A day or two after Myrtle Hazard returned to the village, Master Byles
Gridley, accompanied by Gifted Hopkins, followed her, as has been
already mentioned, to the same scene of the principal events of this
narrative. The young man had been persuaded that it would be doing
injustice to his talents to crowd their fruit prematurely upon the
market. He carried his manuscript back with him, having relinquished the
idea of publishing for the present. Master Byles Gridley, on the other
hand, had in his pocket a very flattering proposal, from the same
publisher to whom he had introduced the young poet, for a new and
revised edition of his work, “Thoughts on the Universe,” which was to
be remodelled in some respects, and to have a new title not quite so
formidable to the average reader.
It would be hardly fair to Susan Posey to describe with what delight and
innocent enthusiasm she welcomed back Gifted Hopkins. She had been
so lonely since he was away? She had read such of his poems as she
possessed--duplicates of his printed ones, or autographs which he had
kindly written out for her--over and over again, not without the sweet
tribute of feminine sensibility, which is the most precious of all
testimonials to a poet's power over the heart. True, her love belonged
to another,--but then she was so used to Gifted! She did so love to hear
him read his poems,--and Clement had never written that “little bit of
a poem to Susie,” which she had asked him for so long ago! She received
him therefore with open arms,--not literally, of course, which would
have been a breach of duty and propriety, but in a figurative sense,
which it is hoped no reader will interpret to her discredit.
The young poet was in need of consolation. It is true that he had seen
many remarkable sights during his visit to the city; that he had got
“smarted up,” as his mother called it, a good deal; that he had been to
Mrs. Clymer Ketchum's party, where he had looked upon life in all its
splendors; and that he brought back many interesting experiences, which
would serve to enliven his conversation for a long time. But he had
failed in the great enterprise he had undertaken. He was forced to
confess to his revered parent, and his esteemed friend Susan Posey, that
his genius, which was freely acknowledged, was not thought to be quite
ripe as yet. He told the young lady some particulars of his visit to the
publisher, how he had listened with great interest to one of his
poems, “The Triumph of Song,”--how he had treated him with marked and
flattering attention; but that he advised him not to risk anything
prematurely, giving him the hope that by and by he would be admitted
into that series of illustrious authors which it was the publisher's
privilege to present to the reading public. In short, he was advised not
to print. That was the net total of the matter, and it was a pang to the
susceptible heart of the poet. He had hoped to have come home enriched
by the sale of his copyright, and with the prospect of seeing his name
before long on the back of a handsome volume.
Gifted's mother did all in her power to console him in his
disappointment. There was plenty of jealous people always that wanted
to keep young folks from rising in the world. Never mind, she did n't
believe but what Gifted could make jest as good verses as any of them
that they kept such a talk about. She had a fear that he might pine
away in consequence of the mental excitement he had gone through,
and solicited his appetite with her choicest appliances,--of which he
partook in a measure which showed that there was no immediate cause of
alarm.
But Susan Posey was more than a consoler,--she was an angel to him in
this time of his disappointment. “Read me all the poems over again,”
she said,--“it is almost the only pleasure I have left, to hear you read
your beautiful verses.” Clement Lindsay had not written to Susan quite
so often of late as at some former periods of the history of their love.
Perhaps it was that which had made her look paler than usual for some
little time. Something was evidently preying on her. Her only delight
seemed to be in listening to Gifted as he read, sometimes with fine
declamatory emphasis, sometimes in low, tremulous tones, the various
poems enshrined in his manuscript. At other times she was sad, and more
than once Mrs. Hopkins had seen a tear steal down her innocent cheek,
when there seemed to be no special cause for grief. She ventured to
speak of it to Master Byles Gridley.
“Our Susan's in trouble, Mr. Gridley, for some reason or other that's
unbeknown to me, and I can't help wishing you could jest have a few
words with her. You're a kind of a grandfather, you know, to all
the young folks, and they'd tell you pretty much everything about
themselves. I calc'late she is n't at ease in her mind about somethin'
or other, and I kind o' think, Mr. Gridley, you could coax it out of
her.”
“Was there ever anything like it?” said Master Byles Gridley to himself.
“I shall have all the young folks in Oxbow Village to take care of at
this rate. Susan Posey in trouble, too! Well, well, well, it's easier to
get a birch-bark canoe off the shallows than a big ship off the rocks.
Susan Posey's trouble will be come at easily enough; but Myrtle Hazard
floats in deeper water. We must make Susan Posey tell her own story, or
let her tell it, for it will all come out of itself.”
“I am going to dust the books in the open shelves this morning. I wonder
if Miss Susan Posey would n't like to help for half an hour or so,”
Master Gridley remarked at the breakfast-table.
The amiable girl's very pleasant countenance lighted up at the thought
of obliging the old man who had been so kind to her and so liberal to
her friend, the poet. She would be delighted to help him; she would
dust them all for him, if he wanted her to. No, Master Gridley said, he
always wanted to have a hand in it; and, besides, such a little body
as she was could not lift those great folios out of the lower shelves
without overstraining herself; she might handle the musketry and the
light artillery, but he must deal with the heavy guns himself. “As low
down as the octavos, Susan Posey, you shall govern; below that, the
Salic law.”
Susan did not know much about the Salic law; but she knew he meant that
he would dust the big books and she would attend to the little ones.
A very young and a very pretty girl is sometimes quite charming in a
costume which thinks of nothing less than of being attractive. Susan
appeared after breakfast in the study, her head bound with a kerchief of
bright pattern, a little jacket she had outgrown buttoned, in spite
of opposition, close about her up to the throat, round which a white
handkerchief was loosely tied, and a pair of old gauntlets protecting
her hands, so that she suggested something between a gypsy, a jaunty
soubrette, and the fille du regiment.
Master Gridley took out a great volume from the lower shelf,--a folio in
massive oaken covers with clasps Like prison hinges, bearing the stately
colophon, white on a ground of vermilion, of Nicholas Jenson and his
associates. He opened the volume,--paused over its blue, and scarlet
initial letter,--he turned page after page, admiring its brilliant
characters, its broad, white marginal rivers, and the narrower white
creek that separated the black-typed twin-columns, he turned back to
the beginning and read the commendatory paragraph, “Nam ipsorum omnia
fidgent tum correctione dignissima, tum cura imprimendo splendida
ac miranda,” and began reading, “Incipit proemium super apparatum
decretalium....” when it suddenly occurred to him that this was not
exactly doing what he had undertaken to do, and he began whisking an
ancient bandanna about the ears of the venerable volume. All this time
Miss Susan Posey was catching the little books by the small of their
backs, pulling them out, opening them, and clapping them together,
'p-'p-'p! 'p-'p-'p! and carefully caressing all their edges with a
regular professional dusting-cloth, so persuasively that they yielded
up every particle that a year had drifted upon them, and came forth
refreshed and rejuvenated. This process went on for a while, until Susan
had worked down among the octavos and Master Gridley had worked up among
the quartos. He had got hold of Calmet's Dictionary, and was caught by
the article Solomon, so that he forgot his occupation again. All at
once it struck him that everything was very silent,--the 'p-'p-'p! of
clapping the books had ceased, and the light rustle of Susan's dress was
no longer heard. He looked up and saw her standing perfectly still, with
a book in one hand and her duster in the other. She was lost in thought,
and by the shadow on her face and the glistening of her blue eyes he
knew it was her hidden sorrow that had just come back to her. Master
Gridley shut up his book, leaving Solomon to his fate, like the worthy
Benedictine he was reading, without discussing the question whether he
was saved or not.
“Susan Posey, child, what is your trouble?”
Poor Susan was in the state of unstable equilibrium which the least
touch upsets, and fell to crying. It took her some time to get down
the waves of emotion so that speech would live upon them. At last it
ventured out,--showing at intervals, like the boat rising on the billow,
sinking into the hollow, and climbing again into notice.
“O Mr. Grid-ley--I can't--I can't--tell you or--any-body--what 's the
mat-mat-matter. My heart will br-br-break.”
“No, no, no, child,” said Mr. Gridley, sympathetically stirred a little
himself by the sight of Susan in tears and sobbing and catching her
breath, “that mustn't be, Susan Posey. Come off the steps, Susan Posey,
and stop dusting the books,--I can finish them,--and tell me all about
your troubles. I will try to help you out of them, and I have begun
to think I know how to help young people pretty well. I have had some
experience at it.”
But Susan cried and sobbed all the more uncontrollably and convulsively.
Master Gridley thought he had better lead her at once to what he felt
pretty sure was the source of her grief, and that, when she had had her
cry out, she would probably make the hole in the ice he had broken big
enough in a very few minutes.
“I think something has gone wrong between you and your friend, the young
gentleman with whom you are in intimate relations, my child, and I think
you had better talk freely with me, for I can perhaps give you a little
counsel that will be of service.”
Susan cried herself quiet at last. “There's nobody in the world
like you, Mr. Gridley,” she said, “and I've been wanting to tell you
something ever so long. My friend--Mr. Clem--Clement Lindsay does n't
care for me as he used to,--I know he does n't. He hasn't written to me
for--I don't know but it's a month. And O Mr. Gridley! he's such a great
man, and I am such a simple person,--I can't help thinking--he would be
happier with somebody else than poor little Susan Posey!”
This last touch of self-pity overcame her, as it is so apt to do those
who indulge in that delightful misery, and she broke up badly, as a
horse-fancier would say, so that it was some little time before she
recovered her conversational road-gait.
“O Mr. Gridley,” she began again, at length, “if I only dared to tell
him what I think,--that perhaps it would be happier for us both--if we
could forget each other! Ought I not to tell him so? Don't you think he
would find another to make him happy? Wouldn't he forgive me for telling
him he was free? Were we not too young to know each other's hearts when
we promised each other that we would love as long as we lived? Sha'n't I
write him a letter this very day and tell him all? Do you think it would
be wrong in me to do it? O Mr. Gridley, it makes me almost crazy to
think about it. Clement must be free! I cannot, cannot hold him to a
promise he does n't want to keep.”
There were so many questions in this eloquent rhapsody of Susan's that
they neutralized each other, as one might say, and Master Gridley had
time for reflection. His thoughts went on something in this way:
“Pretty clear case! Guess Mr. Clement can make up his mind to it. Put
it well, did n't she? Not a word about our little Gifted! That's the
trouble. Poets! how they do bewitch these schoolgirls! And having a
chance every day, too, how could you expect her to stand it?” Then
aloud: “Susan Posey, you are a good, honest little girl as ever was. I
think you and Clement were too hasty in coming together for life before
you knew what life meant. I think if you write Clement a letter, telling
him that you cannot help fearing that you two are not perfectly adapted
to each other, on account of certain differences for which neither of
you is responsible, and that you propose that each should release the
other from the pledge given so long ago,--in that case, I say, I believe
he will think no worse of you for so doing, and may perhaps agree that
it is best for both of you to seek your happiness elsewhere than in each
other.”
The book-dusting came to as abrupt a close as the reading of Lancelot.
Susan went straight to her room, dried her tears so as to write in
a fair hand, but had to stop every few lines and take a turn at
the “dust-layers,” as Mrs. Clymer Ketchum's friend used to call
the fountains of sensibility. It would seem like betraying Susan's
confidence to reveal the contents of this letter, but the reader may be
assured that it was simple and sincere and very sweetly written, without
the slightest allusion to any other young man, whether of the poetical
or cheaper human varieties.
It was not long before Susan received a reply from Clement Lindsay.
It was as kind and generous and noble as she could have asked. It was
affectionate, as a very amiable brother's letter might be, and candidly
appreciative of the reasons Susan had assigned for her proposal. He gave
her back her freedom, not that he should cease to feel an interest in
her, always. He accepted his own release, not that he would ever think
she could be indifferent to his future fortunes. And within a very
brief period of time after sending his answer to Susan Posey, whether he
wished to see her in person, or whether he had some other motive, he
had packed his trunk, and made his excuses for an absence of uncertain
length at the studio, and was on his way to Oxbow Village.