Lenox again, and bluebirds darting to and fro among the maples. I had
reached the hotel at midnight. Our train was late, detained on the
road, and though my thoughts drove instantly to the Sloman cottage, I
allowed the tardier coach-horses to set me down at the hotel. I had
not telegraphed from New York. I would give her no chance to withhold
herself from me, or to avoid me by running away. There was no time for
her, as yet, to have read of the ship's arrival. I would take her
unawares.
So, after the bountiful Nora, who presides over the comfort of her
favorites, had plied me with breakfast-cakes and milk and honey, I
sauntered down toward the Lebanon road. Yes, sauntered, for I felt
that a great crisis in my life was at hand, and at such times a
wonderful calmness, almost to lethargy, possesses me. I went slowly up
the hill. The church-clock was striking nine--calm, peaceful strokes.
There was no tremor in them, no warning of what was coming. The air
was very still, and I stopped a moment to watch the bluebirds before I
turned into the Lebanon road.
There was the little gray cottage, with its last year's vines about
it, a withered spray here and there waving feebly as the soft April
air caught it and tossed it to and fro. No sign of life about the
cottage--doors and windows tight shut and barred. Only the little gate
swung open, but that might have been the wind. I stepped up on the
porch. No sound save the echo of my steps and the knocking of my
heart. I rang the bell. It pealed violently, but there were no
answering sounds: nothing stirred.
I rang again, more gently, and waited, looking along the little path
to the gate. There was snow, the winter's snow, lingering about the
roots of the old elm, the one elm tree that overhung the cottage. Last
winter's snow lying there, and of the people who had lived in the
house, and made it warm and bright, not a footprint, not a trace!
Again I rang, and this time I heard footsteps coming round the corner
of the house. I sat down on the rustic bench by the door. If it had
been Bessie's self, I could not have stirred, I was so chilled, so
awed by the blank silence. A brown sun-bonnet, surmounting a tall,
gaunt figure, came in sight.
"What is it?" asked the owner of the sun-bonnet in a quick, sharp
voice that seemed the prelude to "Don't want any."
"Where are Mrs. Sloman and Miss Stewart? Are they not in Lenox?"
"Miss' Sloman, she's away to Minnarsoter: ben thar' all winter for her
health. She don't cal'late to be home afore June."
"And Miss Stewart?--is she with her?"
"Miss Stewart? I dunno," said the woman, with a strange look about the
corners of her mouth. "I dunno: I never see her; and the family was
all away afore I came here to take charge. They left the kitchen-end
open for me; and my sister-in-law--that's Hiram Splinter's wife--she
made all the 'rangements. But I _did_ hear," hesitating a moment, "as
how Bessie Stewart was away to Shaker Village; and some does say"--a
portentous pause and clearing of her throat--"that she's jined."
"_Joined_--what?" I asked, all in a mist of impatience and perplexity.
"Jined the Shakers."
"Nonsense!" I said, recovering my breath angrily. "Where is this
Hiram's wife? Let me see her."
"In the back lot--there where you see the yaller house where the
chimney's smoking. That's Hiram's house. He has charge of the Gold
property on the hill. Won't you come in and warm yourself by the fire
in the kitchen? I was away to the next neighbor's, and I was sure I
hear our bell a-ringin'. Did you hev' to ring long?"
But I was away, striding over the cabbage-patch and climbing the
worm-fence that shut in the estate of Hiram. Some wretched mistake:
the woman does not know what she's talking about. These Splinters!
they seem to have had some communication with Mrs. Sloman: they will
know.
Mrs. Splinter, a neat, bright-eyed woman of about twenty-five, opened
the door at my somewhat peremptory knock. I recollected her in a
moment as a familiar face--some laundress or auxiliary of the Sloman
family in some way; and she seemed to recognize me as well: "Why! it's
Mr. Munro! Walk in, sir, and sit down," dusting off a chair with her
apron as she spoke.
"Miss Stewart--where is she? _You_ know."
"Miss Stewart?" said the woman, sinking down into a chair and looking
greatly disturbed. "Miss Stewart's gone to live with the Shakers. My
husband drove her over with his team--her and her trunk."
"Why, where was her aunt? Did Mrs. Sloman know? Why isn't Miss Bessie
with her?"
"Miss' Sloman said all she could--_afterward_ I guess," said the
woman, wiping her eyes, "but 'twan't no use then. You see, Miss'
Sloman had jined a party that was goin' to Minnesota--while she was in
Philadelfy, that was--and Miss Stewart she wasn't goin'. She reckoned
she'd spend the winter here in the house. Miss' Sloman's maid--that's
Mary--was goin' with her to the West, and I was to hire my
sister-in-law to take charge of things here, so that Miss Bessie could
have her mind free-like to come and go. But afore ever Mary
Jane--that's my sister-in-law--could come over from Lee, where she was
livin' out, Miss Bessie comes up and opens the house. She stayed there
about a week, and she had lots of company while she was here. I think
she got tired. They was people that was just goin' to sail for Europe,
and as soon as they went she just shut up and told me to send for Mary
Jane to take care of things. So Mary Jane never see her, and perhaps
she giv' you a crooked answer, sir, if you was inquirin' of her over
to the cottage."
"Where's Hiram? where's your husband? Can I have his team this
morning?"
"I guess so," said the sympathetic Mrs. Splinter. "He'll show you the
very house he druv' her to."
Hiram was hunted for and found; and an hour later I was bowling along
the Lebanon road behind the bay team he was so proud of. I had
concluded to take him with me, as he could identify places and
people, and I knew well what castles the Shaker houses are for the
world's people outside. Hiram was full of talk going over. He seemed
to have been bottling it up, and I was the first auditor for his
wrath. "I know 'm," he said, cracking his whip over his horses' heads.
"They be sharp at a bargain, they be. If they've contrived to get a
hold on Bessie Stewart, property and all, it'll go hard on 'em to give
her up."
"A _hold_ on Bessie!" What dreadful words! I bade him sharply hold his
tongue and mind his horses, but he went on muttering in an undertone,
"Yo'll see, yo'll see! You're druv' pretty hard, young man, I expect,
so I won't think nothing of your ha'sh words, and we'll get her out,
for all Elder Nebson."
So Hiram, looked out along the road from under his huge fur-cap, and
up hill and down. The miles shortened, until at last the fair houses
and barns of the Shaker village came in sight. A sleeping village, one
would have thought. Nobody in the road save one old man, who eyed us
suspiciously through the back of a chair he was carrying.
"It must be dinner-time, I think," said Hiram as he drove cautiously
along. Stopping at a house near the bridge: "Now this is the very
house. Just you go right up and knock at that 'ere door."
I knocked. In a twinkling the door was opened by a neat Shaker sister,
whose round, smiling face was flushed, as though she had just come
from cooking dinner. I stepped across the threshold: "Bessie Stewart
is here. Please say to her that a friend--a friend from
England--wishes to see her."
"Sure," said the motherly-faced woman, for she was sweet and motherly
in spite of her Shaker garb, "I'll go and see."
Smilingly she ushered me into a room at the left of the hall. "Take
seat, please;" and with a cheerful alacrity she departed, closing the
door gently behind her.
"Well," thought I, "this is pleasant: no bolts or bars here. I'm sure
of one friend at court."
I had leisure to observe the apartment--the neatly-scrubbed floor,
with one narrow cot bed against the wall, a tall bureau on which some
brown old books were lying, and the little dust-pan and dust-brush on
a brass nail in the corner. There was a brightly polished stove with
no fire in it, and some straight-backed chairs of yellow wood stood
round the room. An open door into a large, roomy closet showed various
garments of men's apparel hanging upon the wall. The plain thermometer
in the window casement seemed the one article of luxury or ornament in
the apartment. I believe I made my observations on all these things
aloud, concluding with, "Oh, Bessie! Bessie! you shall not stay here."
I know that I was startled enough by the apparition of a man standing
in the open closet door. He must have been within it at my entrance,
and had heard all I said.
He came forward, holding out his hand--very friendly apparently. Then,
requesting me to be seated, he drew out a chair from the wall and sat
down, tilting it back on two legs and leaning against the wall, with
his hands folded before him. Some commonplace remark about the
weather, which I answered, led to a rambling conversation, in which he
expressed the greatest curiosity as to worldly matters, and asked
several purely local questions about the city of New York. Perhaps his
ignorance was feigned. I do not know, but I found myself relating,
_à la_ Stanley-Livingstone, some of the current events of the day. His
face was quite intelligent, tanned with labor in the fields, and his
brown eyes were kind and soft, like those of some dumb animals. I note
his eyes here especially, as different in expression from those of
others of his sect.
Several times during the conversation I heard footsteps in the hall,
and darted from my seat, and finally, in my impatience, began to pace
the floor. Kindly as he looked, I did not wish to question the man
about Bessie. I would rely upon the beaming portress, whose "_Sure_"
was such an earnest of her good-will. Moreover, a feeling of contempt,
growing out of pity, was taking possession of me. This man, in what
did he differ from the Catholic priest save in the utter selfishness
of his creed? Beside the sordid accumulation of gain to which his life
was devoted the priest's mission among crowded alleys and
fever-stricken lanes seemed luminous and grand. A moral suicide, with
no redeeming feature. The barns bursting with fatness, the comfortable
houses, gain added to gain--to what end? I was beginning to give very
short answers indeed to his questions, and was already meditating a
foray through the rest of the house, when the door opened slowly and a
lady-abbess entered. She was stiff and stately, with the most formal
neckerchief folded precisely over her straitened bust, a clear-muslin
cap concealing her hair, and her face, stony, blue-eyed and cold--a
pale, frozen woman standing stately there.
"Bessie Stewart?" said I. "She is here--I know it. Do not detain her.
I must see her. Why all this delay?"
"Dost thou mean Sister Eliza?" she asked in chilling tones.
"No, nobody's sister--least of all a sister here--but the young lady
who came over here from Lenox two months ago--Bessie Stewart, Mrs.
Sloman's niece." (I knew that Mrs. Sloman was quite familiar with some
of the Shakeresses, and visited them at times.)
Very composedly the sister took a chair and folded her hands across
her outspread handkerchief before she spoke again. I noticed at this
moment that her dress was just the color of her eyes, a pale, stony
blue.
"Sister Eliza: it is the same," in measured accents. "She is not here:
she has gone--to Watervliet."
Can this be treachery? I thought, and is she still in the house? Will
they hide from her that I am here? But there was no fathoming the
woman's cold blue eyes.
"To Watervliet?" I inquired dismally. "How? when? how did she go?"
"She went in one of our wagons: Sister Leah and Brother Ephraim went
along."
"When will they return?"
"I cannot say."
All this time the man was leaning back against the wall, but uttered
not a word. A glance of triumph shot from the sister's eyes as I rose.
But she was mistaken if she thought I was going away. I stepped to the
window, and throwing it open called to Hiram, who was still sitting in
his wagon, chewing composedly a bit of straw. He leaped out in an
instant, and leaning out to him I rapidly repeated in an undertone the
previous conversation: "What would you do?"
"Ten chances to one it's a lie. Tell 'em you'll set there till you see
her. They can't shake us off that way."
I drew in my head. The pair still sat as before. "Well," said I, "as I
_must_ see her, and as you seem so uncertain about it, I will wait
here."
And again I took my seat. The sister's face flushed. I had meant no
rudeness in my tone, but she must have detected the suspicion in it.
She crimsoned to her temples, and said hastily, "It is impossible for
us to entertain strangers to-day. A brother is dying in the house: we
are all waiting for him to pass away from moment to moment. We can
submit to no intrusion."
Well, perhaps it was an intrusion. It was certainly their house if it
did hold my darling. I looked at her steadily: "Are you sure that
Bessie Stewart has gone away from here?"
"To Watervliet--yea," she answered composedly. "She left here last
week."
My skill at cross-examination was at fault. If that woman was lying,
she would be a premium witness. "I should be sorry, madam," I said,
recalling the world's etiquette, which I had half forgotten, "to
intrude upon you at this or any other time, but I cannot leave here in
doubt. Will you oblige me by stating the exact hour and day at which
Miss Stewart is expected to return from Watervliet, and the road
thither?"
She glanced across the room. Answering the look, the man spoke, for
the first time since she had entered: "The party, I believe, will be
home to-night."
"And she with them?"
"Yea, unless she has elected to remain."
"At what hour?"
"I cannot tell."
"By what road shall I meet her?"
"There are two roads: we generally use the river-road."
"To-night? I will go to meet her. By the river-road, you say?"
"Yea."
"And if I do not meet her?"
"If thou dost not meet her," said the lady-abbess, answering calmly,
"it will be because she is detained on the road."
I had to believe her, and yet I was very skeptical. As I walked out of
the door the man was at my heels. He followed me out on to the wooden
stoop and nodded to Hiram.
"Who is that, Hiram?" I whispered as he leaned across the back of a
horse, adjusting some leathern buckle.
"That?" said Hiram under his breath. "That's a deep 'un: that's Elder
Nebson."
Great was the dissatisfaction of the stout-hearted Splinter at my
retreat, as he called it, from the enemy's ground.
"I'd ha' liked nothin' better than to beat up them quarters. I thought
every minit' you'd be calling me, and was ready to go in." And he
clenched his fist in a way that showed unmistakably how he would have
"gone in" had he been summoned. By this time we were driving on
briskly toward the river-road. "You wa'n't smart, I reckon, to leave
that there house. It was your one chance, hevin' got in. Ten chances
to one she's hid away som'eres in one of them upper rooms," and he
pointed to a row of dormer-windows, "not knowin' nothin' of your bein'
there."
"Stop!" I said with one foot on the shafts. "You don't mean to say she
is shut up there?"
"Shet up? No: they be too smart for that. But there's plenty ways to
shet a young gal's eyes an' ears 'thout lockin' of her up. How'd she
know who was in this wagon, even if she seed it from her winders? To
be sure, I made myself conspicuous enough, a-whistlin' 'Tramp, tramp,'
and makin' the horses switch round a good deal. But, like enough, ef
she'd be down-spereted-like, she'd never go near the winder, but just
set there, a-stitchin' beads on velvet or a-plattin' them mats."
"Why should she work?" I asked, with my grasp still on the reins.
"Them all does," he answered, taking a fresh bite of the straw. "It's
the best cure for sorrow, they say. Or mebbe she's a-teachin' the
children. I see a powerful sight of children comin' along while you
was in there talkin', a-goin' to their school, and I tried to ask some
o' them about her. But the old sheep who was drivin' on 'em looked at
me like vinegar, and I thought I'd better shet up, or mebbe she'd give
the alarm that we was here with horses and wagon to carry her off."
I had a painful moment of indecision as Hiram paused in his narrative
and leisurely proceeded to evict a fly from the near horse's ear. "I
think we'll go on, Hiram," I said, jumping back to my seat again.
"Take the river-road."
Hiram had brought plentiful provision for his horses in a bag under
the seat. "Victualed for a march or a siege," he said as he dragged
out a tin kettle from the same receptacle when we drew up by the
roadside an hour after. "We're clear of them pryin' Shakers, and we'll
just rest a spell."
I could not demur, though my impatience was urging me on faster than
his hungry horses could go.
"I told Susan," he said, "to put me up a bit of pie and cheese--mebbe
we wouldn't be back afore night. Won't you hev' some?--there's a
plenty."
But I declined the luncheon, and while he munched away contentedly,
and while the horses crunched their corn, I got out and walked on,
telling Hiram to follow at his leisure. My heart beat fast as I espied
a wagon in the distance with one--yes, two--Shaker bonnets in it.
Bessie in masquerade! Perhaps so--it could not be the other: that
would be too horrible. But she was coming, surely coming, and the cold
prim sister had told the truth, after all.
The wagon came nearer. In it were two weather-beaten dames, neither of
whom could possibly be mistaken for Bessie in disguise; and the lank,
long-haired brother who was driving them looked ignorant as a child of
anything save the management of his horses. I hailed them, and the
wagon drew up at the side of the road.
It was the women who answered in shrill, piping voices: "Ben to
Watervliet? Nay, they'd ben driving round the country, selling garden
seeds."
"Did they know Bessie Stewart, who was staying in the Shaker village,
in the house by the bridge?"
"Sure, there had ben a stranger woman come there some time ago: they
could not tell--never heerd her name."
I was forced to let them drive on after I had exhausted every possible
inquiry, trusting that Hiram, who was close behind, would have keener
wit in questioning them, but Hiram, as it happened, did not come up to
them at all. They must have turned off into some farm-house lane
before they passed him. The afternoon wore on. It grew toward sunset,
and still we kept the river-road. There was no trace of the Shaker
wagon, and indeed the road was growing wild and lonely.
"I tell you what," said Hiram, stopping suddenly, "these beasts can't
go on for ever, and then turn round and come back again. I'll turn
here, and drive to the little tavern we passed about two mile back,
and stable 'em, and then you and me can watch the road."
It was but reasonable, and I had to assent, though to turn back seemed
an evil omen, and to carry me away from Bessie. The horses were
stabled, and I meanwhile paced the broad open sweep in front of the
tavern, across which the lights were shining. Hiram improved the
opportunity to eat a hearty supper, urging me to partake. But as I
declined, in my impatience, to take my eyes off the road, he brought
me out a bowl of some hot fluid and something on a plate, which I got
through with quickly enough, for the cool evening air had sharpened my
appetite. I rested the bowl on the broad bench beside the door, while
Hiram went backward and forward with the supplies.
"Now," said he as I finished at last, still keeping my eye upon the
road, "you go in and take a turn lyin' down: I'll watch the road. I'm
a-goin' to see this thing out."
But I was not ready to sleep yet; so, yielding to my injunction, he
went in, and I seated myself, wrapped in a buffalo robe from the
wagon. The night was damp and chill.
"Hedn't you better set at the window?" said the kind-hearted landlady,
bustling out. Hiram had evidently told her the story.
"Oh no, thank you;" for I was impatient of walls and tongues, and
wanted to be alone with my anxiety.
What madness was this in Bessie? She could not, oh she could not, have
thrown her life away! What grief and disquiet must have driven her
into this refuge! Poor little soul, scorched and racked by distrust
and doubt! if she could not trust me, whom should she trust?
The household noises ceased one by one; the clump of willows by the
river grew darker and darker; the stars came out and shone with that
magnetic brilliancy that fixes our gaze upon them, leading one to
speculate on their influence, and--
A hand on my shoulder: Hiram with a lantern turned full upon my face.
"'Most one o'clock," he said, rubbing his eyes sleepily. "Come to take
my turn. Have you seen nothing?"
"Nothing," I said, staggering to my feet, which felt like
lead--"nothing."
I did not confess it, but to this hour I cannot tell whether I had
been nodding for one minute or ten. I kept my own counsel as I turned
over the watch to Hiram, but a suspicion shot through me that perhaps
that wagon had gone by, after all, in the moment that I had been off
guard.
Hiram kept the watch faithfully till five that morning, when I too was
stirring. One or two teams had passed, but no Shaker wagon rattling
through the night. We breakfasted in the little room that overlooked
the road. Outside, at the pump, a lounging hostler, who had been
bribed to keep a sharp lookout for a Shaker wagon, whistled and waited
too.
"Tell you what," said Hiram, bolting a goodly rouleau of ham and eggs,
"I've got an idee. You and me might shilly-shally here on this road
all day, and what surety shall we hev' that they hevn't gone by the
other road. Old gal said there was two?"
"Yes, but the folks here say that the other is a wild mountain-road,
and not much used."
"Well, you see they comes down by the boat a piece, or they _may_ cut
across the river at Greenbush. They have queer ways. Now, mebbe they
_have_ come over that mountain-road in the night, while you and me was
a-watchin' this like ferrits. In that case she's safe and sound at
Shaker Village, not knowin' anything of your coming; and Elder Nebson
and that other is laughin' in their sleeves at us."
"Perhaps so."
"Now, this is my advice, but I'll do just as you say. 'Tain't no good
to lay around and watch that ere house _to day_. Ef we hedn't been in
such a white heat, we might just hev' hid round in the neighborhood
_there_ till she came along. But it's too late, for that now. Let's
you and me lay low till Sunday. She'll be sure to go to meetin' on
Sunday ef she's there, and you can quietly slip in and see if she is.
And to shut their eyes up, so that they won't suspect nothin', we'll
leave a message on one of your pasteboards that you're very sorry not
to hev' seen her, drefful sorry, but that you can't wait no longer,
and you are off. They'll think you're off for York: you've got York on
your cards, hevn't you?"
"Yes."
"You just come and stay to my house: we'll make you comfortable, and
there's only one day longer to wait. This is Friday, be'ent it? You'd
best not be seen around to the hotel, lest any of their spies be
about. They do a powerful sight o' drivin' round the country this time
o' year. And then, you see, ef on Sunday she isn't there, you can go
over to Watervliet, or we'll search them houses--whichever you
choose."
There seemed no help for it but to take Hiram's advice. We drove
homeward through the Shaker village, and drew up at the house again.
This time the door was opened by a bent, sharp little Creole, as I
took her to be: the beaming portress of the day before had been
relieved at her post.
"Nay, Bessie Stewart was not at home: she would go and inquire for me
when she was expected."
"No," I said carelessly, not wishing to repeat the scene of yesterday
and to present myself, a humiliated failure, before the two elders
again--"no: give her this card when she does come, and tell her I
could stay no longer."
I had not written any message on the card, for the message, indeed,
was not for Bessie, but for the others. She would interpret it that I
was in the neighborhood, anxious and waiting: she would understand.
"Home, then, Hiram," as I took my seat beside him. "We'll wait till
Sunday."