 | CHAPTER XII. The Morgesons |  |
12. CHAPTER XII.
The next evening I dressed my hair after the fashion of the
Barmouth girls, with the small pride of wishing to make myself
look different from the Surrey girls. I expected they
would stare at me in the Bible Class. It would be my debut
as a grown girl, and I must offer myself to their criticism I
went late, so that I might be observed by the assembled class.
It met in the upper story of Temperance Hall—a new edifice.
As I climbed the steep stairs, Joe Bacon's head came in view;
he had stationed himself on a bench at the landing to watch for
my arrival, of which he had been apprized by our satellite,
Charles. Joe was the first boy who had ever offered his arm
as my escort home from a party. After that event I had felt
that there was something between us, which the world did not
understand. I was flattered, therefore, at the first glimpse of
him on this occasion. After Dr. Snell made his opening
prayer, Joe thrust a Bible before me, open at the lesson of the
evening, and then, rubbing his nose with embarrassment, fixed
of my Morgeson cousins were present; instead of greeting me
they looked at each other, and sniffed. But I was the most
disappointed in Joe Bacon. How young and shabby he looked!
He wore a monkey jacket, probably a remnant of his sea-going
father's wardrobe. He had done his best, however, for his
hair was greased, and combed to a marble smoothness. I was
vexed by its sleekness, not remembering at that moment the
pains I had taken to dress my own hair, for a more ignoble end.
The girls gathered round me, after the class was dismissed;
and when Dr. Snell came down from his desk, he said he was
glad to see me, and that I must come to his rooms to look over
the new books he had received. Dr. Snell was no exception
to the rule, that a minister must not be a native among his
own people His long residence in Surrey had failed to make
him appear like one. A bachelor, with a small private fortune,
his style of living differed from the average of Congregational
parsons. His library was the only lion in our neighborhood.
His taste as a collector made him known abroad,
and he had a reputation which was not dreamed of by his parishioners,
who called him queer and simple, inasmuch as his
ideas, outside of theology, differed from theirs. He loved old
fashions; wore knee breeches, and silver buckles in his shoes;
brewed methegelin in his closet, and drank it from silver-pegged
flagons; and kept diet bread on a salver to offer his
visitors. He lived on the north road, beyond our orchard, and
was very much afraid of his landlady, Mrs. Crossman, who sat
in terrible state in her parlor, which was her bed-room also,
the year through, wearing a black satin cloak over her night-gown,
and an awful structure of cap, which had a potent nod.
I was pleased with Dr. Snell's notice; his smile was courtly,
and his bow Grandisonian.
Joe Bacon was waiting at the foot of the stairs. He obtruded
his arm, and hoarsely muttered “See you home.” I
took it, and we marched along silently, till we were beyond
the sound of voices. He began, rather inarticulately, to say
how glad he was to see me, and that he hoped he was going to
have better times now; but I could make no response to his
wishes; the suspicion that he had a serious liking for me was
disgusting. As he talked on I grew irritable, and replied
shortly. When we reached our house, I slipped my hand from
his arm, and ran up the steps, turning back with my hand on
the door knob to say “Good night.” The lamp in the hall
shone through the fan-light upon his face; it looked intelligent
door, Joe” He brightened, but before he could comply with
my request, Temperance flung it wide, for the purpose of making
a survey of the clouds, and guessing at to-morrow's weather.
His retreat was precipitate.
“Oh ho,” said Temperance, “a feller came home with you.
We shall have somebody sitting up a-Thursday nights, I reckon,
before long.”
“Nonsense with your Thursday nights.”
“Everybody is just alike. We shall have rain, see if we
don't; rain or no rain, I'll whitewash to-morrow.”
Poor Joe! That night ended my first love affair. He died
with the measles in less than a month.
Mother asked me how I liked the Bible Class, and who was
there. I told her what Dr. Snell had said, but suppressed my
interview with Joe.
“I wish,” said Temperance, who was now spelling over a
newspaper, “that Dr. Snell would come in before the plum
cake is gone, that Hepsey made last. The old dear loves it;
he is always hungry. I candidly believe Mis Crossman keeps
him short.”
I expected that Temperance would break out then about
Joe; but she never mentioned him, except to tell me that she
had heard of his death. She did not whitewash the next day,
for Charles came down with the measles, and was tended by
her with a fretful tenderness. Veronica was seized soon after,
and then Arthur, and then I had them. Veronica was the
worst patient. When her room was darkened she got out of
bed, tore down the quilt that was fastened to the window, and
broke three panes of glass before she could be captured and
taken back. The quilt was not put up again, however. She
cried with anger, unless her hands were continually washed
with lavender water, and made little pellets of cotton which
she stuffed in her ears and nose, so that she might not hear or
smell.
I went to Dr. Snell's as soon as I was able. He was in his
bed-chamber, writing a sermon on fine note paper, and had disarranged
the wide ruffles of his shirt so that he looked like a
mildly angry turkey. Thrusting his spectacles up into the
roots of his hair, he rose, and led me into a large room adjoining
his bed-room, which contained nothing but tall book-cases,
threw open the doors of one, pushed up a little ladder before
it, for me to mount to a row of volumes bound in calf, whose
backs were labelled “British Classics.” “There,” he said,
with his pen in his mouth. I examined the books, and
selected Tom Jones and Goldsmith's Plays to take home From
that time I grazed at pleasure in his oddly-assorted library,
ranging from “The Gentleman's Magazine” to a file of the
“Boston Recorder;” but never a volume of poetry anywhere.
I became a devourer of books which I could not digest, and
their influence located in my mind curious and inconsistent
relations between facts and ideas.
My music lessons in Milford were my only task. I remained
inapt, while Veronica played better and better; when I saw
her fingers interpreting her feelings, touching the keys of the
piano as if they were the chords of her thoughts, practice by
note seemed a soulless, mechanical effort, which I would not
make. My teacher told me that I lacked ear for music, and
that by great perseverance I could only be a tolerable player;
so, after the second quarter, I gave it up, and subscribed to the
Milford Circulating Library instead, dipping deeply into its
brown-papered literature. Mother begged me to leave reading,
and do something useful; but she never suggested any
occupation, and if she happened to take up my novels, she was
lost in them. One day we were both reading the separate
volumes of charming Miss Austen's “Mansfield Park,” when a
message arrived from aunt Mercy, with the news of grand'ther
Warren's dangerous illness. Mother dropped her book
on the floor, but I turned down the leaf where I was reading.
She went to Barmouth immediately, and the next day grand'ther
died. He gave all he had to aunt Mercy, except six silver
spoons, which he directed the Barmouth silversmith to
make for Caroline, who was now married to her missionary.
Mother came home to prepare for the funeral, which was to be
held in Barmouth church. Her bonnet must be all black,
mine and Veronica's merely trimmed. Her orders were sent
to Milford. When the bonnets, vails, and black gloves came
home, Veronica declared she would not go As she had been
allowed to stay away from grand'ther Warren living, why should
she be forced to go to him when dead? She was so violent in
her opposition that mother ordered Temperance to keep her in
her room. Father tried to persuade her, but she grew white,
and trembled so that he told her she should stay at home.
While we were gone she sent her bonnet to the widow Smith's
daughter, who appeared in the Poor Seats wearing it, on the
very Sunday after the funeral, when we all went to church in
exceedingly, and made me indignant.
All the church were present at grand'ther's funeral,—obsequies,
as Mr. Boold called it, who exalted his character and
behavior so greatly in his discourse, that his nearest friends
would not have recognized him, although everybody knew that
he was a good man. Mr. Boold expatiated on his tenderness,
and delicate appreciation, and his study of the feelings and
wants of others, till he was moved to tears himself by the picture
he drew. I thought of the pigeons he had shot, and of
the summary treatment he gave me—of his coldness and silence
towards aunt Mercy, and my eyes remained dry; but mother
and aunt Mercy wept bitterly. After it was over, and they
had gone back to the empty house, they removed their heavy
bonnets, kissed each other, said they knew that he was in
heaven, and held a comforting conversation about the future;
but my mind was chained to the edge of the yawning grave,
into which I had seen his coffin lowered, and I wondered how
long it would be before one yawned for them.
“Shut up the old shell, Mercy,” said father. “Come, and
live with us.”
She was rejoiced at the prospect, for the life at our house
was congenial, and she readily and gratefully consented. She
came in a few days to Surrey, with a multitude of boxes, and
her plants. Mother established her in the room next the
stairs—a good place for her, Veronica said, for she could be
easily locked out of our premises. The plants were placed on
a new revolving stand, which stood on the landing-place beneath
the stair window. Veronica was so delighted with them,
that she made amicable overtures to aunt Mercy, and never
quarrelled with her afterwards, except when she was ill. She
intreated her to leave off her bombazine dresses; the touch of
them interfered with her feelings for her, she said;—in fact,
their contact made her crawl all over; and when she caught
her taking snuff, or sorting flag root and cloves, getting them
ready for chewing, she asked her if she was an animal, and
only indulged her friends with the appearance of being a human
creature.
Aunt Mercy took upon herself many of mother's small cares
which were irksome; such as remembering where the patches
and old linen were—the hammer and nails; watching the sweetmeat
pots; keeping the run of the napkins and blankets;
packing the winter clothing, and having an eye on mice and
ants, moth and mould. Occasionally she read a novel; but
thereby of mother's tea-drinking friends, who considered
her an accomplished person, because she worked lace so beautifully,
and had such a faculty for raising plants! Mother left
the house in her charge, and made several journeys with father
this year. This period was perhaps her happiest. The only
annoyance, visible to me, that I can remember, was one between
her and father on the subject of charity. He was for giving to
all needy persons, while she only desired to bestow it on the
deserving. She was angry with him for accepting the confidences
and confessions of certain disreputable persons who
sought him. She feared he lacked self-respect, and he knew
she wanted tolerance. Veronica sided with mother, and I
sided with father, which grieved her more than Veronica's
adherence gratified her. The pleasant tradition that married
people grow like each other, did not hold good with them.
They renounced the wish of manufacturing each other's habits
and opinions, in their early marriage. Whether mother ever
desired the expression of that exaltation of feeling which only
lasts in a man while he is in love, I cannot say. It was not
for me to know her heart. It is not ordained that these beautiful
secrets of feeling should be revealed, where they might
prove to be the sweetest knowledge we could have.
Though the days flew by, days filled with the busy nothings
of prosperity, I was not happy; they bore no meaning. I
shifted the hours, as one shifts the kaleidescope, with an eye
only to their movement. Neither the remembrance of yesterday,
nor the hope of to-morrow stimulated me. The mere fact
of breathing had ceased to be a happiness, since the day I entered
Miss Black's school. But I was not yet thoughtful. As
for my position, I was loved and I was hated, and it pleased me
as much to be hated as to be loved. My acquaintances were
always kind enough to let me know that I was generally
thought proud, exacting, ill-natured, and apt to expect the
best for myself. But one thing I know of myself then—that I
concealed nothing; the desires and emotions which are usually
kept as a private fund, I displayed and exhausted. My audacity
shocked those who possessed this fund. My candor was
called any thing but truthfulness; they named it sarcasm,
cunning, coarseness, or tact, as they were constituted who
came in contact with me. Insight into character, frankness,
generosity, disinterestedness, were sometimes given me. Veronica
alone was uncompromising; she put aside by instinct
what baffled or attracted others, and setting my real value
but of a fierce harshness which kept us apart for long years.
As for her, she was the most reticent girl I ever knew, and
but for her explosive temper which betrayed her, she would
have been a mystery. The difference in our physical constitutions
would have separated us, if there had been no other
cause. The weeks that she was confined to her room, preyed
upon by some inscrutable disease, were weeks of darkness and
solitude. Temperance and aunt Merce took as much care of
her as she would allow; but she preferred being alone most of
the time. Thus she acquired the fortitude of an Indian; pain
could extort no groan from her. It reacted on her temper,
though, for after an attack she was exasperating. Her invention
was put to the rack to teaze, and offend. I kept out of
her way; if by chance she caught sight of me, she forced me
to hear the bitter truth of myself. Sometimes she examined me
to learn if I had improved by the means which father so generously
provided for me. “Is he not yet tired of his task?” she
asked once. And, “Do you carry everything before you, with
your wide eyebrows and sharp teeth? Temperance, where's
the Buffon Dr. Snell sent me. I want to classify Cass.”
“I'll warrant you'll find her a sheep,” Temperance replied.
“Sheep are innocent,” said Veronica. “You may go,”
nodding to me, over the book, and Temperance also made
energetic signs to me to go, and not bother the poor girl.
Always regarding her from the point of view she presented
to me, I disliked her; her peculiarities offended me, and they
did mother also. We did not perceive the process, but Verry
was educated by sickness; her mind fed and grew on pain, and
at last mastered it. The darkness in her nature broke; by
slow degrees she gained health, though never much strength.
Upon each recovery a change was visible; a spiritual dawn had
risen in her soul: moral activity blending with her ideality
made her life beautiful, even in the humblest sense. Veronica!
you were endowed with genius; but while its rays penetrated
you, we did not see them. How could we profit by what you
saw and heard, when we were blind and deaf? To us, the
voices of the deep sang no epic of grief; the speech of the
woods was not articulate; the sea gull's flashing flight, and the
dark swallow's circling sweep were facts only. Sunrise and
sunset were not a pean to day and night, but five o'clock A. M.
or P. M. The seasons that came and went were changes from
hot to cold; to you, they were the moods of nature, which
and calms were pulses which bore a similitude to the emotions
of your heart!
Veronica's habits of isolation clung to her; she would never
leave home. The teaching she had was obtained in Surrey.
But her knowledge was greater than mine. When I went to
Rosville she was reading “Paradise Lost,” and writing her
opinions upon it in a large blank book. She was also devising
a plan for raising trees and flowers in the garret, so that she
might realize a picture of a tropical wilderness. Her tastes
were so contradictory that time never hung heavy with her;
though she had as little practical talent as any person I ever
knew, she was a help both to sick and well. She remembered
peoples' ill turns, and what was done for them; and for the
well she remembered dates, and suggested agreeable occupations
— gave them happy ideas. Besides being a calendar of
domestic traditions, she was weather-wise, and prognosticated
gales, meteors, high tides and rains.
Home, father said, was her sphere. All that she required,
he thought he could do; but of me he was doubtful. Where
did I belong? he asked.
I was still `possessed,' aunt Merce said, and mother called
me `lawless.' “What upon earth are you coming to?” asked
Temperance. “You are sowing your wild oats with a vengeance.”
“Locke Morgeson's daughter can do anything,” commented
the villagers. In consequence of the unlimited power accorded
me, I was unpopular. “Do you think she is handsome?” inquired
my friends of each other. “In what respect can she
be called a beauty?” “Though she reads, she has no great
wit,” said one. “She dresses oddly for effect,” another avowed,
“and her manners are ridiculous.” But they borrowed my
dresses for patterns, imitated my bonnets, and adopted my
colors. When I learned to manage a sail boat, they had an
aquatic mania. When I learned to ride a horse, the ancient
and moth-eaten side saddles of the town were resuscitated, and
old family nags were made back-sore with the wearing of them,
and their youthful spirits revived by new beginners sliding
about on their rounded sides. My whims were sneered at, and
then followed. Of course I was driven from whim to whim, to
keep them busy, and to preserve my originality, and at last I
became eccentric for eccentricity's sake. Attention to my behavior,
or planning it rather, prepared the way for my Nemesis,
in the field of youth.
| CHAPTER XII. The Morgesons | |