Doctor Johns being a narrative of certain events in the life of an orthodox minister of Connecticut |
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 | LXI. Doctor Johns |  |
61. LXI.
THE mother has read the letter of her child, — the
letter in which appeal had been made to the father
in behalf of the “unworthy” one whom the daughter
believed to be sleeping in her grave. The tenderness
of the appeal smote the poor woman to the heart. It
bound her to the child she scarce had seen by bonds
into which her whole moral being was knitted anew.
But we must give the letter entire, as offering explanations
which can in no way be better set forth. The
very language kindles the ardor of Adèle. Her own
old speech again, with the French echo of her childhood
in every line.
“Mon cher Monsieur,” — in this way she begins; for
her religious severities, if not her years, have curbed
any disposition to explosive tenderness, — “I have received
the letter of our child, which was addressed to
you. I cannot tell you the feelings with which I have
read it. I long to clasp her to my heart. And she appeals
to you, for me, — the dear child! Yes, you have
well done in telling her that I was unworthy (méchante).
in loving too well. O Monsieur! if I could live over
again that life, — that dear young life among the olive
orchards! But the good Christ (thank Him!) leads
back the repentant wanderers into the fold of His
Church.
`Laus tibi, Christe!'
“And the poor child believes that I am in my grave.
May be that were better for her and better for me.
But no, I shall clasp her to my heart once more, — she,
the poor babe! But I forget myself; it is a woman's
letter I have been reading. What earnestness! what
maturity! what dignity! what tenderness! And will
she be as tender to the living as to the erring one
whom she believes dead? My heart stops when I ask
myself. Yes, I know she will. The Blessed Virgin
whispers me that she will, and I fly to greet her! A
month, two months, three months, four months? — It
is an age.
“Monsieur! I cannot wait. I must take ship —
sail — wings (if I could find them), and go to meet my
child. Until I do there is a tempest in my brain —
heart — everywhere. You are surprised, Monsieur:
but there is another reason why I should go to this
land where Adèle has lived. Do you wish to know it?
Listen, then, Monsieur!
“Do you know who this poor sufferer was whom our
sleeps in the grave-yard there, and of whom Adèle
thinks as of a mother? I have inquired, I have
searched high and low, I have fathomed all. Ah, my
poor, good sister Marie! Only Marie! You have
never known her. In those other days at dear Arles
she was too good for you to know her. Yet even then
she was a guardian angel, — a guardian too late. Mea
culpa! Mea culpa!
“I know it can be only Marie; I know it can be
only she, who sleeps under the sod in Ash— (ce nom
m'échappe).
“Listen again: in those early, bitter charming days,
when you, Monsieur, knew the hill-sides and the drives
about our dear old town of Arles, poor Marie was
away; had she been there, I had never listened, as I
did listen, to the words you whispered in my ear. Only
when it was too late, she came. Poor, good Marie!
how she pleaded with me! How her tender, good face
spoke reproaches to me! If I was the pride of our
household, she was the angel. She it was, who, knowing
the worst, said, `Julie, this must end!' She it was
who labored day and night to set me free from the
wicked web that bound me. I reproached her, the
poor, good Marie, in saying that she was the plainer,
that she had no beauty, that she was devoured with
envy. But the Blessed Virgin was working ever by
of me, Monsieur, — she created them; whatever suspicions
tortured you, — she fed them, but always with
the holiest of motives. And when shame came, as it
did come, the poor Marie would have screened me, —
would have carried the odium herself. Good Marie!
the angels have her in keeping!
“Listen again, Monsieur! When that story, that
false story, of the death of my poor child, came to
light in the journals, who but Marie should come to me
— deceived herself as I was deceived — and say, `Julie,
dear one, God has taken the child in mercy; there is
no stigma can rest upon you in the eyes of the world.
Live now as the Blessed Magdalen lived when Christ
had befriended her.' And by her strength I was made
strong; the Blessed Virgin be thanked!
“Finally, it came to her knowledge one day, — the
dear Marie! — that the rumor of the death was untrue,
— that the babe was living, — that the poor child had
been sent over the seas to your home, Monsieur. Well,
I was far away in the East. Does Marie tell me?
No, the dear one! She writes me, that she is going
`over seas,' — tired of la belle France, — she who
loved it so dearly! And she went, — to watch, to pray,
to console. And I, the mother! — Mon Dieu, Monsieur,
the words fail me. No wonder our child loved
her; no wonder she seems a mother to her!
“Listen yet again, Monsieur. My poor sister died
yonder, in that heretical land, — may be without absolution.
In corona Jesu sita,
Tam in morte quam in vita,
Sis nobis propitia!'
her burial in some consecrated spot. She waits for
me, — her ghost, her spirit, — I must go; the holy
water must be sprinkled; the priestly rites be said.
Marie, poor Marie, I will not fail you.
“Monsieur, I must go! — not alone to greet our
child, but to do justice to my sainted sister! Listen
well! All that has been devotional in my poor life
centers here! I must go, — I must do what I may
to hallow my poor sister's grave. Adèle will not give
up her welcome surely, if I am moved by such religious
purpose. She, too, must join me in an Ave Maria
over that resting-place of the departed.
“I shall send this letter by the overland and British
mail, that it may come to you very swiftly. It will
come to you while you are with the poor child, — our
Adèle. Greet her for me as warmly as you can. Tell
her I shall hope, God willing, to bring her into the
bosom of his Holy Church Catholic. I shall try and
love her, though she remain a heretic; but this will
not be.
“If I can enough curb myself, I shall wait for your
answer, Monsieur; but it is necessary that I go yonder.
Look for me; kiss our child for me. And if
you ever prayed, Monsieur, I should say, pray for
The letter is of the nature of a revelation to Adèle;
her doubts respecting Madame Arles vanish on the instant.
The truth, as set forth in her mother's language,
blazes upon her mind like a flame. She loves the
grave none the less, but the mother by far the more.
She, too, wishes to greet her amid the scenes which she
has known so long. Nor is Maverick himself averse
to this new disposition of affairs, if indeed he possessed
any power (which he somewhat doubts) of readjusting
it. Seeing the kindly intentions toward Adèle, and the
tolerant feeling (to say the least) with which Mrs. Maverick
will be met by these friends of the daughter, he
trusts that the mother's interviews with the Doctor, and
a knowledge of the kindly influences under which
Adèle has grown up, may lessen the danger of a religious
altercation between mother and child, which has
been his great bugbear in view of their future association.
A man of the world, like Maverick, naturally takes
this common-sense view of religious differences; why
much quietly to the parson. The old gentleman's
spirit is stirred to its depths by the intimation; like all
earnest zealots, he recognizes one only unswering rule
of faith, and that the faith in which he has been reared.
They who hold conflicting doctrines must yield, —
yield absolutely, — or there is no safety for them. In
his eye there was but one strait gate to the Celestial
City, and that any wearing the furbelows of Rome
should ever enter threat could only come of God's
exceeding mercy; for himself, it must always be a
duty to cry aloud to such to strip themselves clean of
their mummery, and do works “meet for repentance.”
Adèle, after her first period of exultation over the
recent news is passed, relapses — perhaps by reason
of its excess — into something of her old vague doubt
and apprehension of coming evil. The truth — if it
be truth — is so strange! — so mysteriously strange
that she shall indeed clasp her mother to her heart;
the grave yonder is so real! and that fearful embrace
in death so present to her! Or it may be an anticipation
of the fearful spiritual estrangement that must
ensue, and of which she seems to find confirmation in
the earnest talk and gloomy forebodings of the Doctor.
Maverick effects a diversion by proposing a jaunt
of travel, in which Rose shall be their companion.
Adèle accepts the scheme with delight, — a delight,
the eager enjoyment of Rose as in any pleasant distractions
of her own. The pleasure of Maverick is
by no means so great as in that trip of a few years
back. Then he had for companion an enthusiastic
girl, to whom life was fresh, and all the clouds that
seemed to rest upon it so shadowy, that each morning
sun lifting among the mountains dispersed them utterly.
Now, Adèle showed the thoughtfulness of a woman,
— her enthusiasms held in check by a more calm estimate
of the life that opened before her, — her sportiveness
overborne by a soberness, which, if it gave
dignity, gave also a womanly gravity. Yet she did not
lack filial devotion; she admired still that easy world-manner
of his which had once called out her enthusiastic
regard, but now queried in her secret heart if
its acquisition had not involved cost of purity of conscience.
She loved him too, — yes, she loved him;
and her evening and morning kiss and embrace were
reminders to him of a joy he might have won, but had
not, — of a home peace that might have been his, but
whose image now only lifted above his horizon like
some splendid mirage crowded with floating fairy
shapes, and like the mirage melted presently into idle
vapor.
It was a novel experience for Maverick to find himself
in New England) sandwiched, of a Sunday, between
his two blooming companions and some sober-sided
deacon, in the pew of a country meeting-house. How
his friend Papiol would have stared! And the suggestion,
coming to him with the buzz of a summer fly
through the open windows, did not add to his devotional
sentiment. Yet Maverick would follow gravely
the scramble of the singers through the appointed
hymn with a sober self-denial, counting the self-denial
a virtue. We all make memoranda of the small religious
virtues when the large ones are missing.
Upon the return to Ashfield there is found a new
letter from Madame Maverick. She can restrain herself
no longer. Under the advice of her brother,
she will, with her maid, take the first safe ship leaving
Marseilles for New York. She longs to bring Adèle
with herself, by special consecration, under the guardianship
of the Holy Virgin.
The Doctor is greatly grieved in view of the speedy
departure of Adèle, and tenfold grieved when Maverick
lays before him the letter of the mother, and
he sees the fiery zeal which the poor child must confront.
Over and over in those last interviews he seeks to
fortify her faith; he warns her against the delusions,
the falsities, the idolatries of Rome; he warns her
of traditions. Christ, the Bible, — these are the true
monitors; and “Mind, Adaly,” says he, “hold fast
always to the Doctrine of the Westminster Divines.
That is sound, — that is sound!”
| LXI. Doctor Johns | |