 | CHAPTER XXXVIII.
ELLERY DAVENPORT. Oldtown folks |  |
38. CHAPTER XXXVIII.
ELLERY DAVENPORT.
TINA immediately turned and ran into the house, laughing,
and up stairs into her chamber, leaving Esther to go
seriously forward, — Esther always tranquil and always ready.
For myself, I felt such a vindictive hatred at the moment as
really alarmed me. What had this good-natured man done, with
his frank, merry face and his easy, high-bred air, that I should
hate him so? What sort of Christian was I, to feel in this
way? Certainly it was a temptation of the Devil, and I would
put it down, and act like a reasonable being. So I went forward
with Harry, and he shook hands with us.
“Hulloa, fellows!” he said, “you 've made the great leap
since I saw you, and changed from boys into men.”
“Good evening, Miss Avery,” he said, as we presented him to
her. “May I trench on your hospitality a little? I am a traveller
in these arctice regions, and Miss Mehitable charged me to
call and see after the health and happiness of our young friends
here. I see,” he said, looking at us, “that there need be no
inquiries after health; your looks speak for themselves.”
“Why, Percival!” he said, turning to Harry, “what a pair
of shoulders you are getting! Genuine Saxon blood runs in
your veins plainly enough, and one of these days, when you get
to be Sir Harry Percival, you 'll do honor to the name.”
The proud, reserved blood flushed into Harry's face, and his
blue eyes, usually so bright and clear, sparkled with displeasure.
I was pleased to see that Ellery Davenport had made him angry.
Yes, I said to myself, “What want of tact for him to dare to touch
on a subject that Harry's most intimate friends never speak of!”
Esther looked fixedly at him with those clear, piercing hazel
eyes, as if she were mentally studying him. I hoped she would
not like him; yet why should I hope so?
He saw in a moment that he had made a mistake, and glided
off quickly to another subject.
“Where 's my fair little enemy, Miss Tina?” he said.
His “fair little enemy” was at this moment attentively studying
him through a crack in the window-curtain. Shall I say, too,
that the first thing she did, on rushing up to her room, was to
look at her hair, and study herself in the glass, wondering how
she would look to him now. Well, she had not seen herself for
some hours, and self-knowledge is a virtue, we all know. And
then our scamper over the wood-pile, in the fresh, evening air,
must have deranged something, for Tina had one of those rebellious
heads of curls that every breeze takes liberties with, and
that have to be looked after and watched and restrained. Esther's
satin bands of hair could pass through a whirlwind, and
not lose their gloss. It is curious how character runs even to the
minutest thing, — the very hairs of our heads are numbered by
it, — Esther, always in everything self-poised, thoughtful, reflective;
Tina, the child of every wandering influence, tremulously
alive to every new excitement, a wind-harp for every air of
heaven to breathe upon.
It would be hard to say what mysterious impulse for good or
ill made her turn and run when she saw Ellery Davenport.
That turning and running in girls means something; it means
that the electric chain has been struck in some way; but how?
Mr. Davenport came into the house, and was received with
frank cordiality by Mr. Avery. He was a grandson of Jonathan
Edwards, and the good man regarded him as, in some sort, a son
of the Church, and had, no doubt, instantaneous promptings for
his conversion. Mr. Avery, though he believed stringently in
the doctrine of total depravity, was very innocent in his application
of it to individuals. That Ellery Davenport was a sceptic
was well known in New England, wherever the reputation of his
brilliant talents and person had circulated, and Mr. Avery had
often longed for an opportunity to convert him. The drear, good
man had no possible idea that anybody could go wrong from any
thing but mistaken views, and he was sure, in the case of Ellery
Davenport, that his mind must have been perplexed about free
which had sent him to his abode. He plunged into an
immediate conversation with him about the state of France,
whence he had just returned.
Esther, meanwhile, went up stairs to notify Tina of his arrival.
“Mr. Ellery Davenport is below, and has inquired for you.”
Nobody could be more profoundly indifferent to any piece of
news.
“Was that Mr. Ellery Davenport? How stupid of him to
come here when we are all so tired! I don't think I can go
down; I am too tired.”
Esther, straightforward Esther, took the thing as stated. Tina,
to be sure, had exhibited no symptoms of fatigue up to that moment;
but Esther now saw that she had been allowing her to
over-exert herself.
“My darling,” she said, “I have been letting you do too much
altogether. You are quite right; you should lie down here quietly,
and I 'll bring you up your tea. Perhaps by and by, in the evening,
you might come down and see Mr. Davenport, when you are
rested.”
“O nonsense about Mr. Davenport! he does n't come to see
me. He wants to talk with your father, I suppose.”
“But he has inquired for you two or three times,” said Esther,
“and he really seems to be a very entertaining, well-informed
man; so by and by, if you feel rested, I should think
you had better come down.”
Now I, for my part, wondered then and wonder now, and always
shall, what all this was for. Tina certainly was not a
coquette; she had not learned the art of trading in herself,
and using her powers and fascinations as women do who have
been in the world, and learnt the precise value of everything that
they say and do. She was, at least now, a simple child of nature,
yet she acted exactly as an artful conquette might have done.
Ellery Davenport constantly glanced at the door as he talked
with Mr. Avery, and shifted uneasily on his chair; evidently he
expected her to enter, and when Esther returned without her he
fool as I was. It would have been a thousand times better for
my hopes had she walked straight out to meet him, cool and
friendly, like Esther. There was one comfort; he was a married
man; but then that crazy wife of his might die, or might be dead
now. Who knew? To be sure, Ellery Davenport never had the
air of a married man, — that steady, collected, sensible, restrained
air which belongs to the male individual, conscious, wherever he
moves, of a home tribunal, to which he is reponsible. He had
gone loose in society, pitied and petted and caressed by ladies,
and everybody said, if his wife should die, Ellery Davenport
might marry whom he pleased. Esther knew nothing about
him, except a faint general outline of his history. She had no
prepossessions for or against, and he laid himself out to please
her in conversation, with that easy grace and quick perception of
character which were habitual with him. Ellery Davenport had
been a thriving young Jacobin, and Mr. Avery and Mr. Rossiter
were fierce Federalists.
Mr. Rossiter came in to tea, and both of them bore down exultingly
on Ellery Davenport in regard to the disturbances in
France.
“Just what I always said!” said Mr. Rossiter. “French
democracy is straight from the Devil. It 's the child of misrule,
and leads to anarchy. See what their revolution is coming to.
Well, I may not be orthodox entirely on the question of total
depravity, but I always admitted the total depravity of the whole
French nation.”
“O, the French are men of like passions with us!” said
Ellery Davenport. “They have been ground down and debased
and imbruted till human nature can bear no longer, and now
there is a sudden outbreak of the lower classes, — the turning of
the worm.”
“Not a worm,” said Mr. Rossiter, “a serpent, and a strong one.”
“Davenport,” said Mr. Avery, “don't you see that all this is
because this revolution is in the hands of atheists?”
“Certainly I do, sir. These fellows have destroyed the faith
of the common people, and given them nothing in its place.”
“I am glad to see you recognize that,” said Mr. Avery.
“Recognize, my dear sir! Nobody knows the worth of religion
as a political force better than I do. Those French
people are just like children, — full of sentiment, full of feeling,
full of fire, but without the cold, judging, logical power that is
frozen into men here by your New England theology. If I
have got to manage a republic, give me Calvinists.”
“You admit, then,” said Mr. Avery, delightedly, “the worth
of Calvinism.”
“As a political agent, certainly I do,” said Ellery Davenport.
“Men must have strong, positive religious beliefs to give them
vigorous self-government; and republics are founded on the self-governing
power of the individual.”
“Davenport,” said Mr. Avery, affectionately laying his hand
on his shoulder, “I should like to have said that thing myself,
I could n't have put it better.”
“But do you suppose,” said Esther, trembling with eagerness,
“that they will behead the Queen?”
“Certainly I do,” said Ellery Davenport, with that air of
cheerful composure with which the retailer of the last horror
delights to shock a listener. “O certainly! I would n't give a
pin for her chance. You read the account of the trial, I suppose;
you saw that it was a foregone conclusion?”
“I did, indeed,” said Esther. “But, O Mr. Davenport!
can nothing be done? There is Lafayette; can he do nothing?”
“Lafayette may think himself happy if he keeps his own
head on his shoulders,” said Davenport. “The fact is, that there
is a wild beast in every human being. In our race it is the
lion. In the French race it is the tiger, — hotter, more tropical,
more blindly intense in rage and wrath. Religion, government,
education, are principally useful in keeping the human dominant
over the beast; but when the beast gets above the human in the
community, woe be to it.”
“Davenport, you talk like an apostle,” said Mr. Avery.
“You know the devils believe and tremble,” said Ellery.
“Well, I take it,” said Mr. Rossiter, “you 've come home
from France disposed to be a good Federalist.”
“Yes, I have,” said Ellery Davenport. “We must all live
and learn, you know.”
And so in one evening Ellery witched himself into the good
graces of every one in the simple parsonage; and when Tina
at last appeared she found him reigning king of the circle.
Mr. Rossiter, having drawn from him the avowal that he was
a Federalist, now looked complacently upon him as a hopeful
young neophyte. Mr. Avery saw evident marks of grace in
his declarations in favor of Calvinism, while yet there was a
spicy flavor of the prodigal son about him, — enough to engage
him for his conversion. Your wild, wicked, witty prodigal
son is to a spiritual huntsman an attractive mark, like
some rare kind of eagle, whose ways must be studied, and
whose nest must be marked, and in whose free, savage gambols
in the blue air and on the mountain-tops he has a kind of
hidden sympathy.
When Tina entered, it was with an air unusually shy and
quiet. She took all his compliments on her growth and change
of appearance with a negligent, matter-of-course air, seated herself
in the most distant part of the room, and remained obstinately
still and silent. Nevertheless, it was to be observed that she
lost not a word that he said, or a motion that he made. Was
she in that stage of attraction which begins with repulsion? or
did she feel stirring within her that intense antagonism which
woman sometimes feels toward man, when she instinctively
divines that he may be the one who shall one day send a herald
and call on her to surrender. Women are so intense, they have
such prophetic, fore-reaching, nervous systems, that sometimes
they appear to be endowed with a gift of prophecy. Tina certainly
was an innocent child at this time, uncalculating, and
acting by instinct alone, and she looked upon Ellery Davenport
as a married man, who was and ought to be and would be nothing
to her; and yet, for the life of her, she could not treat him as
she treated other men.
If there was in him something which powerfully attracted,
there was also something of the reverse pole of the magnet,
that repelled, and inspired a feeling not amounting to fear, but
about him gave mysterious warning. There was a sense of
such hidden, subtile power under his suavities, the grasp of the
iron hand was so plain through the velvet glove, that delicate
and impressible natures felt it. Ellery Davenport was prompt
and energetic and heroic; he had a great deal of impulsive good-nature,
as his history in all our affairs shows. He was always
willing to reach out the helping hand, and helped to some purpose
when he did so; and yet I felt, rather than could prove,
in his presence, that he could be very remorseless and persistently
cruel.
Ellery Davenport inherited the whole Edwards nature, without
its religious discipline, — a nature strong both in intellect
and passion. He was an unbelieving Jonathan Edwards. It
was this whole nature that I felt in him, and I looked upon
the gradual interest which I saw growing in Tina toward him,
in the turning of her thoughts on him, in her flights from him
and attractions to him, as one looks on the struggles of a fascinated
bird, who flees and returns, and flees and returns, each
time drawn nearer and nearer to the diamond eyes.
These impressions which come to certain kinds of natures are
so dim and cloudy, it is so much the habit of the counter-current
of life to disregard them, and to feel that an impression of which
you have no physical, external proof is of necessity an absurdity
and a weakness, that they are seldom acted on, — seldom, at
least, in New England, where the habit of logic is so formed
from childhood in the mind, and the believing of nothing which
you cannot prove is so constant a portion of the life education.
Yet with regard to myself, as I have stated before, there was
always a sphere of impression surrounding individuals, for which
often I could give no reasonable account. It was as if there
had been an emanation from the mind, like that from the body.
From some it was an emanation of moral health and purity and
soundness; from others, the sickly effluvium of moral decay,
sometimes penetrating through all sorts of outward graces and
accomplishments, like the smell of death through the tube-roses
and lilies on the coffin.
I could not prove that Ellery Davenport was a wicked man;
but I had an instinctive abhorrence of him, for which I reproached
myself constantly, deeming it only the madness of an
unreasonable jealousy.
His stay with us at this time was only for a few hours. The
next morning he took Harry alone and communicated to him
some intelligence quite important to his future.
“I have been to visit your father,” he said, “and have made
him aware what treasures he possesses in his children.”
“His children have no desire that he should be made aware
of it,” said Harry, coldly. “He has broken all ties between
them and him.”
“Well, well!” said Ellery Davenport, “the fact is Sir Harry
has gone into the virtuous stage of an Englishman's life, where a
man is busy taking care of his gouty feet, looking after his tenants,
and repenting at his leisure of the sins of his youth. But
you will find, when you come to enter college next year, that
there will be a handsome allowance at your disposal; and, between
you and me, I 'll just say to you that young Sir Harry is
about as puny and feeble a little bit of mortality as I ever saw.
To my thinking, they 'll never raise him; and his life is all that
stands between you and the estate. You know that I got your
mother's marriage certificate, and it is safe in Parson Lothrop's
hands. So you see there may be a brilliant future before you
and your sister. It is well enough for you to know it early, and
keep yourself and her free from entanglements. School friendships
and flirtations and all that sort of thing are pretty little
spring flowers, — very charming in their way and time; but it
is n't advisable to let them lead us into compromising ourselves
for life. If your future home is to be England, of course you
will want your marriage to strengthen your position there.”
“My future home will never be England,” said Harry, briefly.
“America has nursed me and educated me, and I shall always
be, heart and soul, an American. My life must be acted in this
country.”
The other suggestion contained in Ellery Davenport's advice
was passed over without a word. Harry was not one that
not but feel obliged to Ellery Davenport for the interest that he
had manifested in him, and yet there was something about this
easy, patronizing manner of giving advice that galled him. He
was not yet old enough not to feel vexed at being reminded that
he was young.
It seemed but a few hours, and Ellery Davenport was gone
again; and yet how he had changed everything! The hour that
he drove up, how perfectly innocently happy and united we all
were! Our thoughts needed not to go beyond the present moment:
the moss that we had gathered from the wood-pile, and
the landscapes that we were going to make with it, were greater
treasures than all those of that unknown world of brightness and
cleverness and wealth and station, out of which Ellery Davenport
had shot like a comet, to astonish us, and then go back and
leave us in obscurity.
Harry communicated the intelligence given him by Ellery
Davenport, first to me, then to Tina and Esther and Mr. Avery,
but begged that it might not be spoken of beyond our little circle.
It could and it should make no change, he said. But can expectations
of such magnitude be awakened in young minds
without a change?
On the whole, Ellery Davenport left a trail of brightness be
hind him, notwithstanding my sinister suspicions. “How open-handed
and friendly it was of him,” said Esther, “to come up here,
when he has so much on his hands! He told father that he
should have to be in Washington next week, to talk with them
there about French affairs.”
“And I hope he may do Tom Jefferson some good!” said Mr.
Avery, indignantly, — “teach him what he is doing in encouraging
this hideous, atheistical French revolution! Why, it will
bring discredit on republics, and put back the cause of liberty in
Europe a century! Davenport sees into that as plainly as I do.”
“He 's a shrewd fellow,” said Mr. Rossiter. “I heard him
talk three or four years ago, when he was over here, and he was
about as glib-tongued a Jacobin as you 'd wish to see; but now
my young man has come round handsomely. I told him he
government by the respectable classes of society.”
“Davenport evidently is not a regenerated man,” said Mr.
Avery, thoughtfully; “but as far as speculative knowledge goes,
he is as good a theologian as his grandfather. I had a pretty
thorough talk with him, before we went to bed last night, and he
laid down the distinctions with a clearness and a precision that
were astonishing. He sees right through that point of the difference
between natural and moral inability, and he put it into a
sentence that was as neat and compact and clear as a quartz
crystal. I think there was a little rub in his mind on the consistency
of the freedom of the will with the divine decrees, and I
just touched him off with an illustration or two there, and I
could see, by the flash of his eye, how quickly he took it. `Davenport,'
said I to him, `you are made for the pulpit; you ought
to be in it.'
“`I know it,' he said, `Mr. Avery; but the trouble is, I am
not good enough. I think,' he said, `sometimes I should like to
have been as good a man as my grandfather; but then, you see,
there 's the world, the flesh, and the Devil, who all have something
to say to that.'
“`Well,' says I, `Davenport, the world and the flesh last only
a little while —'
“`But the Devil and I last forever, I suppose you mean to
say,' said he, getting up with a sort of careless swing; and then
he said he must go to bed; but before he went he reached out
his hand and smiled on me, and said, `Good night, and thank you,
Mr. Avery.' That man has a beautiful smile. It 's like a spirit
in his face.”
Had Ellery Davenport been acting the hypocrite with Mr.
Avery? Supposing a man is made like an organ, with two or
three banks of keys, and ever so many stops, so that he can play
all sorts of tunes on himself; is it being a hypocrite with each
person to play precisely the tune, and draw out exactly the
stop, which he knows will make himself agreeable and further
his purposes? Ellery Davenport did understand the New England
theology as thoroughly as Mr. Avery. He knew it from
and revealed religion, and, when he chose to do so, could make
most conclusive arguments upon them. He had a perfect appreciation
of devotional religion, and knew precisely what it
would do for individuals. He saw into politics with unerring
precision, and knew what was in men, and whither things were
tending. His unbelief was purely and simply what has been
called in New England the natural opposition of the heart to
God. He loved his own will, and he hated control, and he determined,
per fas aut nefas, to carry his own plans in this world,
and attend to the other when he got into it. To have his own
way, and to carry his own points, and to do as he pleased, were
the ruling purposes of his life.
| CHAPTER XXXVIII.
ELLERY DAVENPORT. Oldtown folks | |