 | CHAPTER XL. The Morgesons |  |
40. CHAPTER XL.
I looked across the bay from my window. “The snow is
making `Pawshee's Land' white again, and I remain this year
the same. No change, no growth, or development! The fulfilment
of duty avails me nothing; and self-discipline has
passed the necessary point.”
I struck the sash with my closed hand, for I would now give
my life a new direction, and it was fettered. But I would be
resolute, and break the fetters; had I not endured a `mute
ease' long enough? Manuel, who had been throwing snowballs
against the house, stopped, and looked towards the gate,
and then ran towards it. A pair of tired splashed horses
dashed down the drive. Manuel had the reins, and Ben was
beside him, reeling slightly on the seat of the wagon. I ran
down to meet him; he had been on a trip to Belem, where he
never went except when he wanted money.
“I have some news for you,” he said, putting his arm
in mine, as he jumped from the wagon. “Come in, and pull
off my boots, Manuel.” I brought a chair for him, and waited
till his boots were off. “Bring me a glass of brandy.”
I stamped my foot. Verry entered with a book. “Ah,
Verry, darling, come here.”
“Why do you drink brandy? Have you over-driven the
horses?”
He drank the brandy. She nodded kindly to him, shut her
book, and slipped out, without approaching him.
“That's her way,” he said, staring hard at me. “She always
says in the same unmoved voice, `Why do you drink
brandy?'”
“And then—she will not come to kiss you.”
“The child is dead, for the first thing. (Cigar, Manuel.)
Second, I was possessed to come home by the way of Rosville.
When did your father go away, Cass?”
I felt faint, and sat down.
“Ah, we all have a weakness; does yours overcome you?”
“He went three days ago.”
“I saw him at Alice Morgeson's.”
“Arthur?”
“He didn't go to see Arthur. He will marry Alice, and I
must build my house now.”
A devil ripped open my heart; its fragments flew all over
me, blinding and deafening me.
“He will be home to-night.”
“Very well.”
“What shall you say, Cassy?”
“Expose that little weakness to him.”
“When will you learn real life?”
“Please ask him, when he comes, if he will see me in my
room?”
I waited there. My cup was filled at last. My sin swam
on the top.
He came in smoking, and taking a chair between his legs,
sat opposite me, and tapped softly the back of it with his fingers.
“You sent for me?”
“I wanted to tell you, that Charles Morgeson loved me from
the first, and you remember that I staid by him to the last.”
“What more is there?” knocking over the chair, and seizing
me: “tell me.”
His eyes, that were blood-shot with anger, fastened on my
mouth. “I know, though, damn him! he was cunning enough
to make you criminal only in desire. Does Alice know this?”
And he pushed me backwards
“All.”
An expression of pain and disappointment crossed his face;
he ground his teeth fiercely.
“Don't marry her, father; you will kill me, if you do!”
“Must you alone have license?”
He resumed his cigar, which he picked up from the floor.
“It would seem that we have not known each other. What
evasiveness there is in our natures! Your mother was the soul
of candor, yet I am convinced I never knew her.
“If you bring Alice here, I must go. We cannot live together.”
“I understand why she would not come here. She said that
she must see you first. She is in Milford.”
He knocked the ashes from his cigar, looked round the
room, and then at me, who wept bitterly. His face contracted
with a spasm
“We were married two days ago.” And turning from me
quickly, he left the room.
I was never so near grovelling on the face of the earth as
then; let me but fall, and I was sure that I never should rise.
Ben knew it, but left it to me to tell Veronica.
My grief broke all bounds, and we changed places; she tried
to comfort me, forgetting herself.
“Let us go away to the world's end with Ben.” But suddenly
recollecting that she liked Alice, she cried, “What shall
I do?”
What could she do, but offer an unreasoning opposition?
Aunt Merce cried herself sick, fond as she was of Alice, and
Temperance declared that if she hadn't married a widower
herself, she would put in an oar. Anyhow, she hadn't married
a man with grown-up daughters.
“What ails Fanny?” she asked me the next day. “She
looks like a froze pullet.”
“Where is she now?”
“Making the beds.”
Temperance knew well what was the matter, but was too
wise to interfere. I found her, not bed-making, but in a spare
room, staring at the wall. She looked at me with dry eyes,
bit her lips, and folded her hands across her chest, after her
old, defiant fashion. I did not speak.
“It is so,” she said; “you need not tear me to pieces with
your eyes, I can confess it to you, for you are as bad as I am.
I love him!” And she got up to shake her fist in my face.
“My heart, and brain and soul are as good as hers, and
he knows it.”
I could not utter a word.
“I know him as you never knew him, and have for years,
since I was that starved, poor-house brat your mother took.
Don't trouble yourself to make a speech about ingratitude. I
know that your mother was good and merciful, and that I
should have worshipped her; but I never did. Do you suppose
I ever thought he was perfect, as the rest of you
thought? He is full of faults. I thought he was dependant
on me. He knows how I feel. Oh, what shall I do?” She
threw up her arms, and dropped on the floor in a hysteric fit.
I locked the door, and picked her up. “Come out of it, Fanny;
I shall stay here till you do.”
By dint of shaking her, and opening the window, she began
to come to. After two or three fearful laughs and shudders,
she opened her eyes She saw my compassion, and tears fell
in torrents; I cried too. The poor girl kissed my hands; a
new soul came into her face.
“Oh Fanny, bear it as well as you can! You and I will be
friends.”
“Forgive me! I was always bad; I am now. If that woman
comes here, I'll stab her with Manuel's knife.”
“Pooh! The knife is too rusty; it would give her the lockjaw.
Besides, she will never come. I know her. She is already
more than half way to meet me; but I shall not perform
my part of the journey, and she will return.”
“You don't say so!” her ancient curiosity reviving.
“Manuel keeps it sharp,” she said presently, relapsing into
jealousy.
“You are a fool. Have you eaten anything to-day?”
“I can't eat.”
“That's the matter with you—an empty stomach is the cause
of most distressing pangs.”
Ben urged me to go to Milford to meet Alice, and to ask
her to come to our house. But father said no more to me on
the subject. Neither did Veronica. In the afternoon they
drove over to Milford, returning at dusk. She refused to come
with them, Ben said, and never would, probably. “You have
thrown out your father terribly.”
“You notice it, do you?”
“It is pretty evident.”
“What is your opinion?”
He was about to condemn, when he recollected his own interference
in my life. “Ah! you have me. I think you are
right, as far as the past which relates to Alice is concerned.
But if she chooses to forget it, why don't you? We do much
that is contrary to our moral ideas, to make people comfortable.
Besides, if we do not lay our ghosts, our closets will be overcrowded.”
“We may determine some things for ourselves, irrespective
of consequences.”
“Well, there is a mess of it.”
Fanny had watched for their return, counting on an access
of misery, for she believed that Alice would come also. It was
what she should have done. Rage took possession of her when
she saw father alone. She planted herself before him, in my
presence, in a contemptuous attitude. He changed color, and
then her mood changed.
“What shall I do?” she asked piteously.
I tried to get away before she made any further progress;
but he checked me, dreading the scene which he foreboded,
without comprehending.
“Fanny,” he said harshly, but with a confused face, “you
mistake me.”
“Not I; it was your wife and children who mistook you.”
“What is it you would say?”
“You have let me be your slave.”
“It is not true, I hope—what your behavior indicates?”
I forgave him everything then. Fanny had made a mistake.
He had only behaved very selfishly towards her, without
having any perception of her—that was all! She was confounded,
stared at him a moment, and rushed out. That interview
settled her; she was a different girl from that day.
“Father, you will go to Rosville, and be rich again. Can
you buy this house from Ben, for me? A very small income
will suffice me and Fanny, for you may be sure that I shall
keep her. Temperance will live with Verry; Ben will build,
now that his share of his grandfather's estate will come to him.'
“Very well,” he said with a sigh, “I will bring it about.”
“It is useless for us to disguise the fact—I have lost you.
You are more dead to me than mother is.'
“You say so.”
It was the truth. I was the only one of the family who
never went to Rosville. Aunt Merce took up her abode with
Alice, on account of Arthur, whom she idolized. When father
was married again, the Morgeson family denounced him again
for it, and for leaving Surrey; but they accepted his invitations
to Rosville, and returned with glowing accounts of his
new house, and his hospitality.
By the next June Ben's house was completed, and they
moved. Its site was a knoll to the east of our house, which
Veronica had chosen. Her rooms were towards the orchard,
and Ben's commanded a view of the sea. He had not ventured
to intrude, he told her, upon the Northern Lights, and she
must not bother him about his boat-house, or his pier. They
were both delighted with the change, and kept house like children.
Temperance indulged their whims to the utmost, though
she thought Ben's new-fangled notions were silly; but they
might keep him from something worse. This something was a
shadow which frightened me, though I fought it off. I was
weary of trouble, and shut my eyes as long as possible. Whenever
Ben went from home, and he often drove to Milford, or to
some of the towns near, he came back disordered with drink.
At the sight my hopes would sink. But they rose again, he
was so genial, so loving, so calmly contented afterwards. As
Verry never spoke of it, either to Temperance or me, I imagined
felt, for she knew nothing of the Bellevue Pickersgill family
history.
The day they moved was a happy one for me. I was at last
left alone in my own house, and I regained an absolute self-possession,
and a sense of occupation I had long been a stranger
to. My ownership oppressed me, there was so much liberty
to realize.
I had an annoyance, soon after I came into sole possession.
Father's business was not yet settled, and he came to Surrey.
He was paying his debts in full, he told me, eking out what
he lacked himself with the property of Alice. He could not
have used much of it, however, for the vessels that were out
at the time of the failure came home with good cargoes. I
fancied that he had more than one regret while settling his
affairs; that he missed the excitement and vicissitudes of a
maritime business. Nothing disagreeable arose between us,
till I happened to ask him, what were the contents of a box
which had arrived the day before.
“Something Alice sent you; shall we open it?”
I made no answer; but it was opened, and he took out a
sea-green and white velvet carpet, with a scarlet leaf on it,
and a piece of sea-green and white brocade for curtains. Had
she sought the world over, she could have found nothing to
suit me so well.
“She thought that Verry might have a fancy for some of
the old furniture, and that you would accept these in its place.”
“There's nothing here to match this splendor, and I cannot
bear to make a change. Verry must have them, for she took
nothing from me.”
“Just as you please.”
The box went to Verry. My annoyance was, that I longed
to keep the carpet and curtains. I saw them with my mind's
eye for a week, made up, and ornamenting my parlor. I
wished that Verry would insist upon my keeping them!
| CHAPTER XL. The Morgesons | |