 | CHAPTER XLIV.
MARRIAGE PREPARATIONS. Oldtown folks |  |
44. CHAPTER XLIV.
MARRIAGE PREPARATIONS.
AND now for a time there was nothing thought of or talked
of but marriage preparations and arrangements. Letters
of congratulation came pouring in to Miss Mehitable from her
Boston friends and acquaintances.
When Harry and I returned to college, we spent one day with
our friends the Kitterys, and found it the one engrossing subject
there, as everywhere.
Dear old Madam Kittery was dissolved in tenderness, and
whenever the subject was mentioned reiterated all her good
opinions of Ellery, and her delight in the engagement, and her
sanguine hopes of its good influence on his spiritual prospects.
Miss Debby took the subject up energetically. Ellery Davenport
was a near family connection, and it became the Kitterys to
make all suitable and proper advances. She insisted upon addressing
Harry by his title, notwithstanding his blushes and
disclaimers.
“My dear sir,” she said to him, “it appears that you are an
Englishman and a subject of his Majesty; and I should not be
surprised, at some future day, to hear of you in the House of
Commons; and it becomes you to reflect upon your position,
and what is proper in relation to yourself; and, at least under
this roof, you must allow me to observe these proprieties, however
much they may be disregarded elsewhere. I have already
informed the servants that they are always to address you as
Sir Harry, and I hope that you will not interfere with my instructions.”
“O certainly not,” said Harry. “It will make very little
difference with me.”
“Now, in regard to this marriage,” said Miss Debby, “as there
is no church in Oldtown, and no clergyman, I have felt that it
to place the Kittery mansion at Miss Mehitable Rossiter's disposal,
for the wedding.”
“Well, I confess,” said Harry, blushing, “I never thought but
that the ceremony would be performed at home, by Parson
Lothrop.”
“My dear Sir Harry!” said Miss Debby, laying her hand on
his arm with solemnity, “consider that your excellent parents,
Sir Harry and Lady Percival, were both members of the Established
Church of England, the only true Apostolic Protestant
Church, — and can you imagine that their spirits, looking down
from heaven, would be pleased and satisfied that their daughter
should consummate the most solemn union of her life out of the
Church? and in fact at the hands of a man who has never received
ordination?”
It was with great difficulty that Harry kept his countenance
during this solemn address. His blue eyes actually laughed,
though he exercised a rigid control over the muscles of his face.
“I really had not thought about it at all, Miss Debby,” he
said. “I think you are exceedingly kind.”
“And I 'm sure,” said she, “that you must see the propriety
of it now that it is suggested to you. Of course, a marriage performed
by Mr. Lothrop would be a legal one, so far as the civil
law is concerned; but I confess I always have regarded marriage
as a religious ordinance, and it would be a disagreeable
thing to me to have any connections of mine united merely by a
civil tie. These Congregational marriages,” said Miss Debby,
in a contemptuous voice, “I should think would lead to immorality.
How can people feel as if they were married that don't
utter any vows themselves, and don't have any wedding-ring put
on their finger? In my view, it 's not respectable; and, as Mrs.
Ellery Davenport will probably be presented in the first circles
of England, I desire that she should appear there with her wedding-ring
on, like an honest woman. I have therefore despatched
an invitation to Miss Mehitable to bring your sister and spend
the month preceding the wedding with us in Boston. It will be
desirable for other reasons, as all the shopping and dressmaking
highly respectable little village, but, of course, affords no advantages
for the outfit of a person of quality, such as your sister is
and is to be. I have had a letter from Lady Widgery this morning.
She is much delighted, and sends congratulations. She
always, she said, believed that you had distinguished blood in
your veins when she first saw you at our house.”
There was something in Miss Debby's satisfied, confiding faith
in everything English and aristocratic that was vastly amusing
to us. The perfect confidence she seemed to have that Sir
Harry Percival, after all the sins of his youth, had entered
heaven ex officio as a repentant and glorified baronet, a member
of the only True Church, was really naïve and affecting. What
would a church be good for that allowed people of quality to go
to hell, like the commonalty? Sir Harry, of course, repented,
and made his will in a proper manner, doubtless received the
sacrament and absolution, and left all human infirmities, with his
gouty toes, under the family monument, where his body reposed
in sure and certain hope of a blessed and glorious resurrection.
The finding of his children under such fortunate circumstances
was another evidence of the good Providence who watches over
the fortunes of the better classes, and does not suffer the steps
of good Churchmen to slide beyond recovery.
There were so many reasons of convenience for accepting
Madam Kittery's hospitable invitation, it was urged with such
warmth and affectionate zeal by Madam Kittery and Miss Debby,
and seconded so energetically by Ellery Davenport, to whom
this arrangement would secure easy access to Tina's society during
the intervening time, that it was accepted.
Harry and I were glad of it, as we should thus have more
frequent opportunities of seeing her. Ellery Davenport was refurbishing
and refurnishing the old country house, where Harry
and Tina had spent those days of their childhood which it was
now an amusement to recall, and Tina was as gladly, joyously
beautiful as young womanhood can be in which, as in a transparent
vase, the light of pure love and young hope has been
lighted.
“You like him, Horace, don't you?” she had said to me, coaxingly,
the first opportunity after the evening we had spent together.
What was I to do? I did not like him, that was certain; but
have you never, dear reader, been over-persuaded to think and
say you liked where you did not? Have you not scolded and
hushed down your own instinctive distrusts and heart-risings,
blamed and schooled yourself for them, and taken yourself sharply
to task, and made yourself acquiesce in somebody that was dear
and necessary to some friend? So did I. I called myself selfish,
unreasonable, foolish. I determined to be generous to my
successful rival, and to like him. I took his frankly offered
friendship, and I forced myself to be even enthusiastic in his
praise. It was a sure way of making Tina's cheeks glow and her
eyes look kindly on me, and she told me so often that there was
no person in the world whose good opinion she had such a value
for, and she was so glad I liked him. Would it not be perfectly
abominable after this to let sneaking suspicions harbor in my
breast?
Besides, if a man cannot have love, shall he therefore throw
away friendship? and may I not love with the love of chivalry, —
the love that knights dedicated to queens and princesses, the love
that Tasso gave to Leonora D'Este, the love that Dante gave to
Beatrice, love that hopes little and asks nothing?
I was frequently in at the Kittery house in leisure hours, and
when, as often happened, Tina was closeted with Ellery Davenport,
I took sweet counsel with Miss Mehitable.
“We all stand outside now, Horace,” she said. “I remember
when I had the hearing of all these thousand pretty little important
secrets of the hour that now must all be told in another
direction. Such is life. What we want always comes to us with
some pain. I wanted Tina to be well married. I would not for
the world she should marry without just this sort of love; but of
course it leaves me out in the cold. I would n't say this to her
for the world, — poor little thing, it would break her heart.”
One morning, however, I went down and found Miss Mehitable
in a very excited state. She complained of a bad headache, but
she had all the appearance of a person who is constantly struggling
uttering.
At last, just as I was going, she called me into the library.
“Come here, Horace,” she said; “I want to speak to you.”
I went in, and she made a turn or two across the room in an
agitated way, then sat down at a table, and motioned me to sit
down. “Horace, my dear boy,” she said, “I have never spoken
to you of the deepest sorrow of my life, and yet it often seems to
me as if you knew it.”
“My dear Aunty,” said I, for we had from childhood called her
thus, “I think I do know it, — somewhat vaguely. I know about
your sister.”
“You know how strangely, how unaccountably she left us, and
that nothing satisfactory has ever been heard from her. I told
Mr. Davenport all about her, and he promised to try to learn
something of her in Europe. He was so successful in relation to
Tina and Harry, I hoped he might learn something as to her;
but he never seemed to. Two or three times within the last
four or five years I have received letters from her, but without
date, or any mark by which her position could be identified.
They told me, in the vaguest and most general way, that
she was well, and still loved me, but begged me to make no
inquiries. They were always postmarked at Havre; but the
utmost research gives no clew to her residence there.”
“Well?” said I.
“Well,” said Miss Mehitable, trembling in every limb, “yesterday,
when Mr. Davenport and Tina had been sitting together
in this room for a long time, they went out to ride. They had
been playing at verse-making, or something of the kind, and there
were some scattered papers on the floor, and I thought I would
remove them, as they were rather untidy, and among them I
found — ” she stopped, and panted for breath — “I found THIS!”
She handed me an envelope that had evidently been around a
package of papers. It was postmarked Geneva, Switzerland,
and directed to Ellery Davenport.
“Horace,” said Miss Mehitable, “that is Emily Rossiter's
handwriting; and look, the date is only two months back!
What shall we do?”
There are moments when whole trains of thought go through
the brain like lightning. My first emotion was, I confess, a perfectly
fierce feeling of joy. Here was a clew! My suspicions
had not then been unjust; the man was what Miss Debby had
said, — deep, artful, and to be unmasked. In a moment I sternly
rebuked myself, and thought what a wretch I was for my suspicions.
The very selfish stake that I held in any such discovery
imposed upon me, in my view, a double obligation to defend the
character of my rival. I so dreaded that I should be carried
away that I pleaded strongly and resolutely with myself for him.
Besides, what would Tina think of me if I impugned Ellery
Davenport's honor for what might be, after all, an accidental
resemblance in handwriting.
All these things came in one blinding flash of thought as I
held the paper in my hands. Miss Mehitable sat, white and
trembling, looking at me piteously.
“My dear Aunty,” I said, “in a case like this we cannot take
one single step without being perfectly sure. This handwriting
may accidentally resemble your sister's. Are you perfectly sure
that it is hers? It is a very small scrap of paper to determine by.”
“Well, I can't really say,” said Miss Mehitable, hesitating.
“It may be that I have dwelt on this subject until I have grown
nervous and my very senses deceive me. I really cannot say,
Horace; that was the reason I came to you to ask what I should
do.”
“Let us look the matter over calmly, Aunty.”
“Now,” she said, nervously drawing from her pocket two or
three letters and opening them before me, “here are those letters,
and your head is cool and steady. I wish you would
compare the writing, and tell me what to think of it.”
Now the letters and the directions were in that sharp, decided
English hand which so many well-educated women write, and in
which personal peculiarities are lost, to a great degree, in a general
style. I could not help seeing that there was a resemblance
which might strike a person, — especially a person so deeply
interested, and dwelling with such intentness upon a subject,
as Miss Mehitable evidently was.
“My dear Aunty,” said I, “I see a resemblance; but have you
not known a great many ladies who wrote hands like this?”
“Yes, I must say I have,” said Miss Mehitable, still hesitating,
— “only, somehow, this impressed me very strongly.”
“Well,” said I, “supposing that your sister has written to
Ellery Davenport, may she not have intrusted him with communications
under his promise of secrecy, which he was bound
in honor not to reveal?”
“That may be possible,” said Miss Mehitable, sighing deeply;
“but O, why should she not make a confidante of me?”
“It may be, Aunty,” said I, hesitatingly, “that she is living in
relations that she feels could not be justified to you.”
“O Horace!” said Miss Mehitable.
“You know,” I went on, “that there has been a very great
shaking of old established opinions in Europe. A great many
things are looked upon there as open questions, in regard to morality,
which we here in New England never think of discussing.
Ellery Davenport is a man of the European world, and I can
easily see that there may be circumstances in which your sister
would more readily resort to the friendship of such a man than
to yours.”
“May God help me!” said Miss Mehitable.
“My dear Aunty, suppose you find that your sister has adopted
a false theory of life, sincerely and conscientiously, and under the
influence of it gone astray from what we in New England think
to be right. Should we not make a discrimination between errors
that come from a wrong belief and the mere weakness that
blindly yields to passion? Your sister's letters show great decision
and strength of mind. It appears to me that she is exactly
the woman to be misled by those dazzling, unsettling theories
with regard to social life which now bear such sway, and are
especially propagated by French literature. She may really
and courageously deem herself doing right in a course that she
knows she cannot defend to you and Mr. Rossiter.”
“Horace, you speak out and make plain what has been the
secret and dreadful fear of my life. I never have believed
that Emily could have gone from us all, and stayed away so
have been talking I have become perfectly certain that it is so;
but the thought is like death to me.”
“My dear Aunty,” I said, “our Father above, who sees all the
history of our minds, and how they work, must have a toleration
and a patience that we have not with each other. He says that
he will bring the blind by a way they knew not, and `make
darkness light before them, and crooked things straight'; and
he adds, `These things will I do unto them, and will not forsake
them.' That has always seemed to me the most godlike passage
in the Bible.”
Miss Mehitable sat for a long time, leaning her head upon her
hand.
“Then, Horace, you would n't advise me,” she said, after a
pause, “to say anything to Ellery Davenport about it?”
“Supposing,” said I, “that there are communications that he
is bound in honor not to reveal, of what use could be your
inquiries? It can only create unpleasantness; it may make
Tina feel unhappy, who is so very happy now, and probably, at
best, you cannot learn anything that would satisfy you.”
“Probably not,” said she, sighing.
“I can hand this envelope to him,” I said after a moment's
thought, “this evening, if you think best, and you can see how
he looks on receiving it.”
“I don't know as it will be of any use,” said Miss Mehitable,
“but you may do it.”
Accordingly, that evening, as we were all gathered in a circle
around the open fire, and Tina and Ellery, seated side by side,
were carrying on that sort of bantering warfare of wit in which
they delighted, I drew this envelope from my pocket and said,
carelessly, “Mr. Davenport, here is a letter of yours that you
dropped in the library this morning.”
He was at that moment playing with a silk tassel which fluttered
from Tina's wrist. He let it go, and took the envelope and
looked at it carelessly.
“A letter!” said Tina, snatching it out of his hand with saucy
freedom, — “dated at Geneva, and a lady's handwriting! I
think I have a right to open it!”
“Do so by all means,” said Ellery.
“O pshaw! there 's nothing in it,” said Tina.
“Not an uncommon circumstance in a lady's letter,” said
Ellery.
“You saucy fellow!” said Tina.
“Why,” said Ellery, “is it not the very province and privilege
of the fair sex to make nothing more valuable and more agreeable
than something? that 's the true secret of witchcraft.”
“But I sha' n't like it,” said Tina, half pouting, “if you call
my letters nothing.”
“Your letters, I doubt not, will be an exception to those of
all the sex,” said Ellery. “I really tremble, when I think how
profound they will be!”
“You are making fun of me!” said she, coloring.
“I making fun of you? And what have you been doing with
all your hapless lovers up to this time? Behold Nemesis arrayed
in my form.”
“But seriously, Ellery, I want to know whom this letter was
from?”
“Why don't you look at the signature?” said he.
“Well, of course you know there is no signature, but I mean
what came in this paper?”
“What came in the paper,” said Ellery, carelessly, “was
a neat little collection of Alpine flowers, that, if you are interested
in botany, I shall have the honor of showing you one of these
days.”
“But you have n't told me who sent them,” said Tina.
“Ah, ha! we are jealous!” said he, shaking the letter at her.
“What would you give to know, now? Will you be very good
if I will tell you? Will you promise me for the future not to
order me to do more than forty things at one time, for example?”
“I sha' n't make any promises,” said Tina; “you ought to tell
me!”
“What an oppressive mistress you are!” said Ellery Davenport.
“I begin to sympathize with Sam Lawson, — lordy
massy, you dunno nothin' what I undergo!”
“You don't get off that way,” said Tina.
“Well,” said Ellery Davenport, “if you must know, it 's Mrs.
Breck.”
“And who is she?” said Tina.
“Well, my dear, she was my boarding-house keeper at Geneva,
and a very pretty, nice Englishwoman, — one that I should
recommend as an example to her sex.”
“Oh!” said Tina, “I don't care anything about it now.”
“Of course,” said Ellery. “Modest, unpretending virtue
never excites any interest. I have labored under that disadvantage
all my days.”
The by-play between the two had brought the whole circle
around the fire into a careless, laughing state. I looked across
to Miss Mehitable; she was laughing with the rest. As we
started to go out, Miss Mehitable followed me into the passage-way.
“My dear Horace,” she said, “I was very absurd; it comes
of being nervous and thinking of one thing too much.”
| CHAPTER XLIV.
MARRIAGE PREPARATIONS. Oldtown folks | |