University of Virginia Library

31. CHAPTER XXXI.
MR. SILAS PECKHAM RENDERS HIS ACCOUNT.

The morning rose clear and bright. The long
storm was over, and the calm autumnal sunshine
was now to return, with all its infinite repose and
sweetness. With the earliest dawn exploring
parties were out in every direction along the
southern slope of The Mountain, tracing the
ravages of the great slide and the track it had
followed. It proved to be not so much a slide
as the breaking off and falling of a vast line of
cliff, including the dreaded Ledge. It had folded
over like the leaves of a half-opened book when
they close, crushing the trees below, piling its
ruins in a glacis at the foot of what had been
the overhanging wall of the cliff, and filling up
that deep cavity above the mansion-house which
bore the ill-omened name of Dead Man's Hollow.
This it was which had saved the Dudley mansion.
The falling masses, or huge fragments
breaking off from them, would have swept the
house and all around it to destruction but for
this deep shelving dell, into which the stream
of ruin was happily directed. It was, indeed,

one of Nature's conservative revolutions; for the
fallen masses made a kind of shelf, which interposed
a level break between the inclined planes
above and below it, so that the nightmare-fancies
of the dwellers in the Dudley mansion, and in
many other residences under the shadow of The
Mountain, need not keep them lying awake hereafter
to listen for the snapping of roots and the
splitting of the rocks above them.

Twenty-four hours after the falling of the cliff,
it seemed as if it had happened ages ago. The
new fact had fitted itself in with all the old predictions,
forebodings, fears, and acquired the solidarity
belonging to all events which have slipped
out of the fingers of Time and dissolved in the
antecedent eternity.

Old Sophy was lying dead in the Dudley mansion.
If there were tears shed for her, they could
not be bitter ones; for she had lived out her full
measure of days, and gone — who could help
fondly believing it? — to rejoin her beloved mistress.
They made a place for her at the foot of
the two mounds. It was thus she would have
chosen to sleep, and not to have wronged her
humble devotion in life by asking to lie at the
side of those whom she had served so long and
faithfully. There were very few present at the
simple ceremony. Helen Darley was one of
these few. The old black woman had been her
companion in all the kind offices of which she
had been the ministering angel to Elsie.

After it was all over, Helen was leaving with
the rest, when Dudley Venner begged her to
stay a little, and he would send her back: it was
a long walk; besides, he wished to say some
things to her, which he had not had the opportunity
of speaking. Of course Helen could not
refuse him; there must be many thoughts coming
into his mind which he would wish to share
with her who had known his daughter so long
and been with her in her last days.

She returned into the great parlor with the
wrought cornices and the medallion-portraits on
the ceiling.

“I am now alone in the world,” Dudley Venner
said.

Helen must have known that before he spoke.
But the tone in which he said it had so much
meaning, that she could not find a word to answer
him with. They sat in silence, which the
old tall clock counted out in long seconds; but
it was silence which meant more than any
words they had ever spoken.

“Alone in the world. Helen, the freshness of
my life is gone, and there is little left of the few
graces which in my younger days might have
fitted me to win the love of women. Listen to
me, — kindly, if you can; forgive me, at least.
Half my life has been passed in constant fear
and anguish, without any near friend to share
my trials. My task is done now; my fears have
ceased to prey upon me; the sharpness of early

sorrows has yielded something of its edge to
time. You have bound me to you by gratitude
in the tender care you have taken of my poor
child. More than this. I must tell you all now,
out of the depth of this trouble through which
I am passing. I have loved you from the moment
we first met; and if my life has anything
left worth accepting, it is yours. Will you take
the offered gift?”

Helen looked in his face, surprised, bewildered.

“This is not for me, — not for me,” she said.
“I am but a poor faded flower, not worth the
gathering of such a one as you. No, no, — I
have been bred to humble toil all my days, and
I could not be to you what you ought to ask. I
am accustomed to a kind of loneliness and self-dependence.
I have seen nothing, almost, of the
world, such as you were born to move in. Leave
me to my obscure place and duties; I shall at
least have peace; — and you — you will surely
find in due time some one better fitted by Nature
and training to make you happy.”

“No, Miss Darley!” Dudley Venner said, almost
sternly. “You must not speak to a man,
who has lived through my experiences, of looking
about for a new choice after his heart has once
chosen. Say that you can never love me; say
that I have lived too long to share your young
life; say that sorrow has left nothing in me for
Love to find his pleasure in; but do not mock
me with the hope of a new affection for some unknown

object. The first look of yours brought
me to your side. The first tone of your voice
sunk into my heart. From this moment my life
must wither out or bloom anew. My home is
desolate. Come under my roof and make it
bright once more, — share my life with me, — or
I shall give the halls of the old mansion to the
bats and the owls, and wander forth alone without
a hope or a friend!”

To find herself with a man's future at the disposal
of a single word of hers! — a man like this,
too, with a fascination for her against which she
had tried to shut her heart, feeling that he lived
in another sphere than hers, working as she was
for her bread, a poor operative in the factory of
a hard master and jealous overseer, the salaried
drudge of Mr. Silas Peckham! Why, she had
thought he was grateful to her as a friend of his
daughter; she had even pleased herself with the
feeling that he liked her, in her humble place, as
a woman of some cultivation and many sympathetic
points of relation with himself; but that he
loved her, — that this deep, fine nature, in a man
so far removed from her in outward circumstance,
should have found its counterpart in one
whom life had treated so coldly as herself, —
that Dudley Venner should stake his happiness
on a breath of hers, — poor Helen Darley's, — it
was all a surprise, a confusion, a kind of fear
not wholly fearful. Ah, me! women know what
it is, — that mist over the eyes, that trembling in

the limbs, that faltering of the voice, that sweet,
shame-faced, unspoken confession of weakness
which does not wish to be strong, that sudden
overflow in the soul where thoughts loose their
hold on each other and swim single and helpless
in the flood of emotion, — women know what
it is!

No doubt she was a little frightened and a
good deal bewildered, and that her sympathies
were warmly excited for a friend to whom she
had been brought so near, and whose loneliness
she saw and pitied. She lost that calm self-possession
she had hoped to maintain.

“If I thought that I could make you happy, —
if I should speak from my heart, and not my reason,
— I am but a weak woman, — yet if I can
be to you — What can I say?”

What more could this poor, dear Helen say?

“Elbridge, harness the horses and take Miss
Darley back to the school.”

What conversation had taken place since Helen's
rhetorical failure is not recorded in the minutes
from which this narrative is constructed. But
when the man who had been summoned had gone
to get the carriage ready, Helen resumed something
she had been speaking of.

“Not for the world! Everything must go on
just as it has gone on, for the present. There
are proprieties to be consulted. I cannot be hard
with you, that out of your very affliction has

sprung this — this — well — you must name it
for me, — but the world will never listen to explanations.
I am to be Helen Darley, lady assistant
in Mr. Silas Peckham's school, as long as
I see fit to hold my office. And I mean to attend
to my scholars just as before; so that I shall
have very little time for visiting or seeing company.
I believe, though, you are one of the
Trustees and a Member of the Examining Committee;
so that, if you should happen to visit the
school, I shall try to be civil to you.”

Every lady sees, of course, that Helen was
quite right; but perhaps here and there one will
think that Dudley Venner was all wrong, — that
he was too hasty, — that he should have been
too full of his recent grief for such a confession
as he has just made, and the passion from which
it sprung. Perhaps they do not understand the
sudden recoil of a strong nature long compressed.
Perhaps they have not studied the mystery of
allotropism in the emotions of the human heart.
Go to the nearest chemist and ask him to show
you some of the dark-red phosphorus which will
not burn without fierce heating, but at 500°,
Fahrenheit, changes back again to the inflammable
substance we know so well. Grief seems
more like ashes than like fire; but as grief has
been love once, so it may become love again.
This is emotional allotropism.

Helen rode back to the Institute and inquired
for Mr. Peckham. She had not seen him during

the brief interval between her departure from the
mansion-house and her return to Old Sophy's
funeral. There were various questions about the
school she wished to ask.

“Oh, how's your haälth, Miss Darley?” Silas
began. “We've missed you consid'able. Glad
to see you back at the post of dooty. Hope the
Squire treated you hahnsomely, — liberal pecooniary
compensation, — hey? A'n't much of a
loser, I guess, by acceptin' his propositions?”

Helen blushed at this last question, as if Silas
had meant something by it beyond asking what
money she had received; but his own double-meaning
expression and her blush were too nice
points for him to have taken cognizance of. He
was engaged in a mental calculation as to the
amount of the deduction he should make under
the head of “demage to the institootion,” — this
depending somewhat on that of the “pecooniary
compensation” she might have received for her
services as the friend of Elsie Venner.

So Helen slid back at once into her routine,
the same faithful, patient creature she had always
been. But what was this new light which
seemed to have kindled in her eyes? What was
this look of peace, which nothing could disturb,
which smiled serenely through all the little meannesses
with which the daily life of the educational
factory surrounded her, — which not only made
her seem resigned, but overflowed all her features
with a thoughtful, subdued happiness? Mr.

Bernard did not know, — perhaps he did not
guess. The inmates of the Dudley mansion were
not scandalized by any mysterious visits of a
veiled or unveiled lady. The vibrating tongues
of the “female youth” of the Institute were
not set in motion by the standing of an equipage
at the gate, waiting for their lady teacher. The
servants at the mansion did not convey numerous
letters with superscriptions in a bold, manly
hand, sealed with the arms of a well-known
house, and directed to Miss Helen Darley; nor,
on the other hand, did Hiram, the man from the
lean streak in New Hampshire, carry sweet-smelling,
rose-hued, many-layered, criss-crossed, fine-stitch-lettered
packages of note-paper directed to
Dudley Venner, Esq., and all too scanty to hold
that incredible expansion of the famous three
words which a woman was born to say, — that
perpetual miracle which astonishes all the go-betweens
who wear their shoes out in carrying a
woman's infinite variations on the theme, “I love
you.”

But the reader must remember that there are
walks in country-towns where people are liable
to meet by accident, and that the hollow of an
old tree has served the purpose of a post-office
sometimes; so that he has her choice (to divide
the pronouns impartially) of various hypotheses
to account for the new glory of happiness which
seemed to have irradiated our poor Helen's features,
as if her dreary life were awakening in the
dawn of a blessed future.

With all the alleviations which have been
hinted at, Mr. Dudley Venner thought that the
days and the weeks had never moved so slowly
as through the last period of the autumn that was
passing. Elsie had been a perpetual source of
anxiety to him, but still she had been a companion.
He could not mourn for her; for he
felt that she was safer with her mother, in that
world where there are no more sorrows and dangers,
than she could have been with him. But
as he sat at his window and looked at the three
mounds, the loneliness of the great house made
it seem more like the sepulchre than these narrow
dwellings where his beloved and her daughter
lay close to each other, side by side, — Catalina,
the bride of his youth, and Elsie, the child
whom he had nurtured, with poor Old Sophy,
who had followed them like a black shadow, at
their feet, under the same soft turf, sprinkled with
the brown autumnal leaves. It was not good
for him to be thus alone. How should he ever
live through the long months of November and
December?

The months of November and December did,
in some way or other, get rid of themselves at
last, bringing with them the usual events of village-life
and a few unusual ones. Some of the
geologists had been up to look at the great
slide, of which they gave those prolix accounts
which everybody remembers who read the scientific
journals of the time. The engineers reported

that there was little probability of any
further convulsion along the line of rocks which
overhung the more thickly settled part of the
town. The naturalists drew up a paper on the
“Probable Extinction of the Crotalus Durissus
in the Township of Rockland.” The engagement
of the Widow Rowens to a Little Millionville
merchant was announced, — “Sudding 'n'
onexpected,” Widow Leech said, — “waälthy, or
she wouldn't ha' looked at him, — fifty year old,
if he is a day, 'n' ha'n't got a white hair in his
head.” The Reverend Chauncy Fairweather
had publicly announced that he was going to
join the Roman Catholic communion, — not so
much to the surprise or consternation of the religious
world as he had supposed. Several old
ladies forthwith proclaimed their intention of
following him; but, as one or two of them were
deaf, and another had been threatened with an
attack of that mild, but obstinate complaint, dementia
senilis, many thought it was not so much
the force of his arguments as a kind of tendency
to jump as the bellwether jumps, well
known in flocks not included in the Christian
fold. His bereaved congregation immediately
began pulling candidates on and off, like new
boots, on trial. Some pinched in tender places;
some were too loose; some were too square-toed;
some were too coarse, and didn't please;
some were too thin, and wouldn't last; — in
short, they couldn't possibly find a fit. At last
people began to drop in to hear old Doctor
Honeywood. They were quite surprised to find
what a human old gentleman he was, and went
back and told the others, that, instead of being
a case of confluent sectarianism, as they supposed,
the good old minister had been so well
vaccinated with charitable virus that he was
now a true, open-souled Christian of the mildest
type. The end of all which was, that the liberal
people went over to the old minister almost in
a body, just at the time that Deacon Shearer
and the “Vinegar-Bible” party split off, and that
not long afterwards they sold their own meeting-house
to the malecontents, so that Deacon
Soper used often to remind Colonel Sprowle of
his wish that “our little man and him [the Reverend
Doctor] would swop pulpits,” and tell him
it had “pooty nigh come trew.” — But this is
anticipating the course of events, which were
much longer in coming about; for we have but
just got through that terrible long month, as Mr.
Dudley Venner found it, of December.

On the first of January, Mr. Silas Peckham
was in the habit of settling his quarterly accounts,
and making such new arrangements as
his convenience or interest dictated. New-Year
was a holiday at the Institute. No doubt this
accounted for Helen's being dressed so charmingly,
— always, to be sure, in her own simple
way, but yet with such a true lady's air, that
she looked fit to be the mistress of any mansion
in the land.

She was in the parlor alone, a little before
noon, when Mr. Peckham came in.

“I'm ready to settle my accaount with you
now, Miss Darley,” said Silas.

“As you please, Mr. Peckham,” Helen answered,
very graciously.

“Before payin' you your selary,” the Principal
continued, “I wish to come to an understandin'
as to the futur'. I consider that I've been
payin' high, very high, for the work you do.
Women's wages can't be expected to do more
than feed and clothe 'em, as a gineral thing,
with a little savin', in case of sickness, and to
bury 'em, if they break daown, as all of 'em
are liable to do at any time. If I a'n't misinformed,
you not only support yourself out of
my establishment, but likewise relatives of yours,
who I don't know that I'm called upon to feed and
clothe. There is a young woman, not burdened
with destitute relatives, has signified that she
would be glad to take your dooties for less pecooniary
compensation, by a consid'able amaount, than
you now receive. I shall be willin', however, to
retain your services at sech redooced rate as we
shall fix upon, — provided sech redooced rate be
as low or lower than the same services can be
obtained elsewhere.”

“As you please, Mr. Peckham,” Helen answered,
with a smile so sweet that the Principal (who
of course had trumped up this opposition-teacher
for the occasion) said to himself she would

stand being cut down a quarter, perhaps a half,
of her salary.

“Here is your accaount, Miss Darley, and the
balance doo you,” said Silas Peckham, handing
her a paper and a small roll of infectious-flavored
bills wrapping six poisonous coppers of
the old coinage.

She took the paper and began looking at it.
She could not quite make up her mind to touch
the feverish bills with the cankering coppers in
them, and left them airing themselves on the
table.

The document she held ran as follows:

Now Helen had her own private reasons for

wishing to receive the small sum which was due
her at this time without any unfair deduction,
— reasons which we need not inquire into too
particularly, as we may be very sure that they
were right and womanly. So, when she looked
over this account of Mr. Silas Peckham's, and
saw that he had contrived to pare down her
salary to something less than half its stipulated
amount, the look which her countenance wore
was as near to that of righteous indignation as
her gentle features and soft blue eyes would
admit of its being.

“Why, Mr. Peckham,” she said, “do you mean
this? If I am of so much value to you that you
must take off twenty-five dollars for ten days' absence,
how is it that my salary is to be cut down
to less than seventy-five dollars a quarter, if I remain
here?”

“I gave you fair notice,” said Silas. “I have
a minute of it I took down immed'ately after the
intervoo.”

He lugged out his large pocket-book with the
strap going all round it, and took from it a slip of
paper which confirmed his statement.

“Besides,” he added, slyly, “I presoom you
have received a liberal pecooniary compensation
from Squire Venner for nussin' his daughter.”

Helen was looking over the bill while he was
speaking.

“Board and lodging for ten days, Mr. Peckham,
— whose board and lodging, pray?”

The door opened before Silas Peckham could
answer, and Mr. Bernard walked into the parlor.
Helen was holding the bill in her hand, looking
as any woman ought to look who has been at
once wronged and insulted.

“The last turn of the thumbscrew!” said Mr.
Bernard to himself. “What is it, Helen? You
look troubled.”

She handed him the account.

He looked at the footing of it. Then he
looked at the items. Then he looked at Silas
Peckham.

At this moment Silas was sublime. He was
so transcendently unconscious of the emotions
going on in Mr. Bernard's mind at the moment,
that he had only a single thought.

“The accaount's correc'ly cast, I presoom; —
if the' 's any mistake of figgers or addin' 'em up,
it'll be made all right. Everything's accordin' to
agreement. The minute written immed'ately after
the intervoo is here in my possession.”

Mr. Bernard looked at Helen. Just what would
have happened to Silas Peckham, as he stood
then and there, but for the interposition of a
merciful Providence, nobody knows or ever will
know; for at that moment steps were heard upon
the stairs, and Hiram threw open the parlor-door
for Mr. Dudley Venner to enter.

He saluted them all gracefully with the good-wishes
of the season, and each of them returned
his compliment, — Helen blushing fearfully, of

course, but not particularly noticed in her embarrassment
by more than one.

Silas Peckham reckoned with perfect confidence
on his Trustees, who had always said
what he told them to, and done what he wanted.
It was a good chance now to show off his power,
and, by letting his instructors know the unstable
tenure of their offices, make it easier to settle his
accounts and arrange his salaries. There was
nothing very strange in Mr. Venner's calling; he
was one of the Trustees, and this was New Year's
Day. But he had called just at the lucky moment
for Mr. Peckham's object.

“I have thought some of makin' changes in the
department of instruction,” he began. “Several
accomplished teachers have applied to me, who
would be glad of sitooations. I understand
that there never have been so many fust-rate
teachers, male and female, out of employment
as doorin' the present season. If I can make
sahtisfahctory arrangements with my present
corpse of teachers, I shall be glad to do so;
otherwise I shell, with the permission of the
Trustees, make sech noo arrangements as circumstahnces
compel.”

“You may make arrangements for a new assistant
in my department, Mr. Peckham,” said
Mr. Bernard, “at once, — this day, — this hour.
I am not safe to be trusted with your person five
minutes out of this lady's presence, — of whom
I beg pardon for this strong language. Mr. Venner,

I must beg you, as one of the Trustees of
this Institution, to look at the manner in which
its Principal has attempted to swindle this faithful
teacher, whose toils and sacrifices and self-devotion
to the school have made it all that it is,
in spite of this miserable trader's incompetence.
Will you look at the paper I hold?”

Dudley Venner took the account and read it
through, without changing a feature. Then he
turned to Silas Peckham.

“You may make arrangements for a new assistant
in the branches this lady has taught. Miss
Helen Darley is to be my wife. I had hoped to
have announced this news in a less abrupt and
ungraceful manner. But I came to tell you with
my own lips what you would have learned before
evening from my friends in the village.”

Mr. Bernard went to Helen, who stood silent,
with downcast eyes, and took her hand warmly,
hoping she might find all the happiness she deserved.
Then he turned to Dudley Venner, and
said, —

“She is a queen, but has never found it out.
The world has nothing nobler than this dear
woman, whom you have discovered in the disguise
of a teacher. God bless her and you!”

Dudley Venner returned his friendly grasp,
without answering a word in articulate speech.

Silas remained dumb and aghast for a brief
space. Coming to himself a little, he thought
there might have been some mistake about the

items, — would like to have Miss Darley's bill
returned, — would make it all right, — had no
idee that Squire Venner had a special int'rest
in Miss Darley, — was sorry he had given offence,
— if he might take that bill and look it
over —

“No, Mr. Peckham,” said Mr. Dudley Venner;
“there will be a full meeting of the Board next
week, and the bill, and such evidence with reference
to the management of the Institution and
the treatment of its instructors as Mr. Langdon
sees fit to bring forward will be laid before
them.”

Miss Helen Darley became that very day the
guest of Miss Arabella Thornton, the Judge's
daughter. Mr. Bernard made his appearance a
week or two later at the Lectures, where the Professor
first introduced him to the reader.

He stayed after the class had left the room.

“Ah, Mr. Langdon! how do you do? Very
glad to see you back again. How have you been
since our correspondence on Fascination and
other curious scientific questions?”

It was the Professor who spoke, — whom the
reader will recognize as myself, the teller of this
story.

“I have been well,” Mr. Bernard answered,
with a serious look which invited a further question.

“I hope you have had none of those painful
or dangerous experiences you seemed to be thinking

of when you wrote; at any rate, you have
escaped having your obituary written.”

“I have seen some things worth remembering.
Shall I call on you this evening and tell you
about them?”

“I shall be most happy to see you.”

This was the way in which I, the Professor,
became acquainted with some of the leading
events of this story. They interested me sufficiently
to lead me to avail myself of all those
other extraordinary methods of obtaining information
well known to writers of narrative.

Mr. Langdon seemed to me to have gained in
seriousness and strength of character by his late
experiences. He threw his whole energies into
his studies with an effect which distanced all his
previous efforts. Remembering my former hint,
he employed his spare hours in writing for the
annual prizes, both of which he took by a unanimous
vote of the judges. Those who heard him
read his Thesis at the Medical Commencement
will not soon forget the impression made by his
fine personal appearance and manners, nor the
universal interest excited in the audience, as he
read, with his beautiful enunciation, that striking
paper entitled “Unresolved Nebulæ in Vital Science.”
It was a general remark of the Faculty,
— and old Doctor Kittredge, who had come down
on purpose to hear Mr. Langdon, heartily agreed
to it, — that there had never been a diploma filled

up, since the institution which conferred upon
him the degree of Doctor Medicinæ was founded,
which carried with it more of promise to the profession
than that which bore the name of

Bernardus Caryl Langdon.