AN HOUR WITH DICKENS.
Alice felt that she could see a new light come into the window, into the
old home, into her soul; that a peace had come visibly into the shadowed
mansion, now that Aleck and Ephraim and the negro constable were dead in
the mud of the river; now that the Federal head had been removed by the
battle-axe of the fearless judge. She began to hope again, perhaps to
love again, who shall say? There was, it may be, a tiny sunbeam
coquetting with the old shadows that had so long overlaid every approach
to her young heart, and perhaps a little be-jewelled goldsmith was
tinkering and hammering upon a tiny arrow pointed with a ruby, and
feathered with tiny pinions of some diminutive bird, that nested among
fragrant mangoes far away in the isles of the sea, with which he was to
shoot down those unsightly idols that had long pre-empted her heart. The
days were loitering, she thought, in their flight, and the little
brownie who had been counting the numerals of time in their flight had
fallen asleep, and the old clock in the great hall ticked languidly as
if it were tired to death with its unvarying round of toil.
In this awakening to the brighter possibilities whom should she clasp to
her heart but her old friend, Charles Dickens? The Dickens of Dombey, of
Bleakhouse, of David Copperfield. She remembered how this marvellous
story-teller, so familiar to all young readers, who had so many children
of his own, the offspring of an overflowing fancy, one bleak day had
passed up and down Westminster Hall, clasping to his heart the magazine
that contained his first effusions, with eyes dimmed with pride and joy,
as he dropped stealthily, at twilight, a suspicious package into a dark
letter box down a dark alley. How many times the narrative had woven
golden filaments here and there through the warp of reconstruction! What
a bright filagree into the shadows that were unceasingly coming and
going! How many happy hours she had whiled away with Mr. Pickwick and
his admiring friends! How delightfully she had been entertained by the
wit of Samuel Weller, the eloquence of Sergeant Buzfuz, of Captain
Bunsby! Many a hypochondriac had laughed immoderately at the ludicrous
exercises of Crummles and the infant phenomenon! What a charming
companion is Dick Swiveller, the inimitable! Dear old Dick; reeling now
and then from excess of wine, but great hearted withal. Who does not
even now occasionally inhale the fragrant odors of the delicious punches
compounded by that blighted being, Mr. Wilkins Micawber, as he listens
to Sairy Gamp and laughs at Mrs. Harriss? Where is the tender-hearted
Christian who would shout for a policeman, while they are ducking
Shepherd, or pommelling Squeers, or cudgelling Pecksniff, or inflicting
divers and deserved assaults upon Uriah Heep? With what a motley crowd
of living characters Dickens has peopled our literature? What children
were ever like his children? What homes were ever like their homes?
There is little Pip and honest old Joe Gargery, who pauses for a moment
at his anvil to observe with animation, "Which I mean ter say, that if
you come into my place bull baiting and badgering me, come out! Which I
mean ter say, as sech, if yu're a man, come on! which I mean to say that
what I mean ter say, I mean to say and stand or fall by;" and Mrs. Joe
over watchful and over masterful always, who in the alembic of nature
had discovered no better way of bringing little Pip up than "by hand."
Then there is little Oliver Twist, a poor little waif, always hungry,
licking the platter and now and then, embarrassingly asking "for more;"
and poor Smikes is more terribly tragic, for he lived longer; and little
Nell the heart child of unnumbered thousands, tramping along the roads,
footsore and ever so weary, a poor little wanderer without home, until
the good Lord looks down into her tearful eyes and says one day, "Little
Nell your little hands and your little feet and your little heart are so
tired, will you not come with me, child?" And little Paul Dombey lying
wearily in the trundle bed, within sound of the manifold voices of the
sea, turns languidly to his sister Florence and asks with the natural
inquisitiveness of a child, "What are the wild waves saying?" And Joe
All Jones moves almost heedlessly on to death through more streets than
those of London; and Tom Pinch, Betsy Trotwood and faithful old Peggotty
and Ham, whose very oddities and deficiencies are turned into a crown of
glory; and the sneering melodramatic villains and scape-graces, Monck
and Quilp, and the blind man in Barnaby Rudge, and the Jew Fagan and
Murdstone and Carker; and the high spirited Steerforth and Nickleby and
Creakle, and Stiggins and Chadband and Sampson Brass and Snawley; and
poor little idiotic Barnaby, as on the way to the gallows he points to
the stars, and says to Hugh of the Maypole, "I guess we shall know who
made the stars now;" and last of all, but not least, Pecksniff, the
masterpiece of them all. From boot to hat he is all over and all under,
Pecksniff; drunk or sober he is Pecksniff. He is the virtuous Pecksniff
all the time, and altogether. He hugs himself to his own heart as the
embodiment of all the virtues of the decalogue and the beatitudes. No
matter into what rascality he may be plunging, his serene self conscious
virtue never forsakes him. The child wife, too, passes by us into the
spirit land, and there is the beautiful, dreamy eyed Agnes, who quite
charms us with her love and trust, and the sad, calm face of Florence
looks timidly upon us; and Mrs. Jellyby tells us to look out for
Borioboola Gha; and poor Micawber informs us that nothing has turned up
yet, and hinting darkly about laudanum and razors. What a marvellous
characterization! Will the world ever tire of this man and his children,
that he has materialized out of ideals so unpromising; whom he has
reared up in the slums of London, many of them upon garbage?
The blessed Sabbath day was passing uneventfully. There were no alarms
from any source. Old Hannah in her gloom was moving in and out of the
office and the "ole master" who had retired to his bed chamber was
weakening as the days would come and go. Alice, with the acumen of an
experienced physician, was noting the changes from time to time, and
realized that the final change would come some day and perhaps at an
hour least expected. The sad life of little Nell had wrought upon her
womanly feelings and she began to think of herself, her situation, of
her loneliness should her father be taken from her, and she thought of
the crude inelegant suggestion of old Clarissa.
"De crowsfoot is ergwine to cum into yer lubly face, und kurlykus and
frowns under yer eyes, und what wud you do in dis grate big grate house,
und dis great big plantashun by yer lone lorn self."
The contemplation of such a situation could only harrow her heart more
and more, but there was the gallant Arthur lying over in Virginia, and
she had plighted her troth to him that day, that she reviewed the
cavalry parade, when he stood by her side so handsome, so happy, in his
Confederate uniform, with the nodding plumes in his hat, when he said to
her, "Sweet Alice, will you be true to me until I return from the war?"
And she promised him with a kiss that she would; "and if dear Arthur you
shall never return, Alice will still be true to you."
Is there no limitation to such a contract; are not its conditions
already performed? She asked herself. Assuredly there are no marriages
in Heaven. She remembered that the Saviour of the world had said to the
Sadducees, "Ye do err not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.
For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage,
but are as the angels of God in Heaven." "Arthur knew that I loved
him--that I loved him from our childhood, and I am sure that our friends
as they enter the gates, are greeted by our friends up there, and that
they ask with so much interest and affection about their loved ones in
this sad, lonely terrene.
If Arthur could speak to me now, and could know that ere long I shall be
bereft of the last of my kindred, I am sure he would say to me with a
smile, "Sweet Alice, your loving heart has been my own all these sad
years, but we cannot marry here, though we may be sweethearts. You
require a manly heart in which you may place your burdens, and a manly
bosom upon which you may recline your tired, wearied head; strong arms
that shall shield you from every peril. Think of me at the nuptial hour
and know that I shall give you away at the altar with my blessing and
smile."
Thus ran the current of her meditation. Thus in her fancy she was
scattering over the flagstones, in the nave of the old church, a sheen
as of pure gold. Tired out with these thoughts she fell asleep in her
chair, and her dreams were sweet and refreshing until she was awakened
by a gentle rap upon the door which announced the presence of her
father.
Ned had now been installed as the butler at Ingleside. Clarissa
observing as he assumed his untried office, "Dat Ned was more spryer und
cud fend fur hesef bettern oman fokses. What cud wun lone lorn oman do
ef de carpet-sackers shud come back sho nuff. Old marser ort to fort ob
dis fo now."
The valuable estate of Burnbrae, an adjoining plantation, had fallen
under the auctioneer's hammer for unpaid taxes and an overdue mortgage.
The old owner had struggled with adverse fate to preserve it for his
children, in the same plight it had descended to him from his ancestors;
saving and excepting reasonable wear and tear and other unavoidable
casualties. This large estate of more than two thousand acres had been
purchased by Judge Bonham with its impedimenta of freed slaves that had
been dumped into its cellars like offal by the Freedman's Bureau.
This incident alone was a sad commentary upon the times. From affluence
to penury the descent had been sheer and without the fault of Mr. Baring
the owner. Judge Bonham said to him however that he should not want, and
that he might remain where he was at least for the present. The
purchasing of this property was the occasion of a visit from that
distinguished proprietor to Colonel Seymour at Ingleside. Judge Bonham
had been a distinguished lawyer and jurist, and in the very best of
times had highly dignified his profession by a seat upon the Superior
Court bench. He was, however, confronted now by a condition and not a
theory. He had interviewed from time to time the authors of his text
books, digests and reports, but from their dead lips came no
satisfactory response to the question, "What shall be done with these
poor negroes?" Thrust out of their home nests like unfledged eaglets,
their very sustenance precarious and their condition the most pitiable
and squalid. Idlers and vagrants, watching like a shipwrecked crew
hopelessly for succor, when there is none to come.
It happened that the judge and the Colonel were in confidential
communication for more than an hour, and doubtless the subject was
exhaustively examined and reviewed, as if it were under a microscope.
The judge, had been a widower for a few years, was a man of quite
dignified presence, and perhaps fifty-five years of age. He had seen
Alice but once before, at the Memorial exercises at the cemetery, and
to-day he contemplated the southern beauty as if he were looking upon
the face of Beatrice Cenci as it smiles upon the throngs from the
gallery at Florence. Her exquisite grace, her extraordinary beauty,
rekindled instantly the fire that had burned down into dead ashes so
many years ago.
He asked himself the question, "Can I be in love? Have I been ensnared
by the pretty fowler, enmeshed by the witcheries, the fascinations of
this royal and unsophisticated beauty?" And all this done and
accomplished without the movement of a finger upon her part.
"You, Livy Bonham, almost in the sere leaf, a veteran of fifty-four
years, striking the flag to a feebly manned battery of bewitching blue
eyes before it has opened fire! Impossible! Impossible!" This exclamation
was just loud enough for the Colonel to overhear, who enquired of the
judge, "what it was that was impossible?"
"Ah, I was thinking if I couldn't persuade the negroes to vacate my
premises, that was all."
"Perhaps I may find it necessary to consult you further, say to morrow.
You know I am living at Burnbrae now, and the distance between us is
very short, and I am sure we shall become very intimate."
When the judge left the mansion the old man, accompanied by Alice sought
rest in the parlor upon one of the mahogany sofas.
"And now my daughter you will please take up your book again and read to
me. What are you reading," he continued.
"I was reading just then my dear father," the girl replied, "about the
death of little Paul Dombey. I never weary of sentiments so heart
pervading that I find running like golden threads through all of
Dickens' works. You remember little Paul, father?"
"Yes, oh yes," replied the old man, "Read it all over again."
And Alice in her sweet, musical voice read so soothingly to her father
that he sank to sleep.
Closing the door softly behind her she went out into the verandah and
sang quite plaintively one or more old songs, it might have been for the
little birds that were piping their notes too in the tree boughs above
her.
Shall we slip away from Alice for a moment to invade the privacy of the
judge?
If the judge had knowledge of our unbidden presence, would he not say in
the law latin that we had committed a trespass, "_quare clausum
fregit_?" Oh, no, it would flatter him immensely to suspect that he was
in love, and that with the beauty of Ingleside. He was stupidly ignorant
after propounding the question a score of times to himself, his answer,
dubiously made, was always, "Well, we shall see perhaps."