 | CHAPTER XXXVI. The Morgesons |  |
36. CHAPTER XXXVI.
A few days after, I went to Milford with father, to make
some purchases. I sought a way to speak to him about the future,
intending also to go on with various remarks; but it
seemed difficult to begin. Observing him, as he contemplated
the road before us, grave and abstracted, I recollected the difference
between his age and mother's, and wondered at my
blindness, while I compared the old man of my childhood, who
existed for the express purpose of making money for the support
and pleasure of his family, and to accommodate all its
whims, with the man before me,—barely forty-eight, without a
wrinkle in his firm, ruddy face, and only an occasional white
hair, in ambuscade among his fair, curly locks. My exclusive
right over him, I felt doubtful about. I gave my attention to
the road also, and remarked that I thought the season was late.
“Yes. Why didn't Somers come home with you?”
“I hardly know. The matter of the marriage was not settled,
nor a plan of spending a summer abroad.”
“Will it suit him to vegetate in Surrey? Veronica will
never leave home.”
“He has no ambition.”
“It is a curse to inherit money in this country. Mr. Somers
writes that Ben will have three thousand a year; but that
the disposal, at present, is not in his power.”
I explained as well as I could the Pickersgill property.
“I see how it is. The children are waiting for the principal,
and have exacted the income; and their lives have been
warped for this reason. Ben has not begun life yet. But I
like Somers exceedingly.”
“He is the best of them, his mother, the worst.”
“Did you have a passage?”
“She attempted.”
“I can give Veronica nothing beyond new clothes, or furniture;
whatever she likes that way. To draw money from my
business is impossible. My business fluctuates like quicksilver,
and it is enormously extended. If they should have two
thousand a year, it would be a princely income; I should feel
so now, if I had it clear of incumbrance.”
“Do you mean to say that your income does not amount to
so much?”
“My outgoes and incomes have for a long time been
involved with each other. I do not separate them. I have
never lived extravagantly. My luxury has been in doing too
much.”
A cold feeling came over me.
“By the way, Mr. Somers pays you compliments in his note.
How old are you? I forget.” He surveyed me with a doubtful
look. “Are you thin, or what is it?”
“East wind, I guess. I am twenty-five.”
“And Veronica?”
“Over twenty.”
“She must be married. I hope she will cut her practical
eye-teeth then, for Somers' sake.”
“He does not require a practically-minded woman.”
“What do men require?”
“They require the souls and bodies of women, without having
the trouble of knowing the difference between the one and
the other.”
“So bad as that? Whoa.”
He stopped to pay toll, and the conversation stopped.
On the way home, however, I found a place to begin my proposed
talk, and burst out with, “I think Hepsey should
leave us.”
“What ails Hepsey?”
“She is so old, and is such a poke.”
“You must tell her yourself, to go. She has money enough
to be comfortable; I have some of it, as well as that of half
the widows, old maids, and sailors' wives in Surrey, being better
than the Milford banks, they think.”
I felt another cold twinge.
“What! are our servants your creditors?”
“Servants—don't say that,” he said harshly; “we do not
have these distinctions here.”
“It costs you more than two thousand a year.”
“How do you know?”
“Think of the hired people—the horses, the cows, pigs,
hens, garden, fields—all costing more than they yield.”
“What has come over you? Did you ever think of money
before? Tell me, have you ever been in our cellar?”
“Yes, to look at the kittens.”
“In the store room?”
“For apples and sweetmeats.”
“Look into these matters, if you like; they never troubled
your mother, at least I never knew that they did; but don't
make your reforms tiresome.”
What encouragement!
In the yard we saw Fanny contemplating a brood of hens,
which were picking up corn before her. “Take Fanny for a
coadjutor; she is eighteen, and a bright girl.” She sprang to
the chaise, and caught the reins, which he threw into her
hands, unbuckled the girth, and, before I was out of sight,
was leading the horse to water.
“We might economize in the way of a stable boy,” I said.
“Pooh! you are not indulgent. Here,” whistling to Fanny,
“let Sam do that.” She pouted her lips at him, and he
laughed.
Aunt Merce gave me a letter the moment I entered. “It is
in Alice's hand; sit down and read it.”
She took her handkerchief, and a bit of flagroot from her
pocket, to be ready for the sympathetic flow which she
expected. But the letter was short. She had seen, it said,
the announcement of mother's death in a newspaper, at the
time. She knew what a change it had mde. We might be
sure that we should never find our old level, however happy
and forgetful we might grow. She bore us all in mind, but
sent no message, except to aunt Merce; she must come to
Rosville, before summer was over. And could she assist me,
by taking Arthur for a while? Edward was a quiet, companionable
at school.
“I wish you would go, aunt Merce.”
“Yes, why not, Mercy?” asked father. “Would it be a
good thing for Arthur, Cassandra? You know what Surrey is
for a boy.”
“I know what Rosville was for a girl,” I thought. It was
an excellent plan for Arthur; but a feeling of repulsion at
the idea of his going, kept me silent.
“Is it a good idea?” he repeated.
“Yes, yes, father; send him by all means.”
Aunt Merce sighed. “If he goes, I must go; I can be the
receptacle for his griefs and trials, for a while, at least, and be
a little useful that way. You know, Locke, I am but a poor
creature.”
“I was not aware of the fact, and am astonished to hear you
say so, Mercy, when you know how far back I can remember.
Mary shines all along those years, and you with her.”
“Locke, you are the kindest man in the world.
“He feels fifty years younger than she appears to him,” I
thought; but I thanked him for his consideration for her.
“Veronica has had a letter to-day from Mr. Somers. What
did you buy in Milford?”
“Mr. Morgeson,” Fanny called, “Bumpus, the horse-jockey,
is in the yard. He says Bill is spavined. I think he lies; he
wants to trade.”
He went out with her.
“Aunt Merce, let us be more together. What do you think
of spending our evenings in the parlor?”
“Do you expect to break up our habits?”
“I would, if I could.”
“Try Veronica.”
“I have.”
“Will she give up solitude?”
“Bring your knitting to the parlor, and see.”
Veronica told me that Ben was coming in a week.
“Glad of it.”
“Sends love to you.”
“Obliged.”
“Calls me `poor girl;' speaks beautifully of his remembrance
of mother, and—”
“What?”
“Tells me to rely on your faithful soul; to trust in the reasonable
hope of our remaining together; to try to establish an
never knew,—that I need you—that we need each other.”
“Is that all?”
“There is more for me.”
I left her. Closing the door of my room gently, I thought.
“Ben is a good man; but for all that, I feel like blind Sampson,
just now. Could I lay my hands on the pillars, which support
the temple he has built, I would wrench them from their
foundation, and surprise him, by toppling the roof on his
head.”
His arrival was delayed a few days. When he came, Surrey
looked its best, for it was June; and though the winds were
chilly, the grass was grown, and the orchard leaves were
crowding off the blossoms. The woods were vividly green.
The fauns were playing there, and the syrens sang under the
sea. But I had other thoughts; the fauns and the syrens were
not for me, perplexed as I was with househould cares. Hepsey
proposed staying another year, but I was firm; and she
went, begging Fanny to go with her, and be as a daughter.
She declined; but the proposition influenced her to be troublesome
to me. She told me she was of age now, and that no person
had a right to control her. At present she was useful
where she was, and might remain.
“Will you have wages?” I asked her
“That is Mr. Morgeson's business.”
My anger would have pleased her, so I concealed it.
“Your ability, Fanny, is better than your disposition, Me,
—you do not suit at all; but it is certain that father depends
on you for his small comforts, and Veronica likes you. I wish
you would stay.”
She placed her arms akimbo.
“I should like to find you out, exactly. I can't. I never
could find out your mother; all the rest of you, are as clear as
daylight.” And she snapped her fingers, as though `the rest,'
were between them.
“You lack faith.”
“You believe that this is a beautiful world, don't you? I
hate it. I should think you had a reason too, for hating it.
Pray what have you got?”
“An ungrateful imp that was bequeathed me.”
She saw father in the garden, beckoning to me. “He wants
you. I do not hate the world always,” she added, with her
eyes fixed on him.
I was disposed to trouble the still waters of our domestic
asceticism which considered air, sleep, food, as mere
necessities was stupid. But I had no assistance; Veronica
thought that her share of my plans must consist of a diligent
notice of all I did, which she gave, and then went to her own
life, kept sacredly apart. Fanny laughed in her sleeve, and
took another side—the practical, and shone in it, becoming in
fact the true manager and worker, while I played. Aunt
Merce was helpless. She neglected her former cares; and
father was, what he always had been at home,—heedless, and
indifferent.
One morning we stood on the landing stair—Ben, Veronica,
and myself, looking from the window. A silver mist so thinly
wrapped the orchard that the wet, shining leaves thrust themselves
through in patches. Birds were singing beneath, feeling
the warmth of the sun, scarcely hid. The young leaves
and blossoms steeping in the mist sent up a delicious odor.
“I like Surrey better and better,” he said; “the atmosphere
suits me.”
“Oh, I am glad,” answered Verry. “I could never go
away. It is not beautiful, I know; in fact, it is meagre, when
it comes to be talked of; but there are suggestions here,
which occasionally stimulate me.”
“Verry, can you keep the people away from me when I live
here?”
“I do not like that feeling in you.”
“I like fishermen.”
“Not a boat?”
“Yes, I'll have a boat.”
“I shall never go out with you.”
“Cass will. I shall cruize with her, and you, in your house,
need not see us depart. Eric, the Red, made excursions in
this region. We will skirt the shores which are the same,
nearly, as when he sailed from them, with his Northmen; and
the ancient barnacles will think, when they see her fair hair,
which she will let ripple round her stately shoulders, that he
has come back with his bride.”
Verry looked with delight at him, and then at me. “Her
long, yellow hair, and her stately shoulders,” she repeated.
“Will you go?” he asked.
“Of course,” I answered, going down stairs. I happened
to look back, on the way. His arm was round Verry, but he
was looking after me. He withdrew it as our eyes met, and
went into the parlor, and I shut the door.
“Now then,” I said.
He took a note from his pocket and gave it to me.
I broke its seal, and read; “Tell Ben, before you can reflect
upon it, that I will go abroad, and then repent of it,—as I
shall. Desmond.”
“`Tell Ben,'” I repeated aloud, “`that I will go abroad.
Desmond.'”
“Do you guess, as he does, that my reason for going, was,
that I might be kept aloof from all sight and sound of you two?
In the result towards which I saw you drive, I could have no
part.”
“Stay; I know that he will go.”
“You do not know. Nor do you know what such a man is,
when—” checking himself.
“He is in love?”
“If you choose to call it that.”
“I do.”
All there was to say, should be said now; but I felt more
agitated than was my wont. These feelings did not accord
with my housewifely condition, and upset me. I looked at
him; he began to walk about, taking up a book, which he
leaned his head over, and whose covers he bent back till they
cracked.
“You would read me that way,” I said.
“It is rather your way of reading.”
“Can you understand that Desmond and I influence each
other to act the same? And that we comprehend each other
without collision? I love him, as a mature woman may love,
—once, Ben, only once; the fire-tipped arrows rarely pierce
soul and sense, blood and brain.”
He made a gesture, expressive of contempt.
“Men are different; he is different.”
“You have already spoken for me, and, I suppose, you will
for him.”
“I venture to. Desmond is a violent, tyranical, sensual
man; his perceptions are his pulses. That he is handsome,
clever, resolute, and sings well, I can admit; but no more.”
“We will not bandy his merits or his demerits between us.
Let us observe him. And now, tell me,—what am I?”
“You have been my delight and misery ever since I knew
you. I saw you first, so impetuous, yet self-contained! Incapable
of insincerity, devoid of affectation, and courageously,
most women, you understood your instincts; that you
dared to define them; that you were impious enough to follow
them. You debased my ideal; you confused me, also, for I
could never affirm that you were wrong,—forcing me to consult
abstractions, they gave a verdict in your favor, which almost
unsexed you in my estimation. I must own that the man
who is willing to marry you, has more courage than I have. Is
it strange, that when I found your counterpart, Veronica,
that I yielded? Her delicate, pure, ignorant soul suggests to
me an eternal repose.”
“It is not necessary that you should fatigue your mind with
abstractions concerning her. It will be the literal you will
hunger for.”
“Damn it! the world has got a twist in it, and we all go
round with it, devilishly awry.”
I said no more. He had defined my limits. He would, as
far as possible, control me, without pity, or compassion,—
thinking, probably, that I needed none; the powers he had
always given me credit for, must be sufficing. I could not
comprehend him. How was it, that he and Verry gave me
such horrible pain? Was it exceptional? Could I claim
nothing from women? Had they thought me an anomaly? It
was Veronica who was called peculiar, and original. The end
of it all must be an assimilation with their happiness!
“Well?” he said.
“Thank you.”
Veronica came in, swinging her bonnet. “`The Sagamore'
has arrived. I am going to stand on the wharf, to count the
sailors,—to see if they have all come home. Will you go,
Ben?”
He complied, and I was left alone.
| CHAPTER XXXVI. The Morgesons | |