University of Virginia Library

38. CHAPTER XXXVIII.

It was true. Locke Morgeson had been insolvent for five
years. All this time he had thrown ballast out from every
side, in the shape of various ventures, which he trusted would
lighten the ship, that, nevertheless, drove steadily on to ruin.
Then he steered blindly, straining his credit to the utmost;
and then—the crash. His losses were so extended and gradual,
that the public were not aware of his condition till he
announced it. There was a general exasperation against him.
The Morgeson family rose up with one accord to represent the
public mind, and drove Veronica wild.

“Have you acted wrongly, father?” she asked.

“I have confessed, Verry.”

Our house was thronged for several days. “Pay us,” cried
the female portion of his creditors. In vain father represented
that he was still young—that his business days were not over
—that they must wait, for paid they should be. “Pay us now,
for we are women,” they still cried. Fanny opened the doors
for these persons as wide as possible when they came, and
shut them with a bang when they went; or astonished them
with a satirical politeness, or confounded them with an impertinent
silence. The important creditors held meetings to agree
what should be done, and effected an arrangement by which
his property was left in his hands for three years, to manage

for the benefit of his creditors. The arrangement proved that
his integrity was not suspected; but it was an ingenious punishment,
that he should keep in sight, improve, or change, for
others, what had been his own. I was glad when he decided
to sell his real estate and personal property. He would trust
to the ships alone, but would build no more. I begged him to
keep our house till Ben should return. He consented to wait;
but I did not tell Verry what I had done. All the houses he
owned, lots, carriages, horses, domestic stock, the fields lying
round our house—were sold. When he began to sell, the fury
of retrenchment seized him, and he laid out a life of self-denial
for us three. Arthur's ten thousand dollars were safe,
who was therefore provided for. He would bring wood and
water for us; the rest we must do, with Fanny's help. We
could dine in the kitchen, and put our beds in one room; by
shutting up the house in part, we should have less labor to
perform. We attempted to carry out his ideas, but Veronica
was so dreadfully in Fanny's way and mine, that we were
obliged to entreat her to resume her old rôle. As for Fanny,
she was happy—working like a beaver day and night. Father
was much at home, and took an extraordinary interest in the
small details which Fanny carried out.

When Temperance heard of these arrangements, she came
down with Abram, in their green and yellow wagon. Temperance
drove the shaggy, old white horse, for Abram was intrusted
with the care of a meal bag, in which were fastened a
cock and four hens. We should see, she said, when she let
them out, whether we were to keep hens or not. Was Veronica
to go without new-laid eggs? Had he sold the cat, she
sarcastically inquired of father.

“Who is going to do your washing, girls?” she asked, taking
off her bonnet

“We all do it.”

“Now I shall die a laughing!” But she contradicted herself
by crying heartily. “One day in every week, I tell you,
I am coming; and Fanny and I can do the washing in a jiffy.”

“Sure,” said Abram, “you can; the sass is in.”

“Sass or no sass, I'm coming.”

She made me laugh for the first time in a month. I was too
tired generally to be merry, with my endeavors to carry out
father's wishes, and keep up the old aspect of the house.
When she left us we all felt more cheerful. Aunt Merce
wanted to come home, but Verry and I thought she had better
stay in Rosville. We could not deny it to ourselves, that

home was sadly altered, or that we were melancholy; and though
we never needed her more, we begged her not to come. Happily
father's zeal soon died away. A boy was hired, and as there
was no out of doors work for him to do, he relieved Fanny,
who in her turn relieved me. Finding time to look into my
self, I perceived a change in my estimation of father; a vague
impression of weakness in him troubled me. I also discovered
that I had lost my atmosphere. My life was coarse, hard,
colorless! I lived in an insignificant country village; I was
faded; I was poor. My theories had failed, and my practice
was like my moods—variable. But I concluded that if To-Day
would go on without bestowing upon me sharp pains, depriving
me of sleep, mutilating me with an accident, or sending a
disaster to those belonging to me, I would be content. Arthur
held out a hope, by writing me, that he meant to support me
handsomely. He wished me to send him some shirt studs; and
told me to keep the red horse. He had heard that I was
very handsome when I was in Rosville. A girl had asked him
how I looked now. He said that I was old, and she laughed;
but he told her I was handsomer than any woman Rosville
could boast of.

October had gone, and we had not heard from Ben. Veronica
came to my room of nights, and listened to wind and sea, as
she never had before. Sometimes she was there long after I
had gone to bed to look out of the windows. If it was calm,
she went away quietly; if the sea was rough, she was sorrowful,
but said nothing. The lethargic summer had given way
to a boisterous autumn of cold gray weather, driving rains,
and hollow gales. At last he came—to Veronica first. He
gave a deep breath of delight when he stood again on the
hearth-rug, before our now unwonted parlor fire. The sight of
his ruddy face, vigorous form, and gay voice, made me as merry,
as the attendants of a feast are, when they inhale the odor
of the viands they carry, hear the gurgle of the wine they pour,
and echo the laughter of the guests.

There was much to tell that astonished him, but he could
not be depressed; everything must be arranged to suit us.
He would buy the house, provided he could pay for it in instalments.
Did I know that his mother had docked his allowance,
as soon as she knew that he would marry Verry?

“How should I know it?”

I had not heard then that Desmond's was doubled, when she
heard his intention of going to Spain.

“How should I know that?”

One thing I should know, however—and that was, that Desmond
had begged his mother to make no change in the disposition
of her income. He had declined the extra allowance,
and then accepted it, to offer him — Ben. Was not that astonishing!

“Did you take it?”

“No; but pa did.”

All he could call his was fifteen hundred a year. Was that
enough for them to live on, and pay a little every year for the
house? Could we all live there together, just the same?
Would we, he asked father, and allow him to be an inmate?

Father shook hands with him so violently that he winced;
and Verry crumpled up a handful of his tawny locks, and kissed
them, whereat he said, “Are you grown a human woman?”

About the wedding? He could only stay to appoint a time,
for he must post to Belem. It must be very soon.

“In a year or two,” said Verry

“Verry!”

“In three weeks, then.”

“From to day?”

“No, that will be the date of the wreck of the `Locke Morgeson;'
but three weeks from to-morrow. Must we have anybody
here, Ben?”

“Helen, and Alice, Cassandra?”

“Certainly.”

“I have no friends,” said Verry.

“What will you wear, Verry?” I asked.

“Why this dress,” designating her old black silk. Her
eyes filled with tears, and went on a pilgrimage towards the
unknown heaven, where our mother was. She could only come
to the wedding as a ghost. I imagined her flitting through the
empty spaces, from room to room, scared and troubled by the
pressure of mortal life around her.

“I shall not wear white,” Verry said hastily.

The very day Ben went to Belem one of father's outstanding
ships arrived. She came into the harbor presenting the unusual
sight of trying oil on deck. Black and greasy from hull
to spar, she was a pleasant sight, for she was full of sperm oil.
Little boys ran down to the house to inform us of that fact before
she was moored. “Wouldn't Mr. Morgeson be all right
now that his luck had changed?” they asked.

At supper father said, “By George!” several times, by that
oath resuming something of his old self. “Those women can
now be paid,” he said. “If I could have held out till now, I

could have gone on without failing. This is the first good voyage
the `Oswego' ever made me; if another ship, the `Adamant,'
will come full, while oil is so high, I shall arrange matters
with my creditors before the three years are up. To hold
my own again—Ah! I never will venture all upon the uncertain
field of the sea.”

The `Oswego's' captain sent us a box of shells the next day,
and a small Portuguese boy, named Manuel—a handsome,
black-eyed, husky-voiced fellow, in a red shirt, which was
bound round his waist with a leather belt, from which hung a
sailor's sheath-knife.

“He is volcanic,” said Verry.

“The Portuguese are all handsome,” said Fanny, poking
him, to see if he would notice it. But he did not remove his
eyes from Veronica.

“He shall be your page, Verry.”

The next night a message came to us that Abram was dying.
If we ever meant to come, Temperance sent word, some of us
might come now; but she would rather have Mr. Morgeson.
Fanny insisted upon going with him to carry a lantern. Manuel
offered her his knife, when he comprehended that she was
going through a dark road.

“You are a perfect heathen. There's nothing to be afraid
of, except that Mr. Morgeson may walk into the ditch; will a
knife keep us out of that?”

“Knife is good—it kills,” he said, showing his white, vegetable-ivory
teeth.

Verry and I sat up till they returned, at two in the morning.
Abram had died about midnight, distressed to the last with
worldly cares. “He asked,” said father, “if I remembered
his poor boy, whose chest never came home. He wished to
hear some one read a hymn; Temperance broke down, and I
read it, while Fanny cried hysterically.”

“I was freezing cold,” she answered haughtily.

In the morning Verry and I started for Temperance's house;
but she waited on the door step, till I had inquired whether
we were wanted. I called her in, for Temperance asked for
her as soon as she saw me.

“He was a good man, girls,” she said with emphasis.

“Indeed he was.”

“A little mean, I 'spose.”

I put in a demurrer; her face cleared instantly.

“He thought a great deal of your folks.”

“And a great deal of you.”

“Oh, what a loss I have met with! He had just bought a
first-rate overcoat.”

“But Temperance,” said Verry, with a lamentable candor,
“you can come back now.”

“Can't you wait for him to be put into the ground?” And
she tried to look shocked, but failed.

A friend entered with a doleful face, and Temperance
groaned slightly.

“It is all done complete now, Mis Handy. He looks as
easy as if he slept, he was so limber.”

“Yes, yes,” answered Temperance, starting up. and hurrying
us out of the room, pinching me, with a significant look at
Verry. She was afraid that her feelings might be distressed.
“The funeral will be day after to-morrow. Don't come; your
father will be all that must be here of the family. I shall shut
up the house, and come straight to you. I know that I am
needed; but you mustn't say a word about pay—I can't stand
it, I have had too much affliction to be pestered about wages.”

Verry hugged her, and Temperance shed the honestest tears
of the day then, she was so gratified with Verry's fondness.
Before Abram had been buried a week, she was back again—a
fixture, although she declared that she had only come for a
spell, as we might know by the size of the bundle she had,
showing us one, tied in a blue cotton handkerchief. What
should she stay from her own house for, when as good a man
as ever lived had left it to her? We knew that she merely
comforted a tender conscience by praising the departed, for
whom she had small respect, when living. We felt her brightening
influence, but Fanny sulked, feeling dethroned.

Ben Pickersgill Somers and Veronica Morgeson were `published.'
Contrary to the usual custom, Verry went to hear her
own banns read at the church. She must do all she could, she
told me, to realize that she was to be married; had I any
thoughts about it, with which I might aid her? She thought
it strange that people should marry. She could not decide
whether it was the sublimest, or the most inglorious act of
one's life. I begged her to think about what she would wear
—the time was passing. Father gave me so small a sum for
the occasion, I had little opportunity for the splendid; but I
purchased what Veronica wished for a dress, and superintended
the making of it;—black lace over lavender-colored silk. She
said no more about it; but I observed that she put in order all
her possessions, as if she were going to undertake a long and
uncertain journey. Every box and drawer was arranged. All

her clothes were repaired, refolded, and laid away; every article
was refreshed by a turn or shake up. She made her room
a miracle of cleanliness. What she called rubbish she destroyed—her
old papers, things with chipped edges, or those
that were defaced by wear. She went once to Milford in the
time, and bought a purple angola rug, which she put before her
arm-chair, and two small silver cups, with covers; in one was
a perfume which Ben liked, but the other was empty. Her
favorite blank books were laid on a shelf, and the table, with
its inkstand and portfolio, was pushed against the wall. The
last ornament which she added to her room was a beautifully
woven mat of evergreens, with which she concealed the picture
of the avenue, and the nameless man. After it was done
she inhabited my room, appearing to feel at home, and glad to
have me with her. As the time drew near, she grew silent,
and did not play at all. Temperance watched her with anxiety.
“If ever she can have one of those nervous spells again, she
will have one now,” she said. “Don't let her dream. I am
turning myself inside out to keep up her appetite.”

“Do you ever feel worried about me, Tempy?”

“Lord 'a marcy! you great, strong thing, why should I?
May be you do want a little praise. I never saw anybody get
along so well as you do, now-a-days; you have altered very
much; I never would have believed it.”

“What was the trouble with me?”

“I always stuck up for you, gracious knows. Do you know
what has been said of you in Surrey?”

“No.”

“Then I shan't tell you; if I were you, though, I shouldn't
trouble myself to be overpolite to the folks who have come and
gone here, night on to twenty years,—hang 'em!”

A few days before the wedding Aunt Merce and Arthur
came home. Arthur was shy at first; he had found a great
change, but being agreeably disappointed, grew lively. I perceived
that Aunt Merce had aged since Mother's death; her
manner was changed; the same objects no longer possessed an
interest. But she looked at me penitentially. “I wish I
could say,” she said, “what I used to say to you,—that you
were `possessed.' Now that there is no occasion for me to
comprehend people, I begin to. My education began wrong
end foremost. I think Mary's death has taught me something.
Do you think of her? She was the love of my life.”

“Women do keep stupid a long time; but I think they are

capable of growth, beyond the period when men cease to grow,
or change.”

“Oh, I don't know anything about men, you know.”

Temperance and I cleaned the house, opened every room,
and made every fire-place ready for a fire—a fire being the
chief luxury which I could command. Baking went on up to
within a day of the wedding, under Hepsey's supervision, who
had been summoned as a helper; Fanny was busy everywhere.

“Mr. Morgeson,” said Temperance, “the furniture is too
darned shabby for a wedding?”

“It is not mine, you must remember.”

“Plague take the creditors! they know as well as I, that
you turned Surrey from a herring ware into a whaling port, and
that the houses they live in were built out of the wages you
gave them. I am thankful that most of them have water in
their cellars.”