 | CHAPTER VIII. The Morgesons |  |
8. CHAPTER VIII.
It was five o'clock on Saturday afternoon when Father left
me. Aunt Mercy continued her preparations for tea, and when
it was ready, went to the foot of the stairs, and called, “Supper.”
Grand'ther came down immediately, followed by two
tall, cadaverous women, Ruth and Sally Aikin, tailoresses,
who sewed for him in the spring and fall. Living several
home on Saturday night, and returned on Monday morning.
We stood behind the heavy oak chairs round the table, one of
which grand'ther tipped backwards, and said a long grace, not
a word of which was heard; for his teeth were gone, and he
prayed in his throat. Aunt Mercy's “Moltee” rubbed
against me, with her back and tail erect. I pinched the latter
and she gave a wail. Aunt Mercy passed her hand across her
mouth, but the eyes of the two women were stony in their
sockets. Grand'ther ended his grace with an upward jerk of
his head, and we seated ourselves. He looked sharply at me,
his gray eyebrows rising hair by hair, and shaking an iron
spoon, said “You are playing over your mother's capers.”
“The caper-bush grows on the shores of the Mediterranean
sea, grand'ther. Miss Black had it for a theme, out of the
Penny Magazine; it is full of themes.”
“She had better give you a gospel theme.”
He was as inarticulate when he quoted Scripture as when
he prayed, but I heard something about “thorns;” then he
helped us to baked Indian pudding—our invariable Saturday
night's repast. Aunt Mercy passed cups of tea; I heard the
gulping swallow of it in every throat, the silence was so profound.
After the pudding we had dried apple-pie, which we
ate from our hands, like bread. Grand'ther ate fast, not troubling
himself to ask us if we would have more, but making the
necessary motions to that effect, by touching the spoon in the
pudding, or the knife on the pie. Ruth and Sally still kept
their eyes fixed on some invisible object at a distance. What
a disagreeable interest I felt in them! What had they in common
with me? What could they enjoy? How unpleasant
their dingy, crumbled, needle-pricked fingers were! Sally hic-coughed,
and Ruth suffered from internal rumblings. Without
waiting for each other when we had finished, we put our chairs
against the wall and left the room. I rushed into the garden,
and trampled the chamomile bed. I had heard that it grew
faster for being subjected to that process, and thought of the
two women I had just seen, while I crushed the spongy weeds.
Had they been trampled upon? A feeling of pity stung me;
I ran into the house, and found them on the point of departure,
with little bundles in their hands.
“Aunt Mercy will let me carry your bundles a part of the
way for you; shall I?”
“No, indeed,” said Ruth, in a mild voice; “there's no heft
in them; they are mites to carry.”
“Besides,” chimed Sally, “you could'nt be trusted with
them.”
“Are they worth anything?' I inquired, noticing then that
both wore better dresses, and that the bundles contained their
shop gowns.
“What made you pinch the moltee's tail?” asked Sally.
“If you pinched my cat's tail, I would give you a sound whipping.”
“How could she, Sally,” said Ruth, “when our cat's tail is
cut short off?”
“For all the world,” remarked Sally, “that's the only way
she can be managed. If things are cut off, and kept out of
sight, or never mentioned before her, she may behave very
well; not otherwise.”
“Good bye, Miss Ruth and Sally, good bye,” modulating my
voice to accents of grief, and making a “cheese.”
They retreated with a less staid pace than usual, and I
sought aunt Mercy, who was preparing the Sunday's dinner.
Twilight drew near, and the Sunday's cloud began to fall on
my spirits. Between sun-down and nine o'clock was a tedious
interval. I was not allowed to go to bed, nor to read a secular
book, or to amuse myself with anything. A dim oil lamp
burned on the high shelf of the middle room, our ordinary gathering
place. Aunt Mercy sat there, rocking in a low chair;
the doors were open, and I wandered softly about. The smell
of the garden herbs came in faintly, and now and then I heard
a noise in the water butt under the spout, the snapping of an
old rafter, or something falling behind the wall. The toads
crawled from under the plantain leaves, and hopped across the
broad stone before the kitchen door, and the irreverent cat,
with whom I sympathized, raced like mad in the grass. Growing
duller, I went to the cellar door, which was in the front
entry, opened it, and stared down into the black gulf, till I
saw a gray rock rise at the foot of the stairs, which affected
my imagination. The foundation of the house was on the spurs
of a great granite bed, which rose from the Surrey shores,
dipped, and cropped out in the centre of Barmouth. It came
through the ground again in the wood house, smooth and round,
like the bald head of some old Titan, and in the border of the
garden it burst through in narrow ridges, full of seams. As I
contemplated the rock, and inhaled a mouldy atmosphere whose
component parts were charcoal and potatoes, I heard the first
stroke of the nine o'clock bell, which hung in the belfry of the
church across tho street. Although it was so near us that we
hoarse breath in the belfry, there was no reverberation of its
clang in the house; the rock under us struck back its voice.
It was an old Spanish bell, aunt Mercy told me. How it
reached Barmouth she did not know. I recognized its complaining
voice afterwards. It told me it could never forget it
had been baptized a Catholic; and it pined for the beggar who
rang it in the land of fan-leaved chestnuts! It would growl
and strangle as much as possible in the hands of Benjamin
Beals, the bell-ringer and coffin-maker of Barmouth. Except
in the morning when it called me up, I was glad to hear it. It
was the signal of time past; the oftener I heard it, the nearer
I was to the end of my year. Before it ceased to ring now
aunt Mercy called me, in a low voice. I returned to the middle
room, and took a seat in one of the oak chairs, whose back
of upright rods was my nightly penance. Aunt Mercy took
the lamp from the shelf, and placed it upon a small oak stand,
where the Bible lay. Grand'ther entered, and sitting by the
stand read a chapter. His voice was like opium. Presently
my head rolled across the rods, and I felt conscious of slipping
down the glassy seat. After he had read the chapter he
prayed. If the chapter had been long, the prayer was short;
if the chapter had been short, the prayer was long. When he
had ceased praying he left the room without speaking, and betook
himself to bed. Aunt Mercy dragged me up the steep
stairs, undressed me, and I crept into bed, drugged with a
monotony which served but to deepen the sleep of youth and
health. When the bell rang the next morning, aunt Mercy
gave me a preparatory shake, before she began to dress, and
while she walked up and down the room lacing her stays, entreated
me to get up, persisting in her entreaties till she had
dressed, and was on the stairs. When the door was shut behind
her, I knew that I must be ready for morning prayers.
If the word lively could ever be used in reference to our
life, it might be in regard to Sunday. The well was so near
the church that the house was used as an inn for the accommodation
of the church goers who lived at any distance, and
who did not return home between the morning and afternoon
services. A regular set took dinner with us, and there were
parties who brought lunch, which they ate off their handkerchiefs,
on their knees It was also a watering place for the
Sunday-school scholars, who filed in troops before the pail in
the well-room, and drank from the cocoa-nut dipper. When
the weather was warm our parlor was open, as it was to-day.
bunches of lilacs in a broken pitcher. Twelve yellow chairs,
a mahogany stand, a dark rag carpet, some speckled Pacific
sea-shells on the shelf, among which stood a whale's tooth with
a drawing of a cranky ship thereon, and an ostrich's egg that
hung by a string from the ceiling, were the adornments of the
room. When we were dressed for church, we looked out of
the window till the bell tolled, and the chaise of the Baxters
and Sawyers had driven to the gate; then we went ourselves.
Grand'ther had preceded us, and was already in his seat.
Aunt Mercy went up to the head of the pew, a little out of
breath from the tightness of her dress, and the ordeal of the
Baxter and Sawyer eyes, for the pew, though off a side aisle,
was in the neighborhood of the élite of the church: a clove,
however, tranquilized her. I fixed my feet on a cricket, and
examined the bonnets. The house filled rapidly, and last of
all the minister entered, followed by a numerous progeny. He
went into the pulpit, and was lost to the sight. The singers
began an anthem, singing in an advanced style of the art, I
observed, for they shouted `Armen,' while our singers in Surrey
bellowed `Amen.' When the sermon began I settled myself
into a vague speculation concerning my future days of
freedom; but my dreams were disturbed by the conduct of
the Hickspold boys, who were in a pew in front of us. At its
foot was Mr. Hickspold, devout and nervous, and Mrs. Hickspold
was phlegmatic and drowsy at its head. The boys
kicked and pinched each other, gnawed the rail of our pew,
made faces at me, and appeared to be in wretched spirits. In
the closing hymn they grew more amiable, and watched their
father's hand on the button of the pew door, ready to rush at
the last word of the benediction. As in the morning, so in the
afternoon, and all the Sundays of the year. The variations of
the season served but to deepen the uniformity of my heart-sickness.
| CHAPTER VIII. The Morgesons | |