's joy at
being in love; or, possibly, it may come to crown some other
grand festival in life, if any other such there be. This
bemoaning of one's self (as you do now) over the first, careless,
shallow gayety of youth departed, and this profound
happiness at youth regained, — so much deeper and richer
than that we lost, — are essential to the soul's development.
In some cases, the two states come almost simultaneously,
and mingle the sadness and the rapture in one mysterious
emotion.”

“I hardly think I understand you,” said Phœbe.

“No wonder,” replied Holgrave, smiling; “for I have
told you a secret which I hardly began to know, before I
found myself giving it utterance. Remember it, however;
and when the truth becomes clear to you, then think of this
moonlight scene!”

“It is entirely moonlight now, except only a little flush
of faint crimson, upward from the west, between those buildings,”
remarked Phœbe. “I must go in. Cousin Hepzibah
is not quick at figures, and will give herself a headache
over the day's accounts, unless I help her.”

But Holgrave detained her a little longer.

“Miss Hepzibah tells me,” observed he, “that you return
to the country, in a few days.”

“Yes, but only for a little while,” answered Phœbe;
“for I look upon this as my present home. I go to make a
few arrangements, and to take a more deliberate leave of
my mother and friends. It is pleasant to live where one is
much desired, and very useful; and I think I may have the
satisfaction of feeling myself so, here.”

“You surely may, and more than you imagine,” said the
artist. “Whatever health, comfort and natural life, exists
in the house, is embodied in your person. These blessings
came along with you, and will vanish when you leave the
threshold. Miss Hepzibah, by secluding herself from
society, has lost all true relation with it, and is, in fact,
dead; although she galvanizes herself into a semblance of
life, and stands behind her counter, afflicting the world with
a greatly-to-be-deprecated scowl. Your poor cousin Clifford
is another dead and long-buried person, on whom the governor
and council have wrought a necromantic miracle. I
should not wonder if he were to crumble away, some morning,
after you are gone, and nothing be seen of him more,
except a heap of dust. Miss Hepzibah, at any rate, will
lose what little flexibility she has. They both exist by
you.”

“I should be very sorry to think so,” answered Phœbe,
gravely. “But it is true that my small abilities were precisely
what they needed; and I have a real interest in their
welfare, — an odd kind of motherly sentiment, — which I
wish you would not laugh at! And let me tell you
frankly, Mr. Holgrave, I am sometimes puzzled to know
whether you wish them well or ill.”

“Undoubtedly,” said the daguerreotypist, “I do feel an
interest in this antiquated, poverty-stricken old maiden-lady,

and this degraded and shattered gentleman, — this
abortive lover of the beautiful. A kindly interest, too,
helpless old children that they are! But you have no conception
what a different kind of heart mine is from your
own. It is not my impulse, as regards these two individuals,
either to help or hinder; but to look on, to analyze, to
explain matters to myself, and to comprehend the drama
which, for almost two hundred years, has been dragging its
slow length over the ground where you and I now tread.
If permitted to witness the close, I doubt not to derive a
moral satisfaction from it, go matters how they may. There
is a conviction within me that the end draws nigh. But,
though Providence sent you hither to help, and sends me
only as a privileged and meet spectator, I pledge myself to
lend these unfortunate beings whatever aid I can!”

“I wish you would speak more plainly,” cried Phœbe,
perplexed and displeased; “and, above all, that you would
feel more like a Christian and a human being! How is it
possible to see people in distress, without desiring, more
than anything else, to help and comfort them? You talk
as if this old house were a theatre; and you seem to look at
Hepzibah's and Clifford's misfortunes, and those of generations
before them, as a tragedy, such as I have seen acted
in the hall of a country hotel, only the present one appears
to be played exclusively for your amusement. I do not
like this. The play costs the performers too much, and the
audience is too cold-hearted.”

“You are severe,” said Holgrave, compelled to recognize
a degree of truth in this piquant sketch of his own mood.

“And then,” continued Phœbe, “what can you mean by
your conviction, which you tell me of, that the end is drawing
near? Do you know of any new trouble hanging over
my poor relatives? If so, tell me at once, and I will not
leave them!”

“Forgive me, Phœbe!” said the daguerreotypist, holding
out his hand, to which the girl was constrained to yield her
own. “I am somewhat of a mystic, it must be confessed.
The tendency is in my blood, together with the faculty of
mesmerism, which might have brought me to Gallows Hill,
in the good old times of witchcraft. Believe me, if I were
really aware of any secret, the disclosure of which would
benefit your friends, — who are my own friends, likewise,
— you should learn it before we part. But I have no such
knowledge.”

“You hold something back!” said Phœbe.

“Nothing, — no secrets but my own,” answered Holgrave.
“I can perceive, indeed, that Judge Pyncheon still
keeps his eye on Clifford, in whose ruin he had so large a
share. His motives and intentions, however, are a mystery
to me. He is a determined and relentless man, with the
genuine character of an inquisitor; and had he any object
to gain by putting Clifford to the rack, I verily believe that
he would wrench his joints from their sockets, in order to
accomplish it. But, so wealthy and eminent as he is, — so
powerful in his own strength, and in the support of society
on all sides, — what can Judge Pyncheon have to hope or
fear from the imbecile, branded, half-torpid Clifford?”

“Yet,” urged Phœbe, “you did speak as if misfortune
were impending!”

“O, that was because I am morbid!” replied the artist.
“My mind has a twist aside, like almost everybody's mind,
except your own. Moreover, it is so strange to find myself
an inmate of this old Pyncheon-house, and sitting in this
old garden — (hark, how Maule's well is murmuring!) —
that, were it only for this one circumstance, I cannot help
fancying that Destiny is arranging its fifth act for a catastrophe.”

“There!” cried Phœbe, with renewed vexation; for she

was by nature as hostile to mystery as the sunshine to a
dark corner. “You puzzle me more than ever!”

“Then let us part friends!” said Holgrave, pressing her
hand. “Or, if not friends, let us part before you entirely
hate me. You, who love everybody else in the world!”

“Good-by, then,” said Phœbe, frankly. “I do not mean
to be angry a great while, and should be sorry to have you
think so. There has Cousin Hepzibah been standing in the
shadow of the door-way, this quarter of an hour past! She
thinks I stay too long in the damp garden. So, good-night,
and good-by!”

On the second morning thereafter, Phœbe might have
been seen, in her straw bonnet, with a shawl on one arm
and a little carpet-bag on the other, bidding adieu to Hepzibah
and Cousin Clifford. She was to take a seat in the
next train of cars, which would transport her to within half
a dozen miles of her country village.

The tears were in Phœbe's eyes; a smile, dewy with
affectionate regret, was glimmering around her pleasant
mouth. She wondered how it came to pass, that her life
of a few weeks, here in this heavy-hearted old mansion, had
taken such hold of her, and so melted into her associations,
as now to seem a more important centre-point of remembrance
than all which had gone before. How had Hepzibah
— grim, silent, and irresponsive to her overflow of cordial
sentiment — contrived to win so much love? And Clifford, —
in his abortive decay, with the mystery of fearful crime upon
him, and the close prison-atmosphere yet lurking in his
breath, — how had he transformed himself into the simplest
child, whom Phœbe felt bound to watch over, and be, as it
were, the providence of his unconsidered hours! Everything,
at that instant of farewell, stood out prominently to
her view. Look where she would, lay her hand on what

she might, the object responded to her consciousness, as if a
moist human heart were in it.

She peeped from the window into the garden, and felt
herself more regretful at leaving this spot of black earth,
vitiated with such an age-long growth of weeds, than joyful
at the idea of again scenting her pine-forests and fresh
clover-fields. She called Chanticleer, his two wives, and
the venerable chicken, and threw them some crumbs of
bread from the breakfast-table. These being hastily gobbled
up, the chicken spread its wings, and alighted close by
Phœbe on the window-sill, where it looked gravely into her
face and vented its emotions in a croak. Phœbe bade it be
a good old chicken during her absence, and promised to
bring it a little bag of buckwheat.

“Ah, Phœbe!” remarked Hepzibah, “you do not smile
so naturally as when you came to us! Then the smile
chose to shine out; now, you choose it should. It is well
that you are going back, for a little while, into your native
air. There has been too much weight on your spirits
The house is too gloomy and lonesome; the shop is full of
vexations; and as for me, I have no faculty of making things
look brighter than they are. Dear Clifford has been your
only comfort!”

“Come hither, Phœbe,” suddenly cried her cousin Clifford,
who had said very little, all the morning. “Close! —
closer! — and look me in the face!”

Phœbe put one of her small hands on each elbow of his
chair, and leaned her face towards him, so that he might
persue it as carefully as he would. It is probable that the
latent emotions of this parting hour had revived, in some
degree, his bedimmed and enfeebled faculties. At any rate,
Phœbe soon felt that, if not the profound insight of a seer,
yet a more than feminine delicacy of appreciation, was
making her heart the subject of its regard. A moment

before, she had known nothing which she would have
sought to hide. Now, as if some secret were hinted to her
own consciousness through the medium of another's perception,
she was fain to let her eyelids droop beneath Clifford's
gaze. A blush, too, — the redder, because she strove
hard to keep it down, — ascended higher and higher, in a
tide of fitful progress, until even her brow was all suffused
with it.

“It is enough, Phœbe,” said Clifford, with a melancholy
smile. “When I first saw you, you were the prettiest little
maiden in the world; and now you have deepened into
beauty! Girlhood has passed into womanhood; the bud is
a bloom! Go, now! — I feel lonelier than I did.”

Phœbe took leave of the desolate couple, and passed
through the shop, twinkling her eyelids to shake off a dew-drop;
for — considering how brief her absence was to be,
and therefore the folly of being cast down about it — she
would not so far acknowledge her tears as to dry them with
her handkerchief. On the door-step, she met the little
urchin whose marvellous feats of gastronomy have been
recorded in the earlier pages of our narrative. She took
from the window some specimen or other of natural history,
— her eyes being too dim with moisture to inform her
accurately whether it was a rabbit or a hippopotamus, —
put it into the child's hand, as a parting gift, and went her
way. Old Uncle Venner was just coming out of his door,
with a wood-horse and saw on his shoulder; and, trudging
along the street, he scrupled not to keep company with
Phœbe, so far as their paths lay together; nor, in spite of
his patched coat and rusty beaver, and the curious fashion
of his tow-cloth trousers, could she find it in her heart to
outwalk him.

“We shall miss you, next Sabbath afternoon,” observed
the street philosopher. “It is unaccountable how little

while it takes some folks to grow just as natural to a man
as his own breath; and, begging your pardon, Miss Phœbe
(though there can be no offence in an old man's saying it),
that's just what you 've grown to me! My years have been
a great many, and your life is but just beginning; and yet,
you are somehow as familiar to me as if I had found you at
my mother's door, and you had blossomed, like a running
vine, all along my pathway since. Come back soon, or I
shall be gone to my farm; for I begin to find these wood-sawing
jobs a little too tough for my back-ache.”

“Very soon, Uncle Venner,” replied Phœbe.

“And let it be all the sooner, Phœbe, for the sake of
those poor souls yonder,” continued her companion. “They
can never do without you, now, — never, Phœbe, never! —
no more than if one of God's angels had been living with
them, and making their dismal house pleasant and comfortable!
Don't it seem to you they'd be in a sad case, if,
some pleasant summer morning like this, the angel should
spread his wings, and fly to the place he came from?
Well, just so they feel, now that you 're going home by
the railroad! They can't bear it, Miss Phœbe; so be sure
to come back!”

“I am no angel, Uncle Venner,” said Phœbe, smiling, as
she offered him her hand at the street-corner. “But, I
suppose, people never feel so much like angels as when they
are doing what little good they may. So I shall certainly
come back!”

Thus parted the old man and the rosy girl; and Phœbe
took the wings of the morning, and was soon flitting almost
as rapidly away as if endowed with the aerial locomotion
of the angels to whom Uncle Venner had so graciously
compared her.