 | CHAPTER V. The Morgesons |  |
5. CHAPTER V.
The next September we moved. Our new house was large
and handsome. On the south side there was nothing between
it and the sea, except the carriage way and a few feet of sand.
No tree or shrub intercepted the view. To the eastward a
promontory of rocks jutted into the sea, serving as a pier
against the wash of the tide, and adding a picturesqueness to
orchard, which was planted by grandfather Locke. Looking
over the tree-tops from the upper north windows, one would
have had no suspicion of being in the neighborhood of the sea,
unless too familiar with the stunted character of the scenery
to be misled by the immediate view. From these windows, in
winter, we saw the mysterious nimbus of the Northern Light;
and the darkness of our sky, and the stillness of the night, mysteriously
reflected the perpetual condition of its own solitary
world. In summer we saw ragged white clouds rise above
the horizon, as if they had been torn from the sky of some
under-world, and sail up into the blue heaven, to languish
away, or turn livid with thunder and roll off seaward. The
hall and mother's bed-room were on that side; between the
orchard and the windows a narrow lawn sloped easterly to the
border of a brook, which straggled behind the outhouses into
a meadow, and finally lost itself among the rocks on the shore.
Up by the lawn a willow hung over it, and its outer bank was
fringed by the tangled wild grape, sweet-briar, and alder
bushes. The west end of the house stood towards the road,
which made a turn there and went northward. The premises,
except on the sea-side, were enclosed by a high wall of rough
granite. No house stood near us, on either side of the shore;
but up the north road they were scattered at intervals; and
the village lay to the west, in the centre of which was the old
Morgeson mansion, now empty.
Mother said I must be considered a young lady, as I was
fourteen, and I should have my own room, which I must take
care of. In a week I became weary of the routine of bed-making
and dusting, and gave it up. Veronica was to have in
time the room opposite mine, divided from it by a wide passage.
This passage extended beyond the angle of the stairway,
and was cut off by a glass door. At the head of the staircase
was a window, whose light, transmitted through the glass
door, made the region of Veronica's room and my own a dusky
one. A wall ran across the lower end of the passage; half the
house was beyond its other side. When the glass door was
fastened, Veronica and myself were in a cul-de-sac.
The establishment was put on a larger footing. Mrs. Hepsey
Curtis was installed mistress of the kitchen. Temperance
declared that she could not stand it; that she wasn't a nigger;
that she must go; but she had no home, and no friends—nothing
but a wood lot, which was left her by her father the
miller. As the trees thereon grew, promising to make timber,
profit from the annual sale of a cord or two of wood. So she
staid on, in spite of Hepsey. There were also two men for the
garden and stable. A boy was always attached to the house;
not the same boy, but a Boy dynasty, for as soon as one went
another came, who ate a great deal—a crime in Hepsey's eyes
—and whose general duty was to carry armfuls of wood, pails
of milk, or swill, and to shut doors.
We had many visitors. Though father had no time to devote
to guests, he was continually inviting people for us to entertain,
and his invitations were taken as a matter of course,
and finally for granted. A rich Morgeson was a new feature in
the family annals, and distant relations improved the advantage
offered them, by coming to spend the summer with us,
because their own houses were too hot, or the winter, because
they were too cold! Infirm old ladies, who were not related
to us, but who had no where else to visit, came. As father's
business extended, our visiting list extended. The captains
of his ships whose homes were elsewhere, brought their wives
to be inconsolable with us after their departure on their voyages.
We had ministers often, who always quarter at the best
houses, and chance visitors to dinner and supper, who made
our house a way-station. We had but small opportunity to
cultivate family affinities; they were forever disturbed. Somebody
was always sitting in the laps of our Lares and Penates,
hiding them from us, There was another class of visitors deserving
notice—those who preferred to occupy the kitchen
and back chambers, humbly proud and bashfully arrogant
people, who kept their hats and bonnets by them, and small
bundles, to delude themselves and us with the idea that they
“had not come to stay, and had no occasion for any attention.”
These people criticised us with insinuating severity, and proposed
amendments with unrelenting affability. To this class
Veronica was most attracted—it repelled me; consequently
she was petted, and I was amiably sneered at.
This period of our family life has left no impression of dramatic
interest. There was no development of the sentiments,
no betrayal of the fluctuations of the passions which must have
existed. There was no accident to reveal, no coincidence to
surprise us. Hidden among the Powers That Be, which rule
New England, lurks the Deity of the Illicit. This Deity never
obtained sovereignty in the atmosphere where the Morgesons
lived. Instead of the impression which my after experience
suggests to me to seek, I recall an eternal smell of cookery, a
minds.
Despite the rigors of Hepsey in the kitchen, and the careful
supervision of Temperance, there was no systematic housekeeping.
Mother had severe turns of planning, and making
rules, falling upon us in whirlwinds of reform; but in a little
time she let the band of habit snap back, and we resumed our
former condition. She had no assistance from father in her
ideas of change. It was enough for him to know that he had
built a good house to shelter us, and to order the best that
could be bought for us to eat and to wear. He liked, when he
went where there were fine shops, to buy and bring home
handsome shawls, bonnets, and dresses, wholly unsuited in
general to the style and taste of each of us, but much handsomer
than were needful for Surrey. They answered, however,
as patterns for the plainer materials of our neighbors.
He also bought books for us, recommended by their covers, or
the opinion of the bookseller. His failing was to buy an immense
quantity of everything he fancied.
“I shall never have to buy this thing again,” he would say;
“let us have enough.”
Once ten large boxes of fancy soap came home, with a rose
printed on each cake. I have now an aversion to roses, for I
fancy I detect the smell of soap in them. Another time he
bought twelve lace capes for mother and aunt Merce, all of
the same shape.
Veronica and I grew up ignorant of practical or economical
ways. We never saw money, never went shopping. Mother
was indifferent in regard to many of the ordinary relations of
life, which children are taught to understand. Father and
mother both stopped at the same point with us, but for a different
reason; father, because he saw nothing beyond the material,
and mother, because her spiritual insight was confused
and perplexing. But whatever a household may be, The Destinies
spin a web to their will, out of the threads which drop
hither and thither, floating in its atmosphere, white, black, or
grey.
From the time we moved, therefore, we were a stirring,
cheerful family, independent of each other by choice or occupation.
In spite of our desultory tastes, however, some mutual
habits were formed. When the want of society was felt,
we sought the dining-room, sure of meeting some one with the
same want. This room was large and central, connecting with
the halls kitchen, and mother's room. It was a caravansary
place. Our most public moments were during meal-time. It
was known that father was at home at breakfast and supper,
and could be consulted. As he was away at our noon-day
dinner, we were the least disturbed then, consequently it was
a lawless, irregular, and unceremonious affair. Mother established
her arm-chair here, and a stand for her work basket.
Hepsey and Temperance were at hand; the men came here
for orders, and it was convenient for the boy to transmit the
local intelligence it was his vocation to collect. The windows
commanded a view of the sea, the best view in the house, except
from my room up-stairs. This prospect served mother
for exercise. Her eyes roved over it when she wanted a little
out-of-doors life. If she desired more variety, which was seldom,
she went to the kitchen. After we moved she grew
averse to leaving the house, except to go to church. She never
quitted the dining-room after our supper till bed-time, because
father rarely came from Milford, where he went on bank days,
and indeed almost every other day, till late, and she liked to
be by him while he ate his supper and smoked a cigar. All
except Veronica frequented this room; but she was not missed
or inquired for. She liked the parlor, because the piano was
there. As soon as father had bought it she astonished us by
a persistent fingering of the keys, which produced a feeble
melody. She could soon play all the airs she had heard. When
I saw what she could do, I refused to take music lessons, for
while I was trying to learn “The White Cockade,” she pushed
me away, played it, and then made variations upon it. I
pounded the keys with my fist, by way of a farewell to them,
and told her that she should have the piano for her own.
| CHAPTER V. The Morgesons | |