 | CHAPTER VI. Dukesborough tales |  |
6. CHAPTER VI.
So now here was Mrs. Malviny a widow for the second time. The
late Mr. Hodge was mourned becomingly by all the household.
Even Mr. Lively was seen to brush away a tear or two at the funeral;
but Mrs. Hodge and Susan did the most of the actual crying, and
they cried heartily. Both felt that Mr. Hodge's continued absence
from that house was obliged to make a difference.
The question now was what must be done. Mr. Lively seemed to
think that Mr. Hodge must have left a will, so he and Mrs. Hodge
in a day or two went together and looked carefully over the papers;
and although Mr. Lively followed Mr. Hodge's last confused directions,
nothing could be found. Mrs. Hodge had nothing to do but to heir
the property; and as there were no debts, it was considered not
worth while to take out letters of administration. Seeing that she
was obliged to take the responsibility of all this business, she submitted,
and was very meek, remarking that now she was nothing but a lone
woman in the world, property was no great things in her mind. But
she thought she could be kind to Susan Temple. Of course Susan
was nothing to her, and it was an expense to feed her and put clothes
on her back; still she might stay there on the same terms as before.
People should never say that she had the heart to turn off a poor
orphan on the cold charities of the world. Susan was very thankful,
perfectly overcome with gratitude indeed, and continued to do everything;
and, like Alexander the Great, would almost weep that there
was nothing more to do. As for Mr. Lively, he somehow had got
used to the place and didn't feel like going away at his time of life
to seek a new home. Mrs. Hodge also disliked the idea of turning
with all the business upon her hands, it did look like that one who
was nobody but a poor lone woman in the world should have some
friend near enough to go to sometimes for advice, instead of being
everlastingly running to a lawyer and they a charging all that a poor
lone woman could make. Mr. Lively seemed gratified, and thus
matters settled down; but all seemed to miss poor Mr. Hodge.
And now many years had elapsed since Mrs. Hodge had been a
widow before. She reflected upon it. Yet she was thankful that she
could bear up under this repeated infliction as well as she did, and
that she was as strong and active as any person who was a mere lone
woman in the world could be expected to be. The amount of business
now upon her hands would require as much strength and activity as
could be commanded. Her looking-glass had somehow got broken
some time since, all but one little piece in the corner of the frame.
Mrs. Hodge gave what was left to Susan, remarking that as for herself
she had very little use for such things. Some time afterwards,
however, she reflected that even the lonely and desolate should go
neatly, and that it always did require more pains to dress in black.
Even Susan admitted this to be true, and she fully justified her Aunt
Malviny in the purchase of a new dress.
Weeks passed, and then some months. Mrs. Hodge's strength
and activity grew so that she began to feel as if they might be as
good as ever. Mr. Bill Williams and others, including Mr. Lively, had
heard her say that, although she knew it must be so, yet she did not
feel any older than she did when she married Mr. Hodge. It was
perfectly plain to see that Mrs. Hodge was not willing to be considered
one day older than she really was, notwithstanding what
she had been through; and that if she had to grow old she intended
to do so by degrees. Mrs. Hodge's face certainly did look somewhat
thinner than it did in those former years; but it began to participate
in the general recovery, and to have a peachiness which occasionally
extended over the whole jaw. Remarks had been made about that
peachiness, the various directions it took, and the varying amount of
surface it overspread at different times. She heard of some of these
remarks once; they made her very mad, and she said that the color
of her cheeks was nobody else's business.
The rest of Mrs. Hodge was entirely satisfactory. She had always
been a very good figure of a woman, and even now, from her neck
was in her walk! In this respect she could not be beat. I do think
that when she was walking rapidly, her usual gait, and had to pass
any unpleasant obstruction, she would lift her skirts as adroitly as any
lady I ever knew. And then she rode a horse remarkably well, for
now she had laid aside the old side-saddle and took the one with the
heart in the seat. The new one would not sell at the price demanded,
and the old one was not comfortable.
This restoration of her youth seemed to do away with the melancholy
in which her married life had been too prone to indulge. She even
became somewhat gay. I do not mean wild; there was not a
particle of what might be called wildness about her. But apparently
she had made up her mind not to yield herself up to useless regrets
for what could not be helped, to do the best she could as long as she
was in the world, and to stay in it as long as she could. When
persons come to these conclusions they can afford to be cheerful,
and sometimes even a little gay. Mrs. Hodge had lost one husband.
Many a woman does the same and then gives up; and although some
of them reconsider and take back, yet others give up for good. Mrs.
Hodge had put herself right on this point in the beginning. She
refused to give up at Mr. Simmons's departure; and then, when
another man who was at least as good, and even better, presented
himself, she had nothing to take back, and we saw how it all ended.
People said, as they always do, that it was heartless; but this gave
her no concern. And if it had, there was Mr. Hodge to help her
bear it. This experience seemed to be of value to her in this second
bereavement. The course she had pursued in that first extremity
was so judicious and turned out so well that the fact is, Mrs. Hodge
began to ask herself what she might do provided another person of
the opposite sex should make a remark similar to that which Mr.
Hodge had made, and which had so momentous consequences.
But now, here was the difference. Men are more slow to make
remarks of that sort to ladies of forty or thereabouts who have
already had two husbands, than to those of five-and-twenty who have
had but one. Mrs. Hodge noticed this, and it made the peachiness
of her cheeks increase at times to such a degree that it extended up
to her very eyes. Yet the more she thought upon the probability that
another person might succeed to the position which Mr. Simmons
first and Mr. Hodge afterwards had vacated, the more she believed
to all parties. She thought to herself that she had experience, and
with sensible persons that was worth at least as much as youth.
I have often heard it remarked, and indeed my own observation,
I rather think, affirms, that when a lady who has been married,
especially one who has been married more than once, is making up
her mind to do so again, she makes it up with some rapidity. We
remember of Queen Dido, who was a very respectable widow for her
day and generation. By-the-bye, she was one who gave up when her
first husband died. Yet, after listening to another man talk nearly
all night long, mainly about himself, she began to make up her mind
on the very next day; and about nine o'clock, or at any rate soon
after breakfast on the day after, she was married — or what she called
married. He did not, it seemed; and acted very badly, I always
thought, for in no long time after he ran away and left her, and
then she did give up for good.
But to return to Mrs. Hodge. Knowing that she did not have as
much time as before she began to cast about, and her ears were
opened to pertinent remarks which any single gentleman might be
disposed to make. But both widowers and bachelors were scarce;
and what few there were either were young or had their thoughts
upon younger ladies, or possibly did not understand the nature of
Mrs. Hodge's feelings.
At first she had not thought much about Mr. Jonas Lively. True,
he stayed there and looked somewhat after out-door business, and
even advised occasionally about the store. For Mrs. Hodge still
thought it best to keep up the store, though upon a scale somewhat
more limited than before; and in the multitude of the business matters
now devolved upon her, she could not give her undivided attention as
before to this single one. Susan Temple, therefore, who had been
anxious, as we have seen, to find additional work, looked after the store,
and Mr. Lively gave a helping hand sometimes. Useful as Mr.
Lively was, he had not been thought of at first except as a mere
boarder and friend of the family. Besides his general want of
attractiveness, Mrs. Hodge knew too much about him. I am satisfied
that a too long and intimate acquaintance between two persons of
opposite sexes is not favorable to marriage connections. You seldom
know a girl to marry her next door neighbor's son. A notable
instance, I admit, was that of Pyramus and Thisbe. They did make
but for a very hasty and fatally erroneous conclusion of the gentleman
touching a matter of fact. But even taking this to be a true history
and not a mere fable, I have been inclined frequently, while contemplating
this peculiar case, to maintain that the strong attachment of
these young persons to each other, residing as they did in contiguous
houses, was owing mainly to the fact that their respective families so
assiduously kept them apart, and thus they were able to court each
other only through a comparatively small hole in the dividing wall.
But such cases are very uncommon, even in extraordinary circumstances.
My opinion is that, as a general thing, persons who desire
to marry well, and have no great things to go upon (if I may be
allowed to use such an expression), do best by striking out at some
distance from home.
But I must positively try to stick closer to Mr. Lively and Mrs.
Hodge. I hope I shall be pardoned for these digressions. The fact
is, that a man of my time of life has seen so much of the world, to say
nothing of what he has read in books, if like myself he have been a
reading man, that he has picked up some useful experience and observation
which it may be his duty to communicate even in such narrations as
I am now writing, although the occasions for such communication may
sometimes appear to be inopportune. We do not know always what
is best to do in such matters. That is a remark, I am aware, that
might be applied to very many other matters of various sorts. That
man does well who, whether in writing or speaking, succeeds in
avoiding both extremes, the one of having too many words and the
other of having too few. While I have never had any great apprehension
of falling into the latter, I think that I may say that few men
of my age have coasted around the former more assiduously than I
have. And thus I can easily return from this digression to Pyramus
and Thisbe, and the reflections their case induced, to Mr. Jonas Lively
and Mrs. Malviny Hodge.
I repeat that, besides his general want of attractiveness, Mrs. Hodge
knew too much about Mr. Lively to be capable of entertaining a very
hasty and violent thought of raising him to the succession of the
couple of gentlemen who had gone before. For two long years and
more they had lived in the same house, and long before this period
Mrs. Hodge had contended that, with the exception of his hair, she
already knew all about Mr. Lively that was worth knowing. Except
both she and Mr. Lively had failed to find each other out in all this
time. We never knew much of his opinion respecting her, but we
know that hers respecting him fell far short of extreme admiration.
But time was moving on, and in spite of Mrs. Hodge's own youthful
gaiety and activity, she had learned to give up some of that ardent
appreciation which, in her younger days, she had set upon mere
external appearances. It had come to be generally understood that
Mr. Lively had property somewhere or other to the amount of several
thousand dollars. He was neither young nor handsome. But Mrs.
Hodge reasoned with herself. She remembered that she had had
already two young and rather good-looking husbands; and even if she
had been younger herself, she could not be expected to go on at this
rate and marry an unlimited number of such men. So, to be plain
with herself, she thought she ought to be satisfied with what she had
already enjoyed of these blessings; and to be yet plainer, she thought
she might go further and fare worse. It has always been a matter of
remark with me what an amount of prudence some women can exert
under the cover of unlimited frivolity. But I have no idea of pursuing
this thought any further now.
Such was the state of things at the period when I first introduced
Mr. Lively to the reader. Mr. Bill Williams had noticed, as he
thought, that his cousin Malviny was beginning to look up to Mr.
Lively.
Nobody knew Mr. Lively's views, either of Mrs. Hodge or of the
general subject of marriage. He had never been heard to say
whether he would or would not marry in certain or in any contingencies.
But if he intended ever to marry, it was high time he was
thinking about making arrangements. This was all that people
had to say about it. When Mrs. Hodge began to collect her scattered
thoughts, they converged upon him with the strength and
rapidity usual in such cases. She had no doubt that this would be an
easy conquest. Indeed her shrewd mind had guessed that this was
what Mr. Lively had been staying there for all this while. But she
charged him in her mind with being rather slow to take a hint, after
having several times pointedly driven Susan out of the room, and with
her looks invited Mr. Lively to tell what she knew must be on his
mind. Mr. Lively at first seemed slow to notice all this, and he was
equally slow to notice how much the character of the breakfasts had
by his plate every morning. This was for the most part some small
fish, a string of which Mrs. Hodge would frequently purchase from a
negro or poor white boy who had caught them the night before from
the creek. These would usually just be enough for Mr. Lively. Mrs.
Hodge and Susan would never accept of any, and the former thought
that Mr. Lively ought not to have misunderstood the glance and the
smile with which she would decline. Sometimes there would be also
beside his plate a little sprig of something or other, mostly cedar.
But he would forget to take it up and fix it in his button-hole.
Women do not like for such favors and attentions to pass unregarded.
Mrs. Hodge began to be vexed, and speak sharply to Mr. Lively and
Susan alternately about her opinions of both. She would say to Mr.
Lively that in her opinion Susan was the most good-for-nothing hussy
that anybody was ever troubled with; and she told Susan more than
once that Jonas Lively was the blindest old fool that ever lived, and
that he didn't have sense enough to ask for what he wanted, and what
he ought to know he could get for the asking.
Mr. Lively, never or seldom having been the object of any woman's
pursuit, was slow to understand Mrs. Hodge. The truth was he had
become warmly attached to the place, and he was very anxious to stay
there and make it his home. At first he did not clearly see Mrs.
Hodge's plans. But there are some things which even the dullest
understandings may be forced to take in after a while. By degrees he
began to open his eyes, to look around him, and to appear to be
pleased. The single attachment of such a woman as Mrs. Malviny
Hodge ought not to be a thing that could be rudely cast aside by such
a man as Jonas Lively. When, therefore, Mrs. Hodge began to press
matters a little, Mr. Lively showed very plainly that he was not a fool.
And Mrs. Hodge had began to press matters. She had even gone to
expense. She sat down one night and counted up what she had spent
upon him in strings of fish and other luxuries, and found that it
amounted to eight dollars and something. Extravagant as this was,
she determined to go further, especially as her instincts had taught
her that there were some signs of intelligence and reciprocation.
Mr. Lively had lately gone upon his yearly trip to Augusta and had
returned earlier than usual with some improvement in his dress.
This was an excellent sign. Besides, he was growing more communicative
with his hostess, and occasionally had a kind word even for
undivided family, or ought to be and would be.
| CHAPTER VI. Dukesborough tales | |