University of Virginia Library

20. XX.
THE FLOWER OF EDEN.

Phœbe, coming so suddenly from the sunny daylight,
was altogether bedimmed in such density of shadow as
lurked in most of the passages of the old house. She was
not at first aware by whom she had been admitted. Before
her eyes had adapted themselves to the obscurity, a hand
grasped her own, with a firm but gentle and warm pressure,
thus imparting a welcome which caused her heart to
leap and thrill with an indefinable shiver of enjoyment.
She felt herself drawn along, not towards the parlor, but
into a large and unoccupied apartment, which had formerly
been the grand reception-room of the seven gables. The
sunshine came freely into all the uncurtained windows of
this room, and fell upon the dusty floor; so that Phœbe
now clearly saw — what, indeed, had been no secret, after
the encounter of a warm hand with hers — that it was not
Hepzibah nor Clifford, but Holgrave, to whom she owed
her reception. The subtle, intuitive communication, or,
rather, the vague and formless impression of something to
be told, had made her yield unresistingly to his impulse.
Without taking away her hand, she looked eagerly in his
face, not quick to forebode evil, but unavoidably conscious
that the state of the family had changed since her departure,
and therefore anxious for an explanation.

The artist looked paler than ordinary; there was a
thoughtful and severe contraction of his forehead, tracing
a deep vertical line between the eyebrows. His smile,

however, was full of genuine warmth, and had in it a joy,
by far the most vivid expression that Phœbe had ever witnessed,
shining out of the New England reserve with
which Holgrave habitually masked whatever lay near his
heart. It was the look wherewith a man, brooding alone
over some fearful object, in a dreary forest or illimitable
desert, would recognize the familiar aspect of his dearest
friend, bringing up all the peaceful ideas that belong to
home, and the gentle current of every-day affairs. And
yet, as he felt the necessity of responding to her look of
inquiry, the smile disappeared.

“I ought not to rejoice that you have come, Phœbe,” said
he. “We meet at a strange moment!”

“What has happened?” she exclaimed. “Why is the
house so deserted? Where are Hepzibah and Clifford?”

“Gone! I cannot imagine where they are!” answered
Holgrave. “We are alone in the house!”

“Hepzibah and Clifford gone?” cried Phœbe. “It is
not possible! And why have you brought me into this
room, instead of the parlor? Ah, something terrible has
happened! I must run and see!”

“No, no, Phœbe!” said Holgrave, holding her back.
“It is as I have told you. They are gone, and I know not
whither. A terrible event has, indeed, happened, but not to
them, nor, as I undoubtingly believe, through any agency
of theirs. If I read your character rightly, Phœbe,” he
continued, fixing his eyes on hers, with stern anxiety, intermixed
with tenderness, “gentle as you are, and seeming to
have your sphere among common things, you yet possess
remarkable strength. You have wonderful poise, and a
faculty which, when tested, will prove itself capable of
dealing with matters that fall far out of the ordinary
rule.”

“O, no, I am very weak!” replied Phœbe, trembling.
“But tell me what has happened!”

“You are strong!” persisted Holgrave. “You must be
both strong and wise; for I am all astray, and need your
counsel. It may be you can suggest the one right thing to
do!”

“Tell me! — tell me!” said Phœbe, all in a tremble.
“It oppresses, — it terrifies me, — this mystery! Anything
else I can bear!”

The artist hesitated. Notwithstanding what he had
just said, and most sincerely, in regard to the self-balancing
power with which Phœbe impressed him, it still seemed
almost wicked to bring the awful secret of yesterday to her
knowledge. It was like dragging a hideous shape of death
into the cleanly and cheerful space before a household fire,
where it would present all the uglier aspect, amid the decorousness
of everything about it. Yet it could not be concealed
from her; she must needs know it.

“Phœbe,” said he, “do you remember this?”

He put into her hand a daguerreotype; the same that he
had shown her at their first interview, in the garden, and
which so strikingly brought out the hard and relentless
traits of the original.

“What has this to do with Hepzibah and Clifford?”
asked Phœbe, with impatient surprise that Holgrave should
so trifle with her, at such a moment. “It is Judge Pyncheon!
You have shown it to me before!”

“But here is the same face, taken within this half-hour,”
said the artist, presenting her with another miniature. “I
had just finished it, when I heard you at the door.”

“This is death!” shuddered Phœbe, turning very pale.
“Judge Pyncheon dead!”

“Such as there represented,” said Holgrave, “he sits in

the next room. The judge is dead, and Clifford and Hepzibah
have vanished! I know no more. All beyond is conjecture.
On returning to my solitary chamber, last evening,
I noticed no light, either in the parlor, or Hepzibah's
room, or Clifford's; no stir nor footstep about the house.
This morning there was the same death-like quiet. From
my window, I overheard the testimony of a neighbor, that
your relatives were seen leaving the house, in the midst of
yesterday's storm. A rumor reached me, too, of Judge Pyncheon
being missed. A feeling which I cannot describe —
an indefinite sense of some catastrophe, or consummation
— impelled me to make my way into this part of the
house, where I discovered what you see. As a point of
evidence that may be useful to Clifford, and also as a memorial
valuable to myself, — for, Phœbe, there are hereditary
reasons that connect me strangely with that man's fate, — I
used the means at my disposal to preserve this pictorial
record of Judge Pyncheon's death.”

Even in her agitation, Phœbe could not help remarking
the calmness of Holgrave's demeanor. He appeared, it is
true, to feel the whole awfulness of the judge's death, yet
had received the fact into his mind without any mixture of
surprise, but as an event pre-ordained, happening inevitably,
and so fitting itself into past occurrences that it could
almost have been prophesied.

“Why have you not thrown open the doors, and called
in witnesses?” inquired she, with a painful shudder. “It
is terrible to be here alone!”

“But Clifford!” suggested the artist. “Clifford and
Hepzibah! We must consider what is best to be done in
their behalf. It is a wretched fatality, that they should
have disappeared! Their flight will throw the worst coloring
over this event of which it is susceptible. Yet how

easy is the explanation, to those who know them! Bewildered
and terror-stricken by the similarity of this death to a
former one, which was attended with such disastrous consequences
to Clifford, they have had no idea but of removing
themselves from the scene. How miserably unfortunate!
Had Hepzibah but shrieked aloud, — had Clifford
flung wide the door, and proclaimed Judge Pyncheon's
death, — it would have been, however awful in itself, an
event fruitful of good consequences to them. As I view it,
it would have gone far towards obliterating the black stain
on Clifford's character.”

“And how,” asked Phœbe, “could any good come from
what is so very dreadful?”

“Because,” said the artist, “if the matter can be fairly
considered, and candidly interpreted, it must be evident that
Judge Pyncheon could not have come unfairly to his end.
This mode of death has been an idiosyncrasy with his
family, for generations past; not often occurring, indeed,
but, when it does occur, usually attacking individuals about
the judge's time of life, and generally in the tension of
some mental crisis, or, perhaps, in an access of wrath. Old
Maule's prophecy was probably founded on a knowledge of
this physical predisposition in the Pyncheon race. Now,
there is a minute and almost exact similarity in the appearances
connected with the death that occurred yesterday
and those recorded of the death of Clifford's uncle, thirty
years ago. It is true, there was a certain arrangement of
circumstances, unnecessary to be recounted, which made it
possible, — nay, as men look at these things, probable, or
even certain, — that old Jaffrey Pyncheon came to a violent
death, and by Clifford's hands.”

“Whence came those circumstances?” exclaimed Phœbe;
“he being innocent, as we know him to be!”

“They were arranged,” said Holgrave, — “at least,
such has long been my conviction, — they were arranged,
after the uncle's death, and before it was made public, by
the man who sits in yonder parlor. His own death, so like
that former one, yet attended with none of those suspicious
circumstances, seems the stroke of God upon him, at once a
punishment for his wickedness, and making plain the innocence
of Clifford. But this flight, — it distorts everything!
He may be in concealment, near at hand. Could we but
bring him back before the discovery of the judge's death,
the evil might be rectified.”

“We must not hide this thing a moment longer!” said
Phœbe. “It is dreadful to keep it so closely in our hearts.
Clifford is innocent. God will make it manifest! Let us
throw open the doors, and call all the neighborhood to see
the truth!”

“You are right, Phœbe,” rejoined Holgrave. “Doubtless
you are right.”

Yet the artist did not feel the horror, which was proper
to Phœbe's sweet and order-loving character, at thus finding
herself at issue with society, and brought in contact with an
event that transcended ordinary rules. Neither was he in
haste, like her, to betake himself within the precincts of
common life. On the contrary, he gathered a wild enjoyment,
— as it were, a flower of strange beauty, growing in
a desolate spot, and blossoming in the wind, — such a
flower of momentary happiness he gathered from his present
position. It separated Phœbe and himself from the world,
and bound them to each other, by their exclusive knowledge
of Judge Pyncheon's mysterious death, and the counsel
which they were forced to hold respecting it. The secret,
so long as it should continue such, kept them within the
circle of a spell, a solitude in the midst of men, a remoteness

as entire as that of an island in mid-ocean; — once
divulged, the ocean would flow betwixt them, standing on
its widely-sundered shores. Meanwhile, all the circumstances
of their situation seemed to draw them together;
they were like two children who go hand in hand, pressing
closely to one another's side, through a shadow-haunted
passage. The image of awful Death, which filled the
house, held them united by his stiffened grasp.

These influences hastened the development of emotions
that might not otherwise have flowered so soon. Possibly,
indeed, it had been Holgrave's purpose to let them die in
their undeveloped germs.

“Why do we delay so?” asked Phœbe. “This secret
takes away my breath! Let us throw open the doors!”

“In all our lives, there can never come another moment
like this!” said Holgrave. “Phœbe, is it all terror? —
nothing but terror? Are you conscious of no joy, as I am,
that has made this the only point of life worth living for?”

“It seems a sin,” replied Phœbe, trembling, “to think of
joy at such a time!”

“Could you but know, Phœbe, how it was with me, the
hour before you came!” exclaimed the artist. “A dark,
cold, miserable hour! The presence of yonder dead man
threw a great black shadow over everything; he made the
universe, so far as my perception could reach, a scene of
guilt, and of retribution more dreadful than the guilt. The
sense of it took away my youth. I never hoped to feel
young again! The world looked strange, wild, evil, hostile;
— my past life, so lonesome and dreary; my future, a
shapeless gloom, which I must mould into gloomy shapes!
But, Phœbe, you crossed the threshold; and hope, warmth
and joy, came in with you! The black moment became at

once a blissful one. It must not pass without the spoken
word. I love you!”

“How can you love a simple girl like me?” asked Phœbe,
compelled by his earnestness to speak. “You have many
many thoughts, with which I should try in vain to sympathize.
And I, — I, too, — I have tendencies with which
you would sympathize as little. That is less matter. But
I have not scope enough to make you happy.”

“You are my only possibility of happiness!” answered
Holgrave. “I have no faith in it, except as you bestow it
on me!”

“And then — I am afraid!” continued Phœbe, shrinking
towards Holgrave, even while she told him so frankly the
doubts with which he affected her. “You will lead me
out of my own quiet path. You will make me strive to
follow you, where it is pathless. I cannot do so. It is not
my nature. I shall sink down and perish!”

“Ah, Phœbe!” exclaimed Holgrave, with almost a sigh,
and a smile that was burthened with thought. “It will be far
otherwise than as you forebode. The world owes all its onward
impulses to men ill at ease. The happy man inevitably
confines himself within ancient limits. I have a presentiment
that, hereafter, it will be my lot to set out trees, to
make fences, — perhaps, even, in due time, to build a house
for another generation, — in a word, to conform myself to
laws, and the peaceful practice of society. Your poise will
be more powerful than any oscillating tendency of mine.”

“I would not have it so!” said Phœbe, earnestly.

“Do you love me?” asked Holgrave. “If we love one
another, the moment has room for nothing more. Let us
pause upon it, and be satisfied. Do you love me, Phœbe?”

“You look into my heart,” said she, letting her eyes
drop. “You know I love you!”

And it was in this hour, so full of doubt and awe, that
the one miracle was wrought, without which every human
existence is a blank. The bliss, which makes all things
true, beautiful, and holy, shone around this youth and
maiden. They were conscious of nothing sad nor old.
They transfigured the earth, and made it Eden again, and
themselves the two first dwellers in it. The dead man, so
close beside them, was forgotten. At such a crisis, there is
no death; for immortality is revealed anew, and embraces
everything in its hallowed atmosphere.

But how soon the heavy earth-dream settled down again!

“Hark!” whispered Phœbe. “Somebody is at the
street door!”

“Now let us meet the world!” said Holgrave. “No
doubt, the rumor of Judge Pyncheon's visit to this house,
and the flight of Hepzibah and Clifford, is about to lead to
the investigation of the premises. We have no way but to
meet it. Let us open the door at once.”

But, to their surprise, before they could reach the street
door, — even before they quitted the room in which the foregoing
interview had passed, — they heard footsteps in the
further passage. The door, therefore, which they supposed
to be securely locked, — which Holgrave, indeed, had seen
to be so, and at which Phœbe had vainly tried to enter, —
must have been opened from without. The sound of foot-steps
was not harsh, bold, decided, and intrusive, as the gait
of strangers would naturally be, making authoritative
entrance into a dwelling where they knew themselves unwelcome.
It was feeble, as of persons either weak or weary;
there was the mingled murmur of two voices, familiar to
both the listeners.

“Can it be?” whispered Holgrave.

“It is they!” answered Phœbe. “Thank God! — thank
God!”

And then, as if in sympathy with Phœbe's whispered
ejaculation, they heard Hepzibah's voice, more distinctly.

“Thank God, my brother, we are at home!”

“Well! — Yes! — thank God!” responded Clifford.
“A dreary home, Hepzibah! But you have done well to
bring me hither! Stay! That parlor-door is open. I cannot
pass by it! Let me go and rest me in the arbor, where
I used, — oh, very long ago, it seems to me, after what has
befallen us, — where I used to be so happy with little
Phœbe!”

But the house was not altogether so dreary as Clifford
imagined it. They had not made many steps, — in truth,
they were lingering in the entry, with the listlessness of an
accomplished purpose, uncertain what to do next, — when
Phœbe ran to meet them. On beholding her, Hepzibah burst
into tears. With all her might, she had staggered onward
beneath the burden of grief and responsibility, until now that
it was safe to fling it down. Indeed, she had not energy
to fling it down, but had ceased to uphold it, and suffered it
to press her to the earth. Clifford appeared the stronger of
the two.

“It is our own little Phœbe! — Ah! and Holgrave with
her,” exclaimed he, with a glance of keen and delicate
insight, and a smile, beautiful, kind, but melancholy. “I
thought of you both, as we came down the street, and
beheld Alice's Posies in full bloom. And so the flower of
Eden has bloomed, likewise, in this old, darksome house,
to-day!”