University of Virginia Library

29. CHAPTER XXIX.
QUIET DAYS.

Now succeeded quiet days at the cottage; not so
quiet, not so monotonous as in the past, for the old life
there, that dull dream, haunted by ghosts of the memory
and whispers of the imagination, had been broken up and
dispelled. George's presence not only infused that element
of strength, activity, and domestic revolution which
is the masculine prerogative, but by removing the ban of
mourning and mystery from the house, exposed it to those
social inroads against which its doors had so long been
sealed.

Still Christmas day, that first day of congratulation
and rejoicing, being past, those that followed were days
of comparative repose and mental reaction. The lives
and thoughts of the cottage inmates settled now into permanence
and regularity. Hannah went her rounds of
domestic inspection and oversight, and got her meals and
her naps at the customary hours; Margery by degrees
weaned her eyes from her son's face, so far as to take
cognizance of other objects, and at intervals to resume

her knitting. Angie performed her accustomed duties with
a calmness and placidity which were in strong contrast
to the tumultuous and passionate agitation which she had
so recently evinced, and with the self-reliant energy and
perseverance, which, as Hannah often used to say, made
her weakness worth more than the strength of other
women. Doubtless it grieved George, who watched her
anxiously, to see how laborious a place she filled in the
household, though it might well have been merely by the
force of former habit that he easily and naturally resumed
all the heavier and more exposed burdens of the
family, and so relieved her at every turn. He little suspected
how light all labor had become to her now — how
work, that had been the solace of her pain, was scarcely
less a necessity to her in her joy; and how, in her humble
and often secret cares for the comfort of his aunt, his
mother, and especially of himself, her love and gratitude
found the expression and vent which they yearned for,
but were otherwise denied.

None of this household, thus suddenly and strangely
blessed sat down to the idle enjoyment of their new happiness,
and so suffered it to pall and run to waste, as all
happiness does the moment it is rested in, and weighed as
the end and goal of life. As for George himself, he was
full of interests and occupations, in which all the others
were more or less involved. Besides his visits to New
York on duties connected with his vessel, which occupied
no small part of his time, he began almost immediately
to meditate and carry into effect schemes of improvement

and repair on his mother's premises. Years of exile had
not only intensified George's appreciation of home comforts,
but had quickened his eye and hand for the detection
and supply of wants and deficiencies which he had
formerly overlooked or been powerless to remedy. Five
years of neglect had opened a wide field for his diligence;
he brought no fortune to aid his zeal, but his honest earnings
had made him, as country folks say, “forehanded;”
and the material being supplied, Van Hausen was only
too ready to add his skill to the young man's strength.

It was not without many a sigh of pity, many an exclamation
of pain, that George, while conducting these
repairs, saw at every turn, in the dilapidation of the
house and out-buildings, evidences of the poverty and
helplessness of their occupants, and realized under what
disadvantages and difficulties these poor women had carried
on their housekeeping and gardening, and managed
to maintain life.

And it was not without heart throbs, that seemed to
shake their old frames too mightily, that Hannah and
Margery, hobbling or creeping twenty times a day from
their arm-chairs to the windows, marked how tumbledown
fences had risen as if by magic; how, in the
thawing weather, the water that used to leak in every
where now came dripping down the neatly patched roof,
or was carried off to the cistern by the new water-spout;
how proudly the old cock was proclaiming to his family
the glories of the hen-coop on which George had especially
lavished his taste and ingenuity; how smoothly the well-curb,

just completed, did its work, and how easily rickety
doors and gates swung on their new hinges.

“There 's the comfort of havin' a man on the place!”
Hannah would say, in a self-gratulatory tone, while Margery,
saying nothing, would, as she gazed on the many
proofs of her son's thoughtfulness and generosity, feel
that these things, far more than his robust form and masculine
beauty, proclaimed her the mother of one who was
every inch a man.

But though the energies of the family were directed
into fruitful channels, and their sources of happiness
were multiplied rather than exhausted, their joy was
not without a cloud. The Christmas sun had shone
through or scattered it. The holiday bustle, the cheers
and congratulations of the neighborhood had put it to
flight, as a high wind drives the threatening storm; but
in the quiet and leisure of every-day life it gathered
again, obscuring the sunshine, and settling like a shadow
on faces that would otherwise have shone with gladness.
It was no change that had come over their condition or
prospects. It was no new and painful revelations on the
part of Bly, from whom no further details or particulars
had yet been received. It was nothing that was feared;
nothing that was acknowledged; nothing that the most
prying observer could detect. Still it was there, exercising
its secret influence, making itself vaguely felt,
stalking not between eye and eye, but between heart and
heart.

Yes! there were hearts in that cottage which were

haunted yet, — there were ghosts of the memory, spectres
of the imagination, which darkened the daily life,
and forbade the hope of a cloudless future.

Hannah, the only one from whose lot the principal
blight neither had been nor could be removed, and who
must carry her widowed heart with her to the grave,
was the only one who did not come under the cloud to
which I refer; the only one who had shaken off the
weight of remorse, and dread, and bitter memory. She
had accomplished her life-work, or rather it had been
taken out of her hands and accomplished for her. The
suspense, the hatred, the revengeful craving were satisfied.
Grief at her old man's fate had, from the first,
been subordinate to these master passions; and now that
the stronger emotions were laid to rest, the weaker only
revived so far as to add another to the softening, subduing
influences that were at work within her. Hannah
was changed doubtless, but it was all for the better.
The hard rind that had incrusted her heart had crumbled
and fallen away, and the autumn of her life promised
riper and mellower fruit than could have been anticipated
from a nature so knotted and gnarled. She had
leisure now to soften and ripen for another world, for
her soul was released from the cares and troubles of
this?

But Margery, poor Margery, had found no such
complete release, such final deliverance from the shadows
that had so long held her bound. Her maternal
heart had revelled a while in bliss, sunk and absorbed in

the simple realization of her son's resurrection to innocence
and to her. But this trance of bewilderment, this
ecstacy of joy, could not outlast the excitement of the first
few days, and instead of subsiding into calm and peaceful
satisfaction, the heart that had so long been tuned to woe
was destined, gradually, to become the prey of fresh tortures.
Proud as the mother was of her son, she could
not be wholly happy in him. There were recollections
that haunted her soul. She would sit brooding over
them for hours, more silent than ever; afraid to speak,
afraid to indulge the sigh which might betray the subject
of her morbid reflections. George's eye, turning on her
with filial love, seemed like a reproach. She dreaded
every allusion to a past which still had terrors for her
imagination to dwell upon. When all the world was envying
her the son who had, by his deed of daring, conferred
a world-wide benefit on humanity, her heart cried
out, “I am not worthy to be his mother!” When he
took her in his arms and kissed her, she trembled, and
could scarcely refrain from exclaiming, “My boy! my
boy! take back your kiss! You would hate your poor
old mother if you knew the wrong she had done you in
her heart; if you knew that all these years she had believed
you a murderer!” And this thought was poison
to her peace. It humiliated her in the presence of
George, gave back to her little pinched features their
anxious, watchful expression, made her more shy, more
reserved, more self-distrustful, a more complete nobody
even than before.

Nor was Angie any less the victim of bitter and self-reproachful
reflections. Had she not wronged him from
first to last, from the days when she tyrannized over
him in the past, and slighted his boyish love, up to the
moment when that cry of hers in the court-room was
wrung from the heart that imputed guilt where there
was no guilt? What part could she claim in the present
triumph? Humble service, joyfully rendered to him
and his, tears of thanksgiving shed in secret, grateful
praises to the Source of all good, these were her portion;
but from the general jubilee she felt herself an outcast.

So she went about her daily tasks calm and pale; and
such was the reaction from nervous excitement, such the
self-restraint which she imposed upon herself, that amidst
the universal rejoicing she alone looked sad. Studiously
avoiding observation, she seldom raised her eyes from
her work or the floor, except to take note of some household
want, or supply an omission to somebody's comfort.
Otherwise she suffered her long lashes to droop upon her
cheek, and wore on her face that meek and patient expression,
which of late had become habitual with her,
but which was unfamiliar to George.

In the long talks that took place round the fireside at
night she bore scarcely any part. The tongue that used
to prattle so gayly, charming George into indifference to
all other speech, had learned lessons of wisdom and
moderation in a stern school, and now was curbed by
more than ordinary self-restraint. So, though an attentive
and absorbed listener, especially to those stories of

George's experience which were drawn from him by the
curiosity of Hannah Rawle and Van Hausen, she rarely
asked a question or volunteered a remark.

Nor was the frequently rising exclamation often permitted
to escape her lips, nor the smile of sympathy or
tear of pity that would not be repressed, suffered to betray
the intensity of her interest, for occupying as usual
her low seat close to Margery's side, she was partially
sheltered from observation by the person of the old
woman, and still more by the attitude with which, stooping
towards the firelight, she would, at the crisis of the
story, bend her head over Margery's knitting-work and
busy herself in taking up the dropped stitches, or repairing
the mistakes of which the once expert but now trembling
fingers of Margery were continually guilty.

She did not mean to be cold or indifferent. Quite
the reverse. She imposed these things upon herself as
a penance. Still less was it pride that actuated her,
for remembrances of the past humbled her to the dust.
She kept herself aloof as an alien, a foreigner, one who
had no part nor lot in the family, except by sufferance,
and dared not give expression to feelings which she had
lost the right, as she thought, to indulge.

Especially did she shrink from those thoughtful attentions,
those brotherly cares on George's part, which
were like heaping coals of fire on her head. She even
tried to evade them, to do every thing that she could
without his help, and when his strong arm or ready hand
forestalled her, I am afraid she did not thank him with
half the warmth his kindness merited.

Worse still, he had brought gifts for her from abroad.
Was there still some remnant of hope in his heart?
Did it burn higher after the capture of the pirate
Bullet, and the recognition in him of his former rival
had disposed of that obstacle? Or would he have
brought these things all the same, presented them to
her as bridal gifts if he had found her the wife of
another, decked her with them to please the eye of
rival lovers, or dedicated them to her memory if dead?
I will almost venture to affirm the latter, so disinterested,
so inevitable a part of himself was the love he bore her.
At all events they must have been meant for her, and
no one else, so exactly were they calculated to please her
tastes, so utterly unsuitable to the wants of any other
friend whom he had left behind him.

He offered them to her with such simple and brotherly
cordiality, merely saying, as he unpacked his sea-chest
in the kitchen, “Here, this is for you, Angie, and
this; O, and this!” and she — she hardly looked at
them, dropped them upon the table as if they burned
her fingers, and presently, without an expression of
pleasure or a word of thanks, left the room. But then
she was compelled to choose between this frigid silence,
this abrupt departure, or choking words of expostulation,
ending in a flood of tears. There was no alternative,
and she sought shelter in the former.

It was a pity she should have done this injustice to
herself and him. She might have been, ought to have
been, as ready to act the part of a frank friend as he was

to prove himself an affectionate brother. At least some
women so might and ought. I will not say that this
was possible for Angie. I have never claimed for her
one of those equally-balanced and harmonious characters
which can coolly weigh a position, or drill themselves to
a uniform propriety of action. It is true her original
traits had been greatly subdued and modified. But
natures so intense and impetuous as hers must always
express themselves in characteristic fashion. Angie
had not lost her identity, and she must be pardoned if
both her feelings and her behavior, under her present
painful circumstances, partook of exaggeration.

Still it was a pity; for of course George misunderstood
it all, was confirmed in his belief that she was suffering
cruel mortification at discovering in the pirate Bullet
the lover who had so captivated her fancy, and that
she was overwhelmed with grief and horror at his
untimely fate. Of course he suspected that if she had
pined for any one, it had been for this deceitful gallant;
and that so far from cherishing any tenderness for himself,
she was more than ever estranged from him now
that, by the part he had played in the arrest and conviction
of his rival, he had, to say the least, associated himself
in her mind with this blow to her love and her pride.

He was deeply touched at the intimate and mutually
dependent relations which existed between Angie and
his mother. He was astonished at the confidence and
partiality his aunt Hannah manifested towards the
former; for though Hannah had a rough way of proving

it (a way which sometimes disproved it in strangers'
eyes), it was easy for one who knew her well to see how
completely she trusted Angie, approved her ways, and at
times, in her eccentric fashion, petted and praised the girl,
who, by her quick wit and ready tact, exercised vastly
more influence over her than any young person had ever
possessed before.

George felt that he could never be sufficiently grateful
to one who, for nearly five years, had served the old
folks so faithfully. He was proud to see how the girl of
his choice had commended herself to his nearest relatives;
as for himself, he would be her true friend always,
so far as she would let him. More than that he did
not dream of, now that he saw how wholly her heart
was estranged from him.

And so these two, arguing from their own mistakes,
drew more and more widely apart every day. Sometimes
the thought would intrude itself upon George that
this coming home, to which he had looked forward so
long, and often so hopelessly, was not, after all, the joy
it had seemed to him in prospective. Angie (much as
he loved his mother, he could not help thinking of Angie
first) could do quite as well without him as with him.
Sometimes it even seemed as if he were in her way.
His mother, since the first joy at his safe return, was
dull, spiritless, and did not appear like herself. It was
true she had always been dull and spiritless, but then it
was an open, acknowledged depression, which only lay
on the surface, and which expended itself naturally in the

“dearie me's!” and the long-drawn “ho — hums!” that
proceeded, doubtless, from a weak chest as much as any
thing. Now he mistrusted that her lifeless, apathetic
moods had a deeper root; that their foundation had been
laid in those long years of desertion and loneliness for
which it was too late now for him to make any atonement.
“My poor old mother! she is sadly broken; I
ought never to have left her!” Such was the conclusion
of his reflections in Margery's case.

George was far from giving way to these desponding
thoughts. He found refuge from them in his out-door
labors, his excursions in the neighborhood, all his little
plans for the household welfare. If the life-blood was
getting torpid in his mother's heart, and her face could
not be made glad merely by his presence, he could at
least busy himself in erecting a door-porch to keep out
the cold, or in cutting and stacking the wood which, in
the form of a good fire, would be sure to reflect a glow
on her face. If Angie evaded his assistance, or found
his offers of service oppressive he could exercise his ingenuity
in secretly providing for her wants, leaving her
to the supposition that it had been done by fairies.

Then he had always a resource in his aunt Hannah,
who, truly blessed in her nephew's society, reaped the
benefit of his mother's silence and Angie's reserve, inasmuch
as George's most animated sallies, the exuberance of
spirits which he occasionally manifested, were inevitably
expended on her. And although she tried to be severe,
and often pushed him from her with the harsh remonstrance,

“Get out of my way, you teasin' feller; you
pester me to depth!” the smiles that wrinkled her hard
face, and now and then the ready retort, encouraged the
pestering, teasing fellow, and sharpened his wit against
the keen edge of her own.

But these occasions were exceptional. Hannah was
too deaf, as well as too old, to engage frequently in contests
of wit or raillery, and otherwise the tone of the
house was subdued and monotonous. These, as I have
said, were quiet days in the Rawle cottage. It was well
there was the click of the hammer, the grating of the
manson's trowel, to tell of spirit, life, and progress. But
for these it would have been too quiet, too monotonous,
especially during the stormy days, of which January had
more than its usual share this year.