University of Virginia Library

26. CHAPTER XXVI.

Alice Morgeson sent for aunt Merce, asking her to fulfil
the promise she had made when she was in Rosville. With
misgivings she went, staid a month, and returned with Alice.
I felt a throe of pain when we met, which she must have seen,
for she turned pale, and the hand she had extended towards
me fell by her side; overcoming the impulse, she offered it
again, but I did not take it. I had no evidence to prove that
she came to Surrey on my account; but I was sure that such
was the fact, as I was sure that there was a bond between us,
which she did not choose to break, nor to acknowledge. She
appeared as if expecting some explanation, or revelation from
me; but I gave her none, though I liked her better than ever.
She was business-like, and observant. Her tendencies, never
romantic, were less selfish; it was no longer society, dress,
housekeeping, which absorbed her, but a larger interest in the
world, which gave her a desire to associate with men and women,
independent of caste. None of her children were with
her; had it been three years earlier, she would not have left

home without them. Her hair was a little gray, and a wrinkle
or two had gathered about her mouth; but there was no other
change. I was not sorry to have her go, for she paid me a close
and quiet observation. At the moment of departure, she said,
in an under tone: “What has become of that candor of which
you were so proud?”

“I am more candid than ever,” I answered, “for I am silent.”

“I understand you better, now that I have seen you en famille.”

“What do you think?”

“The Puritans have something to answer for in your mother's
composition.” Turning to mother, she said: “Arthur
is like his father.”

“He must be taught something,” mother answered.

“I want to know but one thing more, mother,” said Arthur,
“and that is to navigate a ship. I am going to Polynesia.”

“And be a missionary?” asked aunt Merce.

“To preach them out of their easy ways, their nice mats and
calabashes? No, no; ki ki muee muee—that's comfortable
language; no grammar in it.”

“The carriage is ready,” Fanny announced.

“Ask Edward if he will go with me to Polynesia, cousin
Alice, will you?” Arthur begged.

“Good-bye, Arthur; you will come to Rosville first.” She
kissed him, and drove off.

`No more visitors this year,” said Veronica, yawning.

“No agreeable ones, I fancy.”

“All the relations have had their turn for this year,” remarked
aunt Merce. But she was mistaken; an old lady came,
soon after this, to spend the winter. She lived but four miles
from Surrey, but she brought with her all her clothes, and a
large green parrot, which her son had brought from foreign
parts. Her name was Joy Morgeson; the fact of her being
cousin to father's grandmother, entitled her to a raid upon us
at any season, and to call us `cousins.' She felt, she said, that
she must come, and attend the meetings regular, for her time
upon earth was short. But Joy was a hearty woman still, and,
pious as she was, delighted in rough and scandalous stories,
the telling of which gave her severe fits of repentance. She
quilted elaborate petticoats for us; knit stockings for Arthur,
and parched corn, and made molasses candy. Mr. and Mrs.
Elisha Peckam surprised us next. They arrived from “up
country,” and staid two weeks. I did not clearly understand

why they came, before they went; but as they enjoyed their
visit, it was of little consequence whether I did or not.

Mid winter passed, and we still had company. There was
much to do, and it was done without system. Mother or aunt
Merce detailed from their ordinary duties as keeper of the
visitors, Fanny was for the first time able to make herself of
importance in the family tableaux, and assumed cares no one
had thought of giving her. She left the town school, without
permission, telling mother that learning would be of no use to
her. The rights of a human being merely, was what she
wanted, and she should fight for them; that was what paupers
must do. Mother called her a wicked, ungrateful girl, and
allowed her to do as she pleased. Her duties commenced with
calling us up to breakfast en masse, and for once the experiment
was successful, for we all met at the table. The dining
room was in complete order, a thing that had never happened
early before. No one was pleased, except father; the rest of
us missed the straggling breakfast which consumed so much
time.

“Whose doing is this?” he asked, looking round the table.

“It is Fanny's,” I answered, rattling the cups. “All the
coffee to be poured out at once, don't agitate me.”

Fanny, bearing buckwheat cakes, looked proud and modest,
as people do who appreciate their own virtues.

“Why, Fanny,” said father, “you have done wonders; you
are more original than Cassy, or Verry.”

Her green eyes glowed; her aspect was so feline, that I
expected her hair to rise.

“Father's praise pleases you more than ours,” Verry said.

“You never gave me any,” she answered, marching out.

Father looked up at Verry, annoyed, but said nothing. We
paid no attention to Fanny's call afterwards; but she continued
her labors, which proved acceptable to father. Temperance
told me, when she was home for a week, that his overcoats,
hats, umbrellas and whips, never had such care as Fanny gave
them He omitted from this time, to ask us if we knew where
his belongings were, but went to Fanny; and I noticed that he
required much attendance.

Temperance, who had arrived in the thick of the company,
as she termed it, was sorry to go back to Abram. He was a
good man, she said; but it was a dreadful thing for a woman
to lose her liberty, especially when liberty brought so much
idle time. “Why, girls, I have quilted and darned up every
rag in the house. He will do half the housework himself; he

is an everlasting Betty.” She was cheerful, however, and
helped Hepsy, as well as the rest of us.

The guests did not encroach on my time, but it was a relief
to have them gone, and the house our own once more.

I went to Milford again, almost daily, to benumb myself
with cold, and feast my eyes with the bleak, flat, gray landscape.
The desolation of winter sustains our frail hopes. Nature
is kindest then; she does not taunt us with fruition. It
is the luxury of summer which tantalizes—her long, brilliant,
blossoming days, her dewy, radiant nights.

I entered the house after dark one March evening, when it
was unusually still, and had reached the front hall, when masculine
tones struck my ear. I opened the parlor door softly,
and saw Ben Somers in an easy chair, basking before a glowing
fire, with a luminous face set towards Veronica, who was
near him, holding a small screen between her and the fire.
“She is always ready,” I thought, contemplating her as I would
a picture. Her ruby-colored merino dress absorbed the light;
she was a mass of deep red, except her face and hair, above
which her silver crescent comb shone. Her slender feet were
tapping the rug. She wore boots the color of her dress; Ben
was looking at them. Mother was there, and in the background
aunt Merce and Fanny figured. I pushed the door wide, and
a stream of cold air reached them, which made them look towards
it. “Cassandra,” they said. Ben started up, and met
me with extended hands.

“I went as far as Cape Horn only, but I bought you the
idol, and lots of things from a ship we met; it's all the same.
I have been home a week, and I have come here. Are you
glad? Can I stay?”

“Yes, yes,” chorused mother and aunt Merce; but I was
too busy, trying to get my gloves off, to speak. Father welcomed
him with warmth, and Fanny ran out for a lamp; Veronica
changed the position of her screen, when it was brought
in.

“Did you have a cold ride?” asked mother, gazing into the
fire, with that expression of satisfaction we have when we think
that somebody has been exposed to hardships instead of ourselves.
This is the secret of the enjoyment we feel when we
go to see people hung.

My bonnet strings were in a knot, and, losing my patience,
I asked Fanny for a pair of scissors. She took a pair from
her pocket; but aunt Merce, unable to bear such a sacrifice,
interfered, and untied them, all present feeling so much interest

in the operation, that conversation was suspended. Fanny
and aunt Merce were called, and were shortly followed by
mother. Ben stood before me; his eyes, full of sharp rays,
pierced me through, and rested on the three thread-like scars
which traversed my cheek, and which were more visible than
usual, from the effect of cold.

“Tatooed still,” I said, pointing to them.

A sorrowful look crossed his face; he took my hand and
kissed it, and I kissed his in turn. Veronica, who had dropped
the screen on her lap, met my glance towards her with one
perfectly impassive. Instantly I saw myself, as they saw me.
The tall girl, clothed in a gray dress, whose deep and energetic
voice vibrated in their ears like a question—whose face
was ineffaceably marked, whose air was repellant — baffled
them. Both would have annihilated my personality, if possible,
for the sake of comprehending me, and both loved me, in
their way.

“And why did you not complete your voyage?”

“There was no need of going further.”

“Did you come to visit me?”

“What are you reading, father?” Veronica asked, leaving
her seat.

“To-day's letters. I must go to Boston. Will you go?”

“My sister, Adelaide, has sent for you, Cassandra,” said
Ben, “to visit her. Will you go too, Miss Veronica?”

“Thanks; I must decline. But if Cass should go, and she
will, I will go to Boston.”

He looked at her curiously. “It would not be pleasant,
perhaps, for you to try Belem. I do not like it; but I am
anxious to have Cassandra there. I feel a fate-impelling
power in regard to the matter.”

“May I go, father?”

“If mother is willing.”

“Please come to supper,” said Fanny.

“Have you meat, Fanny?”

“Something on purpose for you, Mr. Morgeson—split eels.”

“Young woman,” said Ben, “do you call that ferocious dish
meat?”

“Oh, there 's something for you.”

Mother was seated at the table, but was devouring the end
of a chapter in “The Hour and the Man.” Aunt Merce eyed
the dishes with the aspect of a judge. Fanny, according to
habit, took her place behind Veronica's chair, close to father.
With the most dégagé air in the world, Ben suffered nothing

to escape his attention, not even my amusement at the unconsciousness
they felt of his observation, except Fanny, who,
aware of it, watched him sharply. We talked of Helen's visit
—a subject that could be commented on freely. Veronica
told Ben Helen's opinion of him; he reddened slightly, and
said that such a sage could not be contradicted. When father
remarked, that the opinions of women were whimsical, Fanny
gave an audible sniff, which made Ben give her his attention,
and father exchanged a look with her.

Soon after tea I met Veronica in the hall, with a note in her
hand. She stopped, and hesitatingly said, that she was going
to send for Temperance; she wanted her while Mr. Somers
staid.

“Your forethought astonishes me.”

“She is a comfort, you know.”

“Do you stand in especial need of a comforter?”

She looked puzzled, laughed, and went on.

Temperance was there that evening, in time to administer a
scolding to Fanny.

“That girl needs looking after,” she said. “She is as sharp
as a needle. She met me in the yard and told me that a man
fit for a nobleman, had come on a visit. `It may be to Cass,'
says she, `and it may not be. I have my doubts.' Did you
ever?” concluded Temperance, counting the knives. “There's
one missing. By jingo! it has been thrown to the pigs, I'll
bet.”

When Ben made a show of going, we asked him to stay longer.
He said `Yes,' so cordially, that we laughed. But it
hurt me to see that he had forgotten all about my going to
Belem. “I like Surrey so much,” he said, “and you all, I
have a fancy that I am in the Hebrides, in Magnus Troil's
dwelling; it is so wild here, so naive. I like the unadulterated
taste of sea spray.”

“We will have Cass, for Norna,” said Verry; “but by
the way, it is you that must be of the fitful head; have you forgotten
that she is going to Belem soon?”

“I shall remember Belem in good time; no fear of my forgetting
that acc—ancient spot. At least I may wait till your
father goes to Boston, and we can make a party. You will be
ready, Cassandra? I wrote Adelaide yesterday that you were
coming, and mother will expect you.”

It stormed the first day of his visit. We had driving rains,
with a gale from the south-east; the sea was dark and miry
after the storm ceased, and patches of blue sky were visible.

We rendevouzed in the parlor, which had assumed an easy air,
from the manner in which Ben disposed chairs, cushions, and
books. Veronica played to him, or they read together; while
thus engaged I withdrew to be idle elsewhere. One day—an
intolerably long one to me, they were so much absorbed in
reading—I did not seek them till dusk; the book was then
laid aside.

“Come and sing,” said Ben.

“How kind of you to remember that I can sing. I have
been longing to compete with Verry.”

“That is false; but sing. There is a spell in this wierd
twilight; sing, or I go to the rocks yonder, to break it.”

He dropped the curtain across the window, and sat down by
me at the piano.

“Now listen

“A foolish song,” said Veronica, pulling her hair across her
face. No reply. She glided to the flower-basket, broke a
rose-bud from its stalk, and mutely offered it to him. Whether
he took it, I know not; but he rose up beside me, like a dark
cloud, and my eyes followed him.

"Come,' he whispered, “give me yourself. I love you
Veronica.”

He sank down before her, and she clasped her hands round
his head, and kissed his hair.

“I know it,” she said, in a clear voice.

I shut the door softly, thinking of the wandering Jew; went
up stairs, humming a little air between my teeth, and came
down again into the dining-room, which was in a blaze of light

“What preserves are these, Temperance? Some of Abram's
quinces?”

“Best you ever tasted, since you were born

“Call Mr. Somers, Fanny,” said mother. “Is Verry in the
parlor, too?”

“I'll call them,” I said; “I have left my handkerchief
there.”

“Is anything else of yours there?” said Fanny, close to my
ear.

Ben had pushed back the curtain, and was staring into the
darkness, and Veronica was walking to and fro on the rug.

“Haven't I a great musical talent?” I inquired.

“Am I happy?” she asked me.

Ben turned to speak, but she put her hand over his mouth,
and said, “Hush!”

“Why should I be `hushed,' my darling?”

“Come to supper, and be sensible,” I urged.

The light revealed a new expression in Verry's face—an
unsettled, dispossessed look; her brows were knitted, yet she
smiled over and over again, while she seemed hardly aware
that she was eating like an ordinary mortal. The imp Fanny
tried experiments with her, by offering the same dishes repeatedly,
till her plate was piled high with food she never tasted.

The next day was clear, and mild with spring. Ben and I
started for a walk on the shore. We were half way to the
light-house before he asked why it was that Veronica would
not come with us.

“She never walks by the shore; she detests the sea.”

“Is it so? I did not know that.”

“Do you mind that you do not know any of her tastes or
habits? I speak of this as a general truth.”

“I am a spectacle to you, I suppose. But this sea charms
me; I shall live by it, and build a house with all the windows
and doors towards it.”

“Not if you mean to have Verry in it.”

“I do mean to have her in it. She shall like it. Are you
willing to have me for a brother? Will you go to Belem, and
help break the ice? She could never go,” and he began to
skip pebbles in the water.

“I will take you for a brother gladly. You are a fool—not
for loving her, but all men are fools when in love, they are so
besotted with themselves. But I am afraid of one fault in
you.”

“Drunkard?”

“Drunkard.”

“On my honor, I have not that fault. But why not leave
me to God? Didn't you leave yourself that way once?”

“Oh cruel!”

“Pardon me, dear Cass. I must do well enough, surely, for
I have done well; that you know. Will you believe in me?”

“I have no disbelief.”

“I thought I should want to marry her, when I first knew
you. I love her passionately,” and he threw a pebble farther

than he had yet; “but she is so pure, so delicate, that when I
approach her, in spite of my besottedness, my love grows lambent.
That's not like me, you know,” with great vehemence.
“Will she never understand me?”

“Probably not; but you must manage for yourself, and her.
As you must have discerned, Veronica and I are far apart, and
shall be. She is, as you say, pure, beautiful, and noble; but
peculiar. I shall have no voice between you.”

“You must, you do. We shall hear it if you do not speak.
You have a great power, tall enchantress.”

“Certainly. What a powerful life is mine!”

“You come to these shores often. Are you not different
beside them? This colorless picture before us—these vague
spaces of sea and land—the motion of the one—the stillness of
the other—have you no sense that you have a powerful spirit?”

“Is it power? It is pain.”

“Your gold has not been refined then”

“Yes, I confess that I have a frantic sense of power; but
it is not a spiritual sense.”

“Let us retrace our steps.”

We mused on our footprints in the wet sand as we passed
them. We were told when we reached home, that Veronica
had gone on some expedition with Fanny. She did not return
till time for supper, looking elfish, and behaving whimsically,
as if she had received instructions accordingly. I fancied that
the expression Ben regarded her with might be the Bellevue
Pickersgill expression, it was so different from any I had seen.
There was a haughty curiosity in his face; as she passed near
him, he looked into her eyes, and saw that strange cast in them,
which made their sight so far off.

“Veronica, where are you?” he asked.

The tone of his voice attracted mother's regards; an intelligent
glance was exchanged, and then her eyes sought mine.
“It is not as you thought, mamma,” I telegraphed. But
Verry, not bringing her eyes back into the world, merely said,
“I am here, am I not?” and went to shut herself up in her
room. I found her there, looking through the wicket.

“The buds are beginning to swell,” she said. “I should
hear small voices breaking out from the earth. I grow happy
every day.”

“Because the earth will be green again?” I asked, in a coaxing
voice.

She shut the wicket, and looking in my face, said, “I will
go down immediately.” For some reason the tears came into

my eyes, which she, taking up the candle, saw. “I am going
to play,” she said hurriedly, “come.” She ran down before
me, but turning, by the foot of the stairs, she pointed to the
parlor door, and said, “Is he my husband?”

“Answer for yourself. Go in, in God's name.”

Ben was chatting with father over the fire; he stretched out
his hand to her, with so firm and assured an air, and looked so
noble, that I felt a pang of admiration for him. She laid her
hand in his a moment, passed on to the piano, and began to play
divinely, drawing him to her side. Father peeled off a wet
fragment of his cigar, as he contemplated them with a thoughtful
countenance.