 | CHAPTER XIV. The Morgesons |  |
14. CHAPTER XIV.
It was sunset when we arrived in Rosville, and found Mr.
Morgeson waiting for us with his carriage at the station. From
its open sides I looked out on a tranquil, agreeable landscape;
there was nothing saline in the atmosphere. The western
breeze, which blew in our faces, had an earthy scent, with
fluctuating streams of odors from trees and flowers. As we
passed through the town, cousin Charles pointed to the Academy,
which stood at the head of a green. Pretty houses stood
round it, and streets branched from it in all directions. Flower
gardens, shrubbery and trees were scattered everywhere.
Rosville was larger and handsomer than Surrey.
“That is my house, on the right,” he said.
We looked down the shady street through which we were
going, and saw a modern cottage, with a piazza and peaked
roof, and on the side toward us a large yard, and stables.
We drove into the yard, and a woman came out on the
piazza to receive us. It was Mrs. Morgeson, or “My wife,
cousin Alice,” as Mr. Morgeson introduced her. Giving us a
cordial welcome, she led us into a parlor where tea was waiting.
A servant came in for our bonnets and baskets. Cousin
Alice begged us to take tea at once. We were hardly seated
when we heard the cry of a young child; she left the table
hastily, and came back in a moment with an apology, which she
made to cousin Charles, rather than to us. I had never seen
with glass and French china. Cousin Charles sent away a
glass and a plate, frowning at the girl who waited; there must
have been a speck or a flaw in them. The viands were as
pretty as the dishes. The lamb chops were fragile; the bread
was delicious, but cut in transparent slices, and the butter pat
was nearly stamped through with its boquet of flowers. This
was all the feast except sponge cake, which felt like muslin in
the fingers; I could have squeezed the whole of it into my
mouth. Still hungry, I observed that cousin Charles and
Alice had finished; and though she shook her spoon in the cup,
feigning to continue, and he snipped crumbs in his plate, I
felt constrained to end my repast. He rose, and pushing back
folding doors, we entered a large room, leaving Alice at the
table. Windows extending to the floor opened on the piazza,
but notwithstanding the stream of light over the carpet, I
thought it sombre, and out of keeping with the cottage exterior.
The walls were covered with dark red velvet paper. The furniture
was dark; the mantel and table tops were black marble,
and the vases and candelabra were bronze. He directed
mother's attention to the portraits of his children, and explained
them; I went to a table between the windows to examine
the green and white sprays of some delicate flower I had never
before seen. Its fragrance was intoxicating. I lifted the
heavy vase which contained it; it was taken from me gently
by Charles, and replaced.
“It will hardly bear touching,” he said. “By to-morrow
these little white bells will be dead and yellow.”
I looked up at him. “What a contrast!” I said.
“Where?”
“Here, in this room, and in you.”
“And between you and me?”
His face was serene, dark and delicate, but to look at it made
me shiver. Mother came toward us, pleading fatigue as an
excuse for retiring, and cousin Charles called cousin Alice,
who went with us to our room. In the morning, she said, we
should see her three children. She never left them, she was
so afraid of their being ill. She also told mother that she
would do all in her power to make my stay in Rosville pleasant
and profitable. She was a mother, and could appreciate
her anxiety and sadness in leaving me. Mother thanked her
warmly, and was sure that I should be happy; but I had an
inward misgiving that I should not have enough to eat.
“I hear Edward,” she said. “Good-night.”
Presently a girl, the same who had taken our bonnets, came
in with a pitcher of warm water, and a plate of soda biscuit.
She directed us where to find the apparel she had nicely
smoothed and folded; took off the handsome counterpane, and
the pillows trimmed with lace, putting others of a plainer make
in their places; shook down the window curtains; asked us
if we would have anything more, and quietly disappeared. I
offered mother the warm water, and appropriated the biscuits.
There were six. I ate every one, undressing meanwhile, and
surveying the apartment.
“Cassy, Mrs Morgeson is an excellent housekeeper.”
“Yes,” I said huskily, for the dry biscuit choked me.
“What would Temperance and Hepsey say to this?”
“I think they would grumble, and admire. Look at this,”
showing her the tassels of the inner window curtains done up
in little bags. “And the glass is pinned up with nice yellow
paper; and here is a damask napkin fastened to the wall behind
the washstand. And everything stands on a mat. I
wonder if this is to be my room?”
“It is probably the chamber for visitors. Why, these are
beautiful pillow cases, too,” she exclaimed, as she put her
head on the pillow. “Come to bed; don't read.”
I had taken up a red morocco-bound book, which was lying
alone on the bureau. It was Byron. I turned over the leaves
till I came to Don Juan, and read it through, and began Childe
Harold, but the candle expired. I struck out my hands
through the palpable darkness, to find the bed without disturbing
mother, whose soul was calmly threading the labyrinth
of sleep. I finished Childe Harold early in the morning
though, and went down to breakfast, longing to be a wreck!
The three children were in the breakfast room, which was
not the one we had taken tea in, but a small apartment, with
a door opening into the garden. They were beautifully dressed,
and their mother was tending and watching them. The
oldest was eight years, the youngest three months. Cousin
Alice gave us descriptions of their tastes and habits, dwelling
with emphasis on those of the baby. I drew from her conversation
the opinion that she had a tendency to the rearing of
children. I was glad when cousin Charles came in, looking at
his watch. “Send off the babies, Alice, and ring the bell for
breakfast.”
She sent out the two youngest, and put little Edward in his
chair, and breakfast began.
“Mrs. Morgeson,” said Charles, “the horses will be ready
you to see the kind of master Cassandra will have. I have
already spoken to him about receiving a new pupil.”
“Oh, I am home-sick, at the idea of school and a master,”
I said.
Mother tried, in vain, to look hard-hearted, and to persuade
me that it was good for me; she lost her appetite with the
thought of losing me, which the mention of Dr. Price brought
home. The breakfast was as well adapted to a delicate taste
as the preceding supper. The ham was most savory, but cut
in such thin slices that it curled; and the biscuits were as
white and feathery as snow-flakes. I think also that the boiled
eggs were smaller than any I had seen. Cousin Alice gave
unremitting attention to Edward, who ate as little as the rest.
“Mother,” I said afterwards, “I am afraid I am an animal.
Did you notice how little the Morgesons ate?”
“I noticed how elegant their table appointments were, and
I shall buy new china in Boston to-morrow. I wish Hepsey
would not load our table as she does.”
“Hepsey is a good woman, mother; do give my love to her.
Now that I think of it, she was always making up some nice
dish; tell her I remember it, will you?”
When cousin Charles put us into the carriage, and hoisted
little Edward on the front seat, mother noticed that two men
held the horses, and that they were not the same he had driven
the night before. She said she was afraid to go, they looked
ungovernable; but he reassured her, and one of the men averring
that Mr. Morgeson could drive anything, she repressed
her fears, and we drove out of the yard behind a pair of horses
that stood on their hind legs, as often as that position was
compatible with the necessity they were under of getting on,
for they evidently understood that they were guided by a firm
hand. Edward was delighted with their behavior, and for the
first time I saw his father smile on him.
“These are fine brutes,” he said, not taking his eyes from
them; “but they are not equal to my mare, Nell. Alice is
afraid of her; but I hope that you, Cassandra, will ride with
me sometimes when I drive her.”
“Oh,” exclaimed mother, grasping my arm.
“You would, would you?” he said, taking out the whip, as
the horses recoiled from a man who lay by the road-side, leaping
so high that the harness seemed rattling from their backs.
He struck them, and said, “Go on now, go on, devils.” There
and looked keenly at me. I looked back at him.
“How much worse is the mare?”
“You shall see.”
After driving round the town we stopped at the Academy.
Morning prayers were over, and the scholars, some sixty boys
and girls, were coming down stairs from the hall, to go into
the rooms, each side of a great door. Dr. Price was behind
them. He stopped when he saw us, and an introduction took
place. He inquired for Dr. Snell, as an old college friend.
Locke Morgeson sounded familiarly, he said; a member of his
mother's family named Somers, had married a gentleman of
that name. He remembered it from an old ivory miniature,
which his mother had shown him, telling him it was the likeness
of her cousin Rachel's husband. We only knew that
grandfather had married a Rachel Somers. Cousin Charles
was surprised, and a little vexed, that the Doctor had never
told him, when he must have known that he had been anxiously
looking up the Morgeson pedigree; but the doctor declared
he had not thought of it before, and that only the name of
Locke had recalled it to his mind. He then proposed our
going to Miss Prior, the lady who had charge of the girl's department;
and we followed him to her school-room.
I was at once interested and impressed by the appearance of
my teacher that was to be. She was a dignified, kind-looking
woman. She asked me a few questions in such a pleasant,
direct manner, that I frankly told her I was eighteen years old,
very ignorant, and averse to learning; but I did not speak
loud enough for anybody besides herself to hear.
“Now,” said mother, when we came away, `think how much
greater your advantages are, than mine have ever been. How
miserable was my youth! It is too late for me to make any
attempt at cultivation. I have no wish that way. Yet I feel
sometimes as if I were leaving the confines of my old life, to
go, I know not whither; to do, I know not what.”
But her countenance fell when she heard that Dr. Price
had been a Unitarian minister, and that there was no Congregational
church in Rosville.
She went to Boston that Friday afternoon, anxious to get
safely home with Veronica. We parted with many a kiss,
and shake of the hand, and last words. I cried when I went
up to my room, for I found a present there—a beautiful workbox,
and in it was a small Bible with my name and hers written
on the fly leaf, in large, print-like, but tremulous letters. I
my trunk.
| CHAPTER XIV. The Morgesons | |