University of Virginia Library

53. LIII.

REUBEN, meantime, is leading a dashing life in the
city. The Brindlock family have taken him to
their arms again as freely and heartily as if he had
never entered the fold over which the good Doctor exercised
pastoral care, and as if he had never strayed
from it again.

“I told you 't would be all right, Mabel,” said Mr.
Brindlock to his wife; and neither of them ever rallied
him upon his bootless experience in that direction.

But the kindly aunt had not forborne (how could
she?) certain pertinent inquiries in regard to the pretty
Miss Maverick, under which Reuben had shown considerable
disposition to flinch; although he vainly fancied
that he stood the interrogation with a high hand. Mrs.
Brindlock drew her own conclusions, but was not
greatly disturbed by them. Why should she be, indeed?
Reuben, with his present most promising establishment
in business, and with a face and air that
insured him a cordial welcome in that circle of wealthy
acquaintances which Mrs. Brindlock especially cultivated,
was counted a bon parti, independent of his position

as presumptive heir to a large share of the Brindlock
estate.

Once or twice since his leave of Ashfield he has
astonished the good people there by a dashing visit.
Perhaps he has enjoyed (such things are sometimes enjoyed)
setting forth before the quiet parishioners of his
father his new consequence as a man of the world and
of large moneyed prospects. It is even possible that
he may have entertained agreeably the fancy of dazing
the eyes of both Rose and Adèle with the glitter of his
city distinctions. But their admiration, if they felt
any, was not flatteringly expressed. Adèle, indeed,
was always graciously kind, and, seeing his confirmed
godlessness, tortured herself secretly with the thought
that, but for her rebuff, he might have made a better
fight against the bedevilments of the world, and lived
a truer and purer life. All that, however, was irrevocably
past. As for Rose, if there crept into her little
prayers a touch of sentiment as she pleaded for the
backslidden son of the minister, her prayers were
none the worse for it. Such trace of sentimental color
— like the blush upon her fair cheek — gave a completed
beauty to her appeals.

Reuben saw that Phil was terribly in earnest in his
love, and he fancied, with some twinges, that he saw
indications on the part of Adèle of its being not wholly
unacceptable. Rose, too, seemed not disinclined to

receive the assiduous attentions of the young minister,
who had become a frequent visitor in the Elderkin
household, and who preached with an unction and an
earnestness that touched her heart, and that made her
sigh despondingly over the outcast son of the old pastor.
Watching these things with a look studiedly careless
and indifferent, Reuben felt himself cut off more
than ever from such charms or virtues as might possibly
have belonged to continued association with the
companions of his boyhood, and nerved himself for a
new and firmer grip upon those pleasures of the outer
world which had not yet proved an illusion. There
were moments — mostly drifting over him in silent
night-hours, within his old chamber at the parsonage —
when it seemed to him that he had made a losing game
of it. The sparkling eyes of Adèle, suffused with tears,
— as in that memorable interview of the garden, —
beam upon him, promising, as then, other guidance;
they gain new brilliance, and wear stronger entreaty,
as they shine lovingly upon him from the distance —
growing greater and greater — which now lies between
them. Her beauty, her grace, her tenderness, now
that they are utterly beyond reach, are tenfold enticing;
and in that other sphere to which, in his night
reverie, they seem translated, the joyous face of Rose,
like that of an attendant angel, looks down regretfully,
full of a capacity for love to which he must be a stranger.

He is wakened by the bells next morning, — a Sunday
morning, may be. There they go, — he sees them
from the window, — the two comely damsels, picking
their way through the light, fresh-fallen snow of March.
Going possibly to teach the catechism; he sneers at
this thought, for he is awake now. Has the world no
richer gift in store for him? That Sophia Bowrigg is
a great fortune, a superb dancer, a gorgeous armful of
a woman. What if they were to join their fortunes
and come back some day to dazzle these quiet townsfolk
with the splendor of their life? His visits in Ashfield
grow shorter and more rare. There is nothing
particularly alluring. We shall not meet him there
again until we meet him for the last time.

Mr. Catesby is an “acceptable preacher.” He unfolds
the orthodox doctrines with more grace than had
belonged to the manner of the Doctor, and illustrates
them from time to time with a certain youthful glow,
and touches of passionate exhortation, which for many
years the Ashfield pulpit had not known. The old ladies
befriend him and pet him in their kindly way; and if
at times his speculative humor (which he is not wholly
without) leads him beyond the bounds of the accepted
doctrines, he compounds the matter by strong assertion
of those sturdy generalities which lie at the bottom of
the orthodox creed.

But his self-control is not so apparent in his social

intercourse; and before he has been three months in
Ashfield, he has given tongue to gossip, and all the
old ladies comment upon his enslavement to the pretty
Rose Elderkin. And they talk by the book; he is
desperately enamored. Young clergymen have this
way of falling, at sight, into the toils, which is vastly
refreshing to middle-aged observers. But we have no
occasion to detail his experience. An incident only
of his recreative pursuits in this direction belongs to
our narrative.

Upon one of the botanical excursions of later spring
which he had inaugurated, and to which the maidenly
modesty of Rose had suggested that Adèle should
make a party, the young Catesby (who was a native of
Eastern Massachusetts) had asked in his naïve manner
after her family connections. An uncle of his had
known a Mr. Maverick, who had long been a resident
of Europe.

“It may possibly be some relation of yours, Miss
Maverick,” said the young minister.

“Do you recall the first name?” said Rose.

Mr. Catesby hesitated in that interesting way in
which lovers are wont to hesitate. No, he did not remember;
but he was a jovial, generous-hearted man,
(he had heard his uncle often describe him,) who
must be now some fifty or sixty years old. — “Frank
Maverick, to be sure; I have the name.”

“Why, it is my father,” said Adèle with a swift,
happy rush of color to her face.

“Oh no, Miss Maverick,” said the young Catesby with
a smile, “that is quite impossible. The gentleman of
whom I speak, and my uncle visited him only three
years ago, is a confirmed bachelor, and he had rallied
him, I remember, upon never having married.”

The color left the cheeks of Adèle.

“Frank, did you say?” persisted Rose.

“Frank was the name,” said the innocent young
clergyman; “and he was a merchant, if I remember
rightly, somewhere upon the Mediterranean.”

“It 's very strange,” said Rose, turning to Adèle.

And Adèle, all her color gone, had the fortitude to
pat Rose lovingly upon the shoulder, and to say, with a
forced smile, “Life is very strange, Rose.”

But from this time till they reached home, — fortunately
not far away, — Adèle said nothing more. Rose
remarked an unwonted pallor in her cheeks.

“You are tired, Adèle,” said she; “you are so
pale!”

“Child,” said Adèle, tapping her again, in a womanly
way that was strange to her companion, “you
have color for us both.”

At this, her reserve of dignity and fortitude being
now well-night spent, she rushed away to her chamber.
What wonder if she sought the little crucifix, sole

memento of the unknown mother, and glued it to her
lips, as she fell upon her knees by the bedside, and
uttered such a prayer for help and strength as she
had never uttered before?

“It is true! it is true! I see it now. The child of
shame! The child of shame! O my father, my
father! what wrong have you done me!” And again
she prays for help and strength.

There is not a doubt in her mind where the truth
lies. In a moment her thought has flashed over the
whole chain of evidence. The father's studied silence;
her alienation from any home of her own; the mysterious
hints of the Doctor; and the strange communication
of Reuben, — all come up in stately array and
confound her with the bitter truth. There is a little
miniature of her father which she has kept among her
choicest treasures. She seeks it now. Is it to throw
it away in scorn? No, no, no. Our affections are after
all not submissible to strict moral regimen. It is with
set teeth and a hard look in her eye that she regards it
at first; then her eyes suffuse with tears while she
looks, and she kisses it passionately again and again.

“Can there be some horrible mistake in all this?”
she asks herself. At the thought she slips on hat and
shawl and glides noiselessly down the stairs, (not for
the world would she have been interrupted!) and walks
swiftly away to her old home at the parsonage.

Dame Tourtelot meets her and says, “Good evening,
Miss Adeel.”

And Adèle, in a voice so firm that it does not seem
her own, says, “Good evening, Mrs. Tourtelot.” She
wonders greatly at her own calmness.