University of Virginia Library

47. XLVII.

IT was a mellow evening of later October. Mists
hung in all the hollows of the hills. Within the
orchard, where Adèle was strolling, a few golden
apples still shone among the bronzed leaves. She saw
Reuben coming swiftly through the garden; but his
eager step faltered as he came near her. Even the
serene look of girlhood has a power in it to make
impassioned confidence waver, and enthusiasms suffer
recoil. He meets her at last with an assumption of
his every-day manner, which she cannot but see presently
is underlaid with a tempest of struggling feeling
to which he is a stranger. He has taken her hand and
placed it in his arm, — a little coquettish device to
which he was wont; but he keeps the little hand in his
with a nervous clasp that is new, and that makes her
tremble all the more when his speech grows impassioned,
and the easy compliments of his past days of
frolicsome humor take a depth of tone which make her
heart thrill strangely. Meantime, they had come to
the garden-end of the walk.

“It 's late, Reuben, and I must go in-doors,” said she,
with a quiet that she did not feel.

“We 'll take one more turn, Adèle; you must.”
And her hand trembled in the eager clasp he fastened
upon it.

Not once did it come into her mind that Reuben was
to make a declaration of passion for her. She had
feared only some burst of feeling in the direction of the
spinster, or of the Doctor, which should compromise
him even more seriously. When, therefore, he burst
forth, as he did presently, with a passionate avowal of
his love, she was overwhelmed with confusion.

“This is so sudden, so strange, Reuben! indeed it
is!”

Tenderly as she may have felt toward him in days
gone, and gratefully as she always felt, this sudden
attempt to carry by storm the very citadel of her affections
was not alone a surprise, but seemed like sacrilege.
The mystery and doubt that overhung the relations
between her own father and mother — and
which she felt keenly — had made her regard with awe
any possible marriage of her own, investing the thought
of it with a terrible sanctity, and as something to be approached
only with a reverent fear. If in this connection
she had ever thought of Reuben, it was in those
days when he seemed so earnest in the faith, and when
their feelings were blent by some superhuman agency.
But at his divergence into the paths of skepticism, it
seemed to her simple and intense faith that thenceforth

their pilgrimages must be wholly distinct: his — and
she trembled at the thought of it — through some terrible
maze of error, where she could not follow; and
hers — by God's grace — straight to the city whose
gates are of pearl.

When, therefore, she had replied to the passionate
address of Reuben, “You must not talk thus,” it was
with a tear in her eye.

“It grieves you, then, Adèle?”

“Yes, it grieves me, Reuben. Our paths are different
now;” and she bethought herself of her father's
injunction, which seemed to make her duty still plainer,
and forbade her to encourage that parley with her heart
which — with her hand still fast in Reuben's, and his
eyes beaming with a fierce heat upon her — she was
beginning to entertain.

“Adèle, tell me, can I go on?”

“Indeed, indeed, you must not, Reuben!” — and
withdrawing her hand suddenly, she passed it over
brow and eyes, as if to rally her thoughts to measure
the situation.

“You are weeping, Adèle?” said Reuben.

“No, not weeping,” said she, dashing the merest
film of mist from her eyes, “but so troubled! — so
troubled!” And she looked yearningly, but vainly,
in his face for that illumination which had belonged
to his enthusiasm of the summer.

They walked for a moment in silence, — he, with a
scowl upon his face. Seeing this, Adèle said, plaintively,
—

“It seems to me, Reuben, as if this might be only a
solemn mockery of yours.”

“You doubt me, then?” returned he like a flash.

“Do you not doubt yourself, Reuben? Have you
never doubted yourself?” This with a glance that
pierced him through.

“Good Heavens! are you turned preacher?” said
he, bitterly. “Will you measure a heart by its dogmatic
beliefs?”

“For shame, Reuben!”

And for a time both were silent. At last Adèle spoke
again, —

“There is a sense of coming trouble that oppresses
me strangely, — that tells me I must not listen to you,
Reuben.”

“I know it, Adèle; and it is for this I would cherish
you, and protect you against all possible shame or indignities”
—

“Shame! Indignities! What does this mean?
What do you know, Reuben?”

Reuben blushed scarlet. His speech had outrun his
discretion; but seizing her hand, and pressing it more
tenderly than ever, he said, —

“Only this, Adèle: I see that a coolness has grown

up toward you in the parsonage; the old prejudice
against French blood may revive again; besides which,
there is, you know, Adèle, that little family cloud” —

“Is this the old, kind Reuben, — my brother, — who
reminds me of a trouble so shadowy I cannot fairly
measure it?” And Adèle covered her face with her
hands.

“Forgive me, Adèle, for God's sake!”

“There is a cloud, Reuben; thank you for the
word,” said Adèle, recovering herself; “and there is, I
fear, an even darker cloud upon your faith. Until both
are passed, I can never listen to such talk as you would
urge upon me, — never! never!”

And there was a spirit in her words now that awed
Reuben.

“Would you impute my unbelief to me as a crime,
Adèle? is this your Christian charity? Do you think
that I enjoy this fierce wrestling with doubts? or, having
them, would you bid me play false and conceal
them? What if I am a final castaway, as your good
books tell us some must be, would you make me a
castaway before my time, and balk all my hopes in
life? Is this your charity?”

“I would not, — you know I would not, Reuben.”

“Listen to me, Adèle. If there be any hope of
making my way out of this weary wrangle, it seems to
me that it would be in the constant presence of your

simple, exultant faith. Will you be my teacher,
Adèle?”

“Teacher, — yes, with all my heart, Reuben.”

“Then be mine,” said he, seizing her hand again,
“from this very hour!”

An instant she seemed to waver; then came over
her the memory of her father's injunction, — the mystery,
too, that overshadowed her own life.

“I cannot, — I cannot, Reuben!”

“Is this final?” said he, calmly.

“Final.”

She sighed it rather than spoke aloud; the next instant
she had slipped away through the shrubbery, with
a swift, cruel rustle of her silken dress, toward the parsonage.

Reuben lingered in the orchard until he saw the
light flashing through the muslin hangings of her window.
She had gone early to her chamber. She had
kissed the crucifix that was her mother's with a fervor
that sprang as much from devotion as from sentiment.
She had sobbed out her prayer, and with sobs had
buried her sweet face in the pillow.

Could Reuben have seen or conceived all this, he
might have acted differently.

As it was, he entered the Doctor's study an hour
later, with the utmost apparent coolness.

“Well, father,” said he, “I have offered marriage

to your motherless and pious French protégée, and she
declines.”

“My poor son!” said the Doctor.

But his sympathy was not so much with any possible
feeling of disappointment as with the chilling heartlessness
and unbelief that seemed to boast themselves in
his speech.

“It will be rather dull in Ashfield now, I fancy,” continued
Reuben, “and I shall slip off to New York to-morrow
and take a new taste of the world.”

And the Doctor (as if to himself) said despairingly,
“`Whom He will He hardeneth.'”

“But, father,” said Reuben, (without notice of the
old gentleman's ejaculation,) “don't let Aunt Eliza
know of this, — not a word, or she will be fearfully
cruel to the poor child.”

There was a grave household in the parsonage next
morning. Reuben rebelled in heart, in face, and in
action against the tediously long prayer of the parson,
though the old gentleman's spirit was writhing painfully
in his pleadings. The aunt was more pious and
austere than ever. Adèle, timid and shrinking, yet
with a beautiful and a trustful illumination in her eye,
that for days, and weeks, and months, lingered in the
memory of the parson's son.

Later in the day Reuben went to make his adieus to
the Elderkins. The old Squire was seated in his door

busied with the “Weekly Courant,” which had just
come in.

“Aha, Master Reuben,” (this was his old-fashioned
way,) “you 're looking for that lazy fellow, Phil, I suppose.
You 'll find him up-stairs with his cigar and his
Spanish, I 'll venture.”

Reuben made his way up to Phil's chamber after the
unceremonious manner to which he has been used in
that hospitable home, while a snatch of a little songlet
from Rose came floating after him along the stairs.
It was very sweet. But what were sweet songlets to
him now? It being a mild autumn day, Phil sat at
the open window, from which he had many a time seen
the old Doctor jogging past in his chaise, and sometimes
the tall Almira picking her maidenly way along
the walk with her green parasol daintily held aloft with
thumb and two fingers, while from the lesser fingers
dangled a little embroidered bag which was the wonder
of all the school-girls. Other times, too, from this
eyrie of his, he had seen Adèle tripping past, with
Reuben beside her, and had wondered what their chat
might be, while he had feasted his eyes upon her fair
figure.

Yet Phil was by no means an idler; he had developed
a great business shrewdness, and two or three
times in the week drove over to a neighboring rivertown
to look after the shipments to the West Indies in

which he was now interested in company with the
Squire. But this had not forbidden a little cursory
reading of a sentimental kind. There may have been
a stray volume of Pelham upon his table, and a six-volume
set of Byron in green and gold upon his limited
book-shelf, (both of which were strongly disapproved
of by Mrs. Elderkin, but tolerated by the Squire,) —
besides which, there were certain Spanish ballads to
which he had taken a great fancy since his late visit to
Cuba.

Reuben was always a welcome visitor, and was presently
in full flow of talk, and puffing nervously at one
of Phil's choice Havanas (which in that day were true
to their titles).

“I 'm off, Phil,” said Reuben at last, breaking in
upon his host's ecstasy over a ballad he had been
reciting, with what he counted the true Castilian magniloquence.

“Off where?” said Phil.

“Off for the city. I 'm weary of this do-nothing life,
— weary of the town, weary of the good people.”

“There 's nothing you care for, then, in Ashfield?'
said Phil. And at that moment a little burst of the
singing of Rose came floating up the stair, — so sweet!
so sweet!

“Care for? Yes,” said Reuben, “but they are all so
good! so devilish good!” — and he puffed at his cigar

with a nervous violence. It was not often that such an
approach to profanity sullied the lips of Reuben, and
Phil noted it with surprise.

“I thought there would have been at least one magnet
that would have kept you here,” said Phil.

“What magnet, pray?” says Reuben, — somewhat
calm again.

“There she goes,” says Phil, looking out of the window.
And at the moment Adèle tripped by, with the
old Doctor walking gravely at her side.

“Humph!” said Reuben, with a composure that was
feigned, “she 's too much of a Puritan for me, Phil:
or rather, I 'm too little of a Puritan for her.”

Philip looked at his companion keenly. And Reuben,
looking back at him as keenly, said, after a silence
of a few moments, —

“I don't think you 'll ever marry her either, Phil.”

“Marry!” said Phil, with a deep, honest blush, —
“who talks of that?”

“You, in your heart, Phil. Do you think I am
blind? Do you think I have not seen that you have
loved her, Phil, ever since you knew what it was to
love a woman? Do you think, that, as a boy, you ever
imposed upon me with your talk about that handsome
Suke Boody, the tavern-keeper's daughter? Good
Heavens! Phil, I think there were never two men in
the world who talked their thoughts plainly to each

other! Do you think I do not know that you have
played the shy lover, because with your big heart you
have yielded to what you counted a prior claim of mine,
— because Adèle was one of us at the parsonage?”

“In such affairs,” said Phil, with some constraint and
not a little wounded pride, “I don't think men are apt
to recognize prior claims.”

Reuben replied only by a faint sardonic smile.

“You 're a good fellow, Phil, but you won't marry
her.”

“Of course, then, you know why,” said Phil, with
something very like a sneer.

“Certainly,” said Reuben. “Because you can't affront
the world, because you are bound by its conventionalities
and respectabilities, as I am not. I spurn
them.”

“Respectabilities!” said Phil, in amazement.
“What does this mean? Just now she was a Puritan.”

“It means, Phil,” (and here Reuben reflected a moment
or two, puffing with savage energy,) “it means
what I can't wholly explain to you. You know her
French blood; you know all the prejudices against
the faith in which she was reared; you know she has
an instinct and will of her own. In short, Phil, I
don't think you 'll ever marry her; but if you can, you
may.”

“May!” said Phil, whose pride was now touched to
the quick. “And what authority have you, pray?”

“The authority of one who has loved her,” said
Reuben, with a fierce, quick tone, and dashing his half-burnt
cigar from the window; “the authority of one
who, if he had chosen to perjure himself and profess a
faith which he could not entertain, and wear sanctimonious
airs, might have won her heart.”

“I don't believe it!” said Phil, with a great burst
of voice. “There 's no hypocrisy could win Adèle.”

Reuben paced up and down the chamber, then came
and took the hand of his old friend: —

“Phil, you 're a noble - hearted fellow. I never
thought any one could convict me of injustice to Adèle.
You have done it. I hope you 'll always defend her;
and whatever may betide, I hope your mother and
Rose will always befriend her. She may need it.”

Again there was a little burst of song from below,
and it lingered upon the ear of Reuben long after he
had left the Elderkin homestead.

The next day he was gone, — to try his new taste
of the world.