Gracias-a-Dios was a little town lying half asleep on the southern coast
of the United States, under a sky of almost changeless blue.
Of almost changeless blue. Americans have long been, in a literary way,
the vicarious victims, to a certain extent, of the climate of the
British Isles. The low tones of the atmosphere of those islands, the
shifting veils of fog and rain rising and falling over them, the soft
gray light filtered through mist and cloud--all these have caused the
blue skies and endless sunshine of Italy to seem divinely fair to
visitors from English shores; and as among these visitors have come the
poets and the romance writers, this fairness, embalmed in prose and
verse, has taken its place in literature, has become classic. The
imaginative New World student, eager to learn, passionately desirous to
appreciate, has read these pages reverently; he knows them by heart. And
when at last the longed-for day comes when he too can make his
pilgrimage to these scenes of legend and story, so dominated is he, for
the most part, by the spell of tradition that he does not even perceive
that these long-chanted heavens are no bluer than his own; or if by
chance his eye, accurate in spite of himself, notes such a possibility,
he puts it from him purposely, preferring the blueness which is
historic. The heavens lying over Venice and her palaces are, must be,
softer than those which expand distantly over miles of prairie and
forest; the hue of the sky which bends over Rome is, must be, of a
deeper, richer tint than any which a New World has attained. But
generally this preference of the imaginative American is not a choice so
much as an unconscious faith which he has cherished from childhood, and
from which he would hardly know how to dissent; he is gazing at these
foreign skies through a long, enchanting vista of history, poetry, and
song; he simply does not remember his own sky at all.
Only recently has he begun to remember it, only recently has he begun to
discover that, in the matter of blue at least, he has been gazing
through glasses adjusted to the scale of English atmosphere and English
comparisons, and that, divested of these aids to vision, he can find
above his own head and in his own country an azure as deep as any that
the Old World can show.
When this has been discovered it remains but blue sky. The other
treasure of those old lands beyond the sea--their ruins, their art,
their ancient story--these he has not and can never have, and these he
loves with that deep American worship which must seem to those old gods
like the arrival of Magi from afar, men of distant birth, sometimes of
manners strange, but bringing costly gifts and bowing the knee with
reverence where the dwellers in the temple itself have grown cold.
Compared with those of the British Isles, all the skies of the United
States are blue. In the North, this blue is clear, strong, bright; in
the South, a softness mingles with the brilliancy, and tempers it to a
beauty which is not surpassed. The sky over the cotton lands of South
Carolina is as soft as that of Tuscany; the blue above the silver
beaches of Florida melts as languorously as that above Capri's enchanted
shore. Gracias-a-Dios had this blue sky. Slumberous little coast hamlet
as it was, it had also its characteristics.
"Gracias a Dios!" Spanish sailors had said, three hundred years before,
when, after a great storm, despairing and exhausted, they discovered
this little harbor on the low, dangerous coast, and were able to enter
it--"Gracias a Dios!" "Thanks to God!" In the present day the name had
become a sort of shibboleth. To say Gracias a Dios in full, with the
correct Spanish pronunciation, showed that one was of the old Spanish
blood, a descendant of those families who dated from the glorious times
when his Most Catholic and Imperial Majesty, King of Spain, Defender of
the Church, always Victorious, always Invincible, had held sway on this
far shore. To say Gracias without the "a Dios," but still with more or
less imitation of the Spanish accent, proved that one belonged among the
older residents of the next degree of importance, that is, that one's
grandfather or great-grandfather had been among those English colonists
who had come out to Florida during the British occupation; or else that
he had been one of the planters from Georgia and the Carolinas who had
moved to the province during the same period. This last pronunciation
was also adopted by those among the later-coming residents who had an
interest in history, or who loved for their own sakes the melody of the
devout old names given by the first explorers--names now so rapidly
disappearing from bay and harbor, reef and key. But these three classes
were no longer all, there was another and more recent one, small and
unimportant as yet, but destined to grow. This new class counted within
its ranks at present the captains and crews of the northern schooners
that were beginning to come into that port for lumber; the agents of
land-companies looking after titles and the old Spanish grants;
speculators with plans in their pockets for railways, with plans in
their pockets for canals, with plans in their pockets (and sometimes
very little else) for draining the swamps and dredging the Everglades,
many of the schemes dependent upon aid from Congress, and mysteriously
connected with the new negro vote. In addition there were the first
projectors of health resorts, the first northern buyers of orange
groves: in short, the pioneers of that busy, practical American majority
which has no time for derivations, and does not care for history, and
which turns its imagination (for it has imagination) towards objects
more veracious than the pious old titles bestowed by an age and race
that murdered, and tortured, and reddened these fair waters with blood,
for sweet religion's sake. This new class called the place
Grashus--which was a horror to all the other inhabitants.
The descendants of the Spaniards, of the English colonists, of the
Georgia and Carolina planters--families much thinned out now in numbers
and estate, wearing for the most part old clothes, but old prides as
well--lived on in their old houses in Gracias and its neighborhood,
giving rather more importance perhaps to the past than to the present,
but excellent people, kind neighbors, generous and devoted friends. They
were also good Christians; on Sundays they all attended service in one
or the other of the two churches of Gracias, the Roman Catholic
cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, and the Episcopal church of St
Philip and St. James'. These two houses of worship stood side by side on
the plaza, only an old garden between them. St. Philip and St. James'
had a bell; but its Spanish neighbor had four, and not only that, but a
habit of ringing all four together, in a sort of quickstep, at noon on
Sundays, so that the Episcopal rector, in that land of open windows, was
obliged either to raise his voice to an unseemly pitch, or else to
preach for some minutes in dumb-show, which latter course he generally
adopted as the more decorous, mildly going back and giving the lost
sentences a second time, as though they had not been spoken, when the
clamor had ceased. This, however, was the only warfare between the two
churches. And it might have been intended, too, merely as a friendly
hint from the Angels to the Saints that the latter's sermons were too
long. The Episcopal rector, the Rev. Middleton Moore, had in truth ideas
somewhat behind his times: he had not yet learned that fifteen or at
most twenty minutes should include the utmost length of his weekly
persuasions to virtue. It had never occurred to the mind of this
old-fashioned gentleman that congregations are now so highly improved,
so cultivated and intellectual, that they require but a few moments of
dispassionate reminder from the pulpit once a week, that on the whole it
is better to be moral, and, likewise, that any assumption of the
functions of a teacher on the part of a clergyman is now quite obsolete
and even laughable--these modern axioms Middleton Moore had not yet
learned; the mistaken man went on hopefully exhorting for a full
three-quarters of an hour. And as his congregation were as old-fashioned
as himself, no objection had as yet been made to this course, the simple
people listening with respect to all he had to say, not only for what it
was in itself, but for what he was in himself--a man without spot, one
who, in an earlier age, would have gone through martyrdom with the same
pure, gentle firmness with which he now addressed them from a pulpit of
peace. It was in this little church of St. Philip and St. James' that
Evert Winthrop had first beheld Garda Thorne.
The next day he presented a letter of introduction which his aunt, Mrs.
Rutherford, had given him before he left New York; the letter bore the
address, "Mrs. Carew." Winthrop had not welcomed this document, he
disliked the demand for attention which epistles usually convey. How
much influence the beautiful face seen in church had upon its
presentation when he finally made it, how long, without that accident,
the ceremony might have been delayed, it would be difficult, perhaps, to
accurately state. He himself would have said that the beautiful face had
hastened it somewhat; but that in time he should have obeyed his aunt's
wish in any case, as he always did. For Winthrop was a good nephew, his
aunt had given him the only mother's love his childhood had known.
Mrs. Carew, who as Betty Gwinnet had been Mrs. Rutherford's room-mate at
a New York school forty-four years before, lived in one of the large,
old, rather dilapidated houses of Gracias; she was a widow, portly,
good-natured, reminiscent, and delighted to see the nephew of her
"dearest Katrina Beekman." It was not until his second visit that this
nephew broached the subject of the face seen in church, and even then he
presented it so slightly, with its narrow edge towards her, as it were,
that the good lady never had a suspicion that it was more than a chance
allusion on his part, and indeed always thereafter took to herself the
credit of having been the first to direct a cultivated northern
attention to this beautiful young creature, who was being left, "like
the poet's flower, you know, to blush unseen and waste her sweetness on
the desert air, though of coarse you understand that I am not literal of
course, for fortunately there are no deserts in Florida, unless, indeed,
you include the Everglades, and I don't see how you can, for certainly
the essence of a desert is, and always has been, dryness of course,
dryness to a _degree_, and the Everglades are all under water, so that
there isn't a dry spot anywhere for even so much as the sole of your
foot, any more than there was for Noah's weary dove, you know, and it's
water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink, that is, if you
should _wish_ to drink it, which I am sure I hope you wouldn't, for it's
said to be _most_ unhealthy, and even the Ancient Mariner himself
couldn't have stood it long."
Mrs. Carew was fertile in quotations, rich in simile; and if both were
rather wanting in novelty, there was at least an element of
unexpectedness in her manner of connecting them which amused her present
visitor and kept him listening. Not that Winthrop was ever inattentive.
On the contrary, he had listening powers of admirable range and calm. He
was capable of participating in any amount of conversation upon the
weather, he could accept with passiveness those advisers who are always
telling their friends what they "ought" to do, he could listen
imperturbably to little details from the people who always will tell
little details, he could bear without impatience even the narration of
dreams; he was able to continue an acquaintance unmoved with those
excellent persons who, when they have said a good thing, immediately go
back and tell it over again; in short, he betrayed no irritation in the
presence of great Commonplace. The commonplace people, therefore, all
liked him, he had not an enemy among them. And this was the more
amusing, as, in reality, he detested them.
His friends, those who knew him best, told him that he went about most
of the time in a mask. "All the world's a stage," he answered; "the only
point is that the mask should be an agreeable one. Why should I be
obliged to show my true complexion to Tom, Dick, and Harry, when Tom,
Dick, and Harry so much prefer the one I have assumed? It's good
practice for me--the mask-wearing--practice in self-control; and
besides, Tom, Dick, and Harry are right, the borrowed complexion _is_
the better one; perhaps I may be able, in time, to really acquire one
like it."
To find himself listening, therefore, without his mask, listening for
the simple entertainment of it, was always an agreeable variety to this
gentleman, who kept at least his outward attention in such strict
control; and the first time he heard Mrs. Betty Carew hold forth, he had
a taste of it.
"Yes, that was Mistress Thorne and Garda, I reckon; on second thoughts,
I am sure of it; for they always come up from East Angels on Sunday
mornings to service, with old Pablo to row, as Mistress Thorne _has_
succeeded in getting as far as the Episcopal church, though Our Lady of
the Angels _was_ too much for her, which was quite as well, however,
because, of course, all the Thornes, being English, were Church people
of course in the old country, though poor Eddie, having been twice
diluted, as one may say, owing to his mother and grandmother having been
Spanish and Roman Catholic, was not _quite_ so strong in the real
Episcopal doctrines as he might have been, which was a pity, of course,
but could hardly, under the circumstances, have been prevented so far as
I can see, for one swallow doesn't make a summer, I reckon, any more
than one parent makes a Protestant, especially when the other's a
Duero--with the Old Madam _roaring_ on the borders, ready to raise Ned
on the slightest provocation, to come down like wolf on the fold, you
know--or was it the Assyrian? Now at East Angels--perhaps you are
wondering at the name? Well, the cathedral, to begin with, is Our Lady
of the Angels, and, in the old days, there were two mission-stations for
the Indians south of here, one on the east coast, one more to the west,
and bearing the same name. These chapels are gone; but as the Duero
house stood near one of them, it took the name, or part of it, and has
been called East Angels ever since. There was no house near the other
chapel--West Angels--and some say the very site is lost, though others
again have declared that the old bell is still there, lying at the foot
of a great cypress--that hunters have seen it. But I haven't much faith
in hunters, have you?--nor in fishermen either, for that matter. Little
Mistress Thorne must know a great deal about fish, I suppose she lived
on cod before she came down here; she belongs to Puritan stock, they
say, and there _were_ good people among them of course, though, for my
part, I have always had a horror of the way they treated the witches;
not that I approve of witchcraft, which is of course as wicked as
possible, and even the witch of Endor, I suppose, could hardly be
defended upon moral grounds, whatever you may do upon historical--which
are so much the fashion nowadays, though I, for one, can't abide
them--making out as they do that everything is a falsehood, and that
even Pocahontas was not a respectable person; I don't know what they
will attack next, I'm sure; Pocahontas was our _only_ interesting
Indian. Not that I care for Indians, don't fancy that; the Seminoles
particularly; I'm always so glad that they've gone down to live in the
Everglades, half under water; if anything could take down their
savageness, I should think it would be that. I know them very well, of
course--the Thornes, not the Seminoles--though perhaps I was never
_quite_ so intimate with them as Pamela Kirby was (she's dead now, poor
soul! _so_ sad for her!), for Pamela used to give Garda lessons; she
moulded her, as she called it, taught her to shoot--of course I mean the
young idea, and not guns. In fact, they have all had a hand in it--the
moulding of Garda; too many, I think, for _I_ believe in _one_
overruling eye, and if you get round that, there's the good old proverb
that remains pretty true, after all, I reckon, the one about too many
cooks, though in this case the broth has been saved by the little
mother, who is a very Napoleon in petticoats, and never forgets a thing;
she actually remembers a thing _before_ it has happened; Methuselah
himself couldn't do more, though, come to think of it, I suppose very
little had happened in the world before _his_ day--excepting trilobites,
that we used to read about in school. And Mistress Thorne knows all
about _them_, you may be sure, just as well as Methuselah did; for she
was a teacher, to begin with, a prim little New England school marm whom
poor Eddie Thorne met by accident one summer when he went north, and
fell in love with, as I have always supposed, from sheer force of
contrast, like Beauty and the Beast, you know--not that she was a
beast, of course, though poor Eddie _was_ very handsome, but still I
remember that everybody wondered, because it had been thought that he
would marry the sister of Madame Giron, who had hair that came down to
her feet. However, I ought to say that poor little Mistress Thorne has
certainly done her very best to acquire our southern ways; she has
actually tried to make herself over, root, stem, and branch, from her
original New England sharpness to our own softer temperament, though I
always feel sure, at the same moment, that, in the core of the rock, the
old sap burns still--like the soul under the ribs of death, you know;
not that I mean that exactly (though she _is_ thin), but simply that the
leopard cannot change his spots, nor the zebra his stripes, nor," added
the good lady--altering her tone to solemnity as she perceived that her
language was becoming Biblical--"the wild _cony_ her _young_. Just to
give you an idea of what I mean, Mr. Winthrop: for a long time after she
first came to Gracias that little creature used regularly to parse
twenty-four pages of 'Paradise Lost' every day, as a sort of mental
tonic, I reckon, against what she thought the enervating tendencies of
our southern life here--like quinine, you know; and as she parsed so
much, she was naturally obliged to quote, as a sort of safety-valve,
which was very pleasant of course and very intellectual, though I never
care much for quotations myself, they are so diffuse, and besides, with
all your efforts, you cannot make 'Paradise Lost' appropriate to all the
little daily cares of life and house-keeping, which no true woman, I
think, should be above; for though Eve _did_ set a table for the angel,
that was merely poetical and not like real life in the least, for she
only had fruits, and no dishes probably but leaves, that you could throw
away afterwards, which was _very_ different from nice china, I can
assure you, for you may not know, not being a house-keeper, that as
regards china _nowadays_--our old blue sets--our servants are not in the
_least_ careful not to nick; I don't enter here into the great question
of emancipation for the slaves, _but_--nick they _will_! Mistress Thorne
speaks like 'Paradise Lost' to this day, and, what is more, she has
taught Garda to speak in the same way--just like a book; only Garda's
book is her own, you never know what she is going to say next, she
turns about in all sorts of shapes, like those kaleidoscopes they used
to give us children when I was little, only _she_ never rattles (they
did, dreadfully)--for I am sure a softer voice _I_ never heard, unless
it was that of the Old Madam, who used to say in velvet tones the most
ferocious things you ever heard. Ah, you should have seen her!--straight
as an arrow, and they said she was ninety for over thirty years, which
of course was impossible, even if she had wished it, which I doubt, for
there is the well-known Bible age of threescore years and ten, and to
have exceeded it to _that_ extent would have been irreverent. She was
poor Eddie Thorne's aunt, the sister of his mother, a Duero and a
tremendous one, dyed in ancestors to the core; every one was afraid of
her but Garda, and Garda she took complete charge of as long as she
lived, though Mistress Thorne did what she could on the outskirts--_not_
much, I fancy, for the Old Madam declared that the child was a true
Duero and should be brought up as one, which seemed to mean principally
that she should swing in the hammock, and not learn verbs. I _think_
Mistress Thorne began to teach Garda verbs the day after the funeral; at
least when I went down there to pay a visit of condolence I found her
with a grammar in her hand, and a good deal of cheerfulness under the
circumstances--a good deal! The first Edgar Thorne, the one who came out
from England, is said to have been a man of a good deal of force of
character, for he kept a coach and four, and at that early day, on these
pine-barrens, it almost seemed as if he must have created them by magic,
which makes one think of Cinderella and her rats, doesn't it? And
indeed, in this case, the horses did turn into rats, as one may say,
before their very eyes; the poor Thornes have no horses _now_" said the
kind-hearted lady, pausing to shake her head sympathetically, and then
speeding on again. "They say that rats desert a sinking ship--though I
have always wondered how, since ships are not apt to sink at the piers,
are they?--and I never heard that rats could make rafts, though
squirrels can, they say--a bit of plank with their tails put up as a
sail, though of course rats' tails would never do for that, they are so
thin; but if rats _do_ desert their ship, Mistress Thorne will _never_
desert hers, she will keep the Thorne colors flying to the last, and go
down, if down she must, with the silent courage of the Spartan
boy--although it was a fox he had gnawing him, wasn't it? and not a rat;
but it makes no difference, it's the principle that's important, not the
illustration. Garda's name is really Edgarda, Edgarda after all the
Thornes, who, it seems, have been Edgars and Edgardas for centuries,
which I should think must have been very inconvenient, for, just to
mention one thing, they could never have signed their names in initials,
because that would have meant fathers and sons and brothers and sisters
indiscriminately, in fact all of them except the wives, who, having come
in from outside families, would be able, fortunately, to be plain Mary
and Jane. I am very fond of Garda, as indeed we all are; and I think she
has wonderful beauty, don't you?--though _rather_ Spanish perhaps. When
she was about twelve years old I was afraid that the tinge of her mother
in her was going to make her thin; but Nature fortunately prevented that
in time, for you know that once an elbow gets fixed in the habit of
being sharp, sharp it remains to the end of the chapter, though you may
have pounds and pounds both above and below it, which seems strange,
doesn't it? though of course it must serve some good purpose, as we
ought all to believe. And that reminds me to say that I hope dear
Katrina has gained flesh since she left school, for she used to be
rather too slender (though _very_ handsome otherwise), so that, in
profile view, you couldn't help thinking of a paper-cutter, and you
doubted whether she could even cast a shadow--like the man without a
shadow, you remember, who used to double his up and put it in his
pocket--only of course dear Katrina was never anything horrible like
that, and, after all, why we should _wish_ to cast shadows I am sure I
don't know; certainly there are enough of them, as it is, in this vale
of tears. If you like, I will take you down some day to call upon the
Thornes; they will be delighted to see us and we shall be like angels'
visits, few and far between, or fair as a star when only _one_; I _hope_
you like poetry--you modern young gentlemen have such a way of being
above it! But Mr. Carew was always very fond of Mrs. Hemans."
The monologues of Mr. Carew's relict could with the utmost ease be
regulated, their flowing currents turned aside into another channel
(from which they never came back to the first one), or stopped entirely,
by any one who wished to accomplish it, the lady's boundless good-nature
preventing her from even perceiving that she had been interrupted. But
Evert Winthrop had no wish to interrupt, he was enjoying the current's
vagaries; upon this occasion, therefore, it pursued its way unchecked to
the end--a thing which rarely happened, all Gracias having the habit of
damming it temporarily, turning it aside, or stopping it abruptly, in a
brisk manner which showed long usage.
To-day, when at last this easy-tempered lady paused of her own accord,
Winthrop accepted her invitation promptly; he spoke of coming for her
with a carriage the next afternoon; he should enjoy seeing something of
the interior, those singular roads across the barrens which were so old
and untouched and yet in such perfect condition--so he had been told.
When he had brought his little speech to a close, his hostess gave way
to laughter (her laugh was hearty, her whole amplitude took part in it).
"But this isn't interior," she said, "this is coast; East Angels is down
the river, south of here; when I said I would take you, I meant in a
boat."
She had in her mind Uncle Cato, and the broad, safe, old row-boat,
painted black and indefinite as to bow and stern, which that venerable
negro propelled up and down the Espiritu as custom required. But instead
of voyaging in this ancient bark, Winthrop persuaded her to intrust
herself to the rakish-looking little craft, sloop-rigged, which he had
engaged for his own use among the lagoons during his stay in Gracias, a
direct descendant, no doubt, of the swift piratical barks of the
wreckers and smugglers who, until a very recent date, had infested the
Florida keys. Once on board, Mrs. Carew adjured the man at the helm to
"keep the floor straight at any price," and then seating herself, and
seizing hold of the first solid object she could find, she tightly
closed her eyes and did not again open them, being of the opinion
apparently that the full force of a direct glance would infallibly upset
the boat. She had postponed their visit for a day, in order that she
might have time to send Uncle Cato down to East Angels, with a note
saying that they were coming. Stately Raquel, in a freshly starched
turban, was therefore in waiting to open the lower door; Mrs. Thorne's
best topics were arranged in order in her mind, as well as orange wine
and wafers upon her sideboard, and Garda also, neither asleep in the
hammock nor wandering afield with the crane, was in readiness, sitting
expectant in an old mahogany arm-chair, attired in her best gown. Poor
Garda had but two gowns to choose from, both faded, both old; but the
one called best had been lately freshened and mended by the skilful
hands of the tireless mother.
"When that little woman dies, some of her mendings ought to be enclosed
in a glass case and set up over her grave as a monument, I do declare!"
said Mrs. Carew, as, again voluntarily blinded, she sailed back to
Gracias with Winthrop over the sunset-tinted water. "Did you notice that
place on Garda's left sleeve? But of course you didn't. Well, it was a
perfect miracle of patience, which Job himself couldn't have equalled
(and certainly the Thornes are as poor as Job, and Carlos might well be
the turkey); as black silk, or even black thread, would have shone--they
_will_ shine, you know, in spite of all you can do, even if you ink
them--she had actually used ravellings, and _alpaca_ ravellings--you
know what _they_ are! Don't you think it would be nicer to have that
sail out sideways, as it was when we came down, and go straight, instead
of slanting in this way back and forth across the river?"
Evert Winthrop, thus introduced, had received from the mistress of East
Angels an invitation to repeat his visit. He had repeated it several
times. It was easy to do this, as, in addition to the piratical little
craft already mentioned, he had engaged a saddle-horse, and was now
amusing himself exploring the old roads that led southward.
Upon returning from one of these rides he found awaiting him a letter
from the North. It was from his aunt, Mrs. Rutherford, and contained the
intelligence that she was coming southward immediately, having been
ordered to a warmer climate on account of the "threatenings of
neuralgia, that tiresome neuralgia, my dear boy, that makes my life such
a burden. I am so tired of Pau and Nice that, instead of crossing that
cold ocean again, I have suddenly made up my mind to come down and join
you under the blue sky you have discovered down there--Egypt, you say,
Egypt without the ruins; but as I am a good deal of a ruin myself just
now, I shall not mind that lack; in fact, can supply it in my own
person. My love to Betty Carew; I shall be delighted to see her again
after all these years. Margaret comes with me, of course, and we shall
probably follow this letter without much delay."
Winthrop was surprised. He knew that his aunt was fond of what she
patriotically called her "own country;" but he should have said that she
would not probably consider that there was any of it worth her personal
consideration south of Philadelphia, or, at the utmost, south of
Baltimore and Washington. This amiably blind lady was, however, a great
traveller, in her leisurely way she had taken long journeys across
Europe and the East; if she did not know the Mississippi, she knew the
Nile; if Shasta was a stranger to her eyes, the Finsteraarhorn and
Vesuvius were old friends. Shasta, indeed!--where was Shasta? She had
once been to Niagara Falls.
Her nephew smiled to himself as he thought that probably, in her own
mind, her present undertaking wore much of the air of an exploring
expedition, the kind of tour through remote regions that people made
sometimes, and then wrote books about--books with a great many
illustrations.
But Mrs. Rutherford would write no books. This lady noticed but slightly
the characteristics of the countries through which she passed, she never
troubled her mind with impressions, or burdened it with comparisons. She
seldom visited "objects of interest," but was always "rather tired" when
the appointed hour came, and thought she would lie down for a while;
they could tell her about it afterwards. Yet in her easy, irresponsible
fashion she enjoyed travelling; she liked new scenes and new people,
especially new people. In the evening, after a quiet (but excellent)
little dinner, and twenty minutes or so of lady-like tranquillity after
it, Mrs. Rutherford was always pleased to see the new people aforesaid;
and it could with truth be added that the new people were, as a general
thing, equally pleased to see her. She was a handsome, stately woman,
with agreeable manners, and so well-dressed that that alone was a
pleasure--a pleasure to the eyes; it was an attire rich and quiet, which
combined with extraordinary skill the two often sadly dissevered
qualities of personal becomingness and adaptation to the fashion of the
hour.
Evert Winthrop was much attached to his aunt. Associated with her were
the happiest memories of his childhood. He knew that her strongest love
had not been given to him, it had been given to her other nephew, his
cousin Lansing Harold. But of Lansing she had had entire charge from his
birth, he had been to her like her own child, while Andrew Winthrop had
kept closely in his own care his motherless little son Evert, allowing
him to spend only his vacations with his aunt Katrina--who was spoiling
one boy (so thought the New-Englander) as fast as possible, but who
should not be permitted to spoil another. These vacations, so grudgingly
granted, had been very happy times for the little Evert, and their
memory remained with him still. As he grew older he had gradually become
conscious of some of the traits and tendencies of his aunt's mind, apart
from his boyish idea of her, as we generally do become conscious, by
degrees, of the traits (as they are estimated by others) of even those
who are nearest and dearest, save in the case of our parents, who remain
always, beautifully always, "father" and "mother" to the end, precious
beyond all analysis, all comparison. Separating itself, therefore, from
the delightful indulgence with which she had sweetened his boyhood days,
separating itself from his own unquestioning childish belief in her,
there had gradually come to Evert Winthrop (though without any
diminution of his affection for her) the consciousness that his aunt's
nature was a narrow one. Her narrowness could have been summed up
roughly in the statement that her views upon every subject were purely
personal ones. It was difficult to realize how personal they were,
Winthrop himself, well as he knew her, had only within the past five or
six years become fully conscious of the absolute predominance of the
principle. No one besides himself had had the opportunity to make the
same discovery, save possibly--so he had sometimes thought with a
smile--the departed Peter Rutherford, the lady's husband. But Peter
Rutherford, among many excellent qualities, had not been endowed with a
delicate observation, and indeed having been of a robust and simple
nature, he had had small respect for the talent, at least in a man,
associating it vaguely with a knowledge of millinery, with a taste for
spelling-games and puzzles, for cake and religious novels--things he
considered unworthy of the masculine mind. His wife's nephew, however,
though not a judge of millinery, and not interested in the mild
entertainments and literature referred to, possessed observation in
abundance, and with regard to his aunt he had not been able to keep it
from exercising itself, at least to a certain degree. He had
discovered--he had been unable to help discovering--the secret springs
that moved much of her speech; and these springs were so simple that, in
a complicated age, they seemed extraordinary. Her opinions of persons
(he knew it now) were based entirely upon the narrow but well-defined
foundation of their behavior to herself.
Concerning people with whom she had no personal acquaintance, she was
utterly without opinions; no matter how eminent they might be, they were
no more to her than so much sand of the shore. You might talk to her
about them by the hour, and she would listen approvingly, or at least
quite without contradiction. People spoke of her, therefore, as very
appreciative, and, for a woman, broad-minded. What, in truth, can be
more broad-minded in one of the sex most given to partisanship than to
be able to listen with unprejudiced attention to the admirers of the
Rev. Mr. A., the distinguished High-Church clergyman, and then the very
next day to the friends of the Rev. Mr. B., equally eminent, but Low; to
the devotees of the C. family, who trace their descent directly from old
English barons--passing over, of course, that unimportant ancestor who
happened to have been the one to cross to the New World, and who,
immediately after his arrival, engaged in blacksmithing, and became in
time the best blacksmith the struggling little colony possessed--to
listen, I say, to the partisans of this ancient race, and then to
hearken the next afternoon with equal equanimity to warm praise of the
D.'s, who, having made their great fortune so vigorously in the present
generation, are engaged in spending it with a vigor equally
commendable--what, indeed, could be broader than this? It never occurred
to these talkers that A. and B., the C.'s and the D.'s, alike, were all
non-existent bodies, nebulae, to Mrs. Peter Rutherford so long as she was
not personally acquainted with them, so long as their names were not
upon her visiting list.
But when once this had been discovered, as Evert Winthrop had discovered
it, it made everything clear; it was perfectly easy to understand her,
easy to see how simple the opinions appeared to the lady herself, since
they had to do merely with a series of facts. If Mr. X. had been polite
to her, if he had been attentive, deferential, he was without doubt (if
at all presentable) a most delightful and praiseworthy person in every
way. If Mr. X. had been civil to a certain extent, yet on the whole
rather indifferent, he was a little dull, she thought; a good sort of a
man perhaps, but not interesting; tiresome. If Mr. X. had simply left
her alone, without either civility or incivility, she was apt to have
mysterious intuitions about him, intuitions which she mentioned,
confidentially of course, to her friends; little things which she had
noticed--indications. Of bad temper? Or was it bad habits? It was
something bad, at any rate; she was very ingenious in reading the signs.
But if Mr. X. had been guilty of actual rudeness (a quality which she
judged strictly by the standard of her own hidden but rigorous
requirements), Mr. X. was immediately thrust beyond the pale, there was
no good in him; in the way of odious traits there was nothing which she
did not attribute to him at one time or another, she could even hint at
darker guilt. She wondered that people should continue to receive him,
and to her dying day she never forgot to give, upon opportunity, her
well-aimed thrust--a thrust all the more effective because masked by her
reputation for amiability and frank, liberal qualities.
As, however, people generally were sufficiently attentive, this lady's
judgments seldom reached the last-mentioned stage, a condition of things
which she herself was the first to approve, because (this was the most
curious shade of her disposition) she believed fully in her own
opinions, and would have disliked greatly to "have anything to do with
unprincipled persons." But the world at large had no suspicion of these
intricacies; to the world at large Mrs. Rutherford was a handsome,
amiable woman, who, possessing a good fortune, a good house in New York,
a good old country-place on the Sound, and much hospitality, was
considered to be above petty criticisms--criticisms which would do for
people less pleasing, less well-endowed.
But though he read his aunt's nature, Winthrop was none the less
attached to her; it might be said, perhaps, with more accuracy, that he
was fond of her. He had been a very lonely little boy, his father while
loving him deeply had been strict with him, and had permitted him few
amusements, few companions; to go, therefore, and spend a month with his
aunt Katrina, to taste her indulgent kindness and enjoy the liberty she
allowed, to have her come and kiss him good-night, and talk to him about
his beautiful mother, to have her take him up on her lap and pet him
when he was a tired-out, drooping little fellow after immense exertions
with his big cousin Lanse, to hear her stories about his uncle Evert
(after whom he had been named)--that wonderful Uncle Evert who had gone
down to Central America to see the Aztecs--these things had been deeply
delightful at the time to the child, whose nature was reserved and
concentrated. And if the details were no longer distinct, now that he
was a man, the general remembrance at least was always there, the
remembrance of happy hours and motherly caresses. He therefore welcomed
the idea of his aunt's coming to Gracias. Though what Mrs. Peter
Rutherford would be able to find in that sleepy little hamlet in the way
of entertainment, he did not pretend to have discovered.
Five days later the party arrived, his aunt, her niece Mrs. Harold, her
maid Celestine.
As he greeted Mrs. Rutherford, Winthrop remarked to himself, as he had
remarked many times before, that his aunt was a fine-looking woman. Mrs.
Rutherford was sixty years of age, tall, erect, with a well-cut profile,
and beautiful gray hair, which lay in soft waves, like a silvery cloud,
above her fine dark eyes. The state of her health had evidently not
interfered with the arrangement of this aureola, neither had it relaxed
in any degree the grave perfection of her attire; her bonnet was a
model of elegance and simplicity, her boot, as she stepped from the
carriage, was seen to be another model of elegance and good sense. Mrs.
Rutherford loved elegance. But Mrs. Rutherford loved indolence as well,
and indolence never constructed or kept in order an appearance such as
hers; the person (of very different aspect) who followed her, laden with
baskets, cushions, and shawls, was the real architect of this fine
structure, from the soft waves of hair to the well-shaped boot; this
person was Celestine, the maid.
Celestine's real name was Minerva Poindexter. Her mistress, not liking
the classic appellation, had changed it to Celestine, the Poindexter
being dropped entirely. Mrs. Rutherford was accustomed to say that this
was her one deliberate affectation--she affected to believe that
Celestine was French; the maid, a tall, lean, yellow-skinned woman,
reticent and unsmiling, might have been French or Scotch, Portuguese or
Brazilian, as far as appearance went, tall, lean women of unmarried
aspect being a product scattered in regular, if limited, quantities over
the face of the entire civilized globe. As she seldom opened her lips,
her nationality could not be determined by an inquiring public from her
speech. There were those, however, who maintained that Celestine knew
all languages, that there was a dark omniscience about her. In reality
she was a Vermont woman, who had begun life as a country dress-maker--a
country dress-maker with great natural talent but no opportunities. The
opportunities had come later, they came when she was discovered by Mrs.
Peter Rutherford. This tall Vermont genius had now filled for many years
a position which was very congenial to her, though it would have been
considered by most persons a position full of difficulties. For Mrs.
Rutherford required in her personal attendant talents which are
generally supposed to be conflicting: esteeming her health very
delicate, she wished to be minutely watched and guarded by an
experienced nurse, a nurse who should take to heart conscientiously the
responsibilities of her charge; yet at the same time she cherished that
deep interest in the constantly changing arcana of feminine attire for
which it is supposed that only a skilful but probably immoral Parisian
can suffice.
But the keen New England eyes of Minerva Poindexter had an instant
appreciation of such characteristics of arriving fashions as could be
gracefully adopted by her handsome mistress, whose best points she
thoroughly understood, and even in a certain way admired, though as
regarded herself, and indeed all the rest of womankind, she approved
rigidly of that strict neutrality of surface, that ignoring of all
merely corporeal points, which is so striking a characteristic of the
monastic heavenly paintings of Fra Angelico. At the same moment,
however, that her New England eyes were exercising their natural talent,
her New England conscience, equally keen, made her a nurse of unmatched
qualities, albeit she was perhaps something of a martinet. But with
regard to her health Mrs. Rutherford rather liked to be domineered over.
She liked to be followed about by shawls (her shawls were always
beautiful, never having that niggardly, poverty-stricken aspect which
such feminine draperies, when reserved for use in the house, are apt to
assume); she liked to be vigilantly watched with regard to draughts; she
liked to have her pulse felt, to have cushions, handsomely covered in
rich colors, placed behind her well-dressed back. Especially did she
like to be presented, at fixed hours, with little tea-spoonfuls of
homoeopathic medicine, which did not taste badly, but which,
nevertheless, it always required some urging to induce her to take; the
urging--in fact, the whole system, regularly persevered in--could give
variety to the dullest day.
After greeting his aunt, Winthrop turned to speak to Celestine. By way
of reply Celestine gave a short nod, and looked in another direction. In
reality she was delighted with his notice, but this was her way of
showing it. The two boys, Evert Winthrop and Lansing Harold, Mrs.
Rutherford's nephews, had been her pets from childhood; but even in the
old days her manner towards them had always been so curt and taciturn
that they used to consider it a great triumph when they had succeeded in
drawing out Minerva's laugh--for they always called her Minerva behind
Mrs. Rutherford's back. It may be that this had had something to do with
her liking for them; for, in her heart, Miss Poindexter considered her
baptismal name both a euphonious and dignified one, and much to be
preferred to the French frivolity of the title to which she was obliged
to answer.
"But where is Margaret?" said Mrs. Rutherford, turning.
A third person, who had been looking at the new scene about her--the
orange-trees, the palmettoes, the blue water of the Espiritu beyond the
low sea-wall, and the fringe of tropical forest on Patricio
opposite--now stepped from the carriage.
"I was beginning to think that there had been some change of plan, Mrs.
Harold, and that you had not come," said Winthrop, going back to the
carriage to assist her.
Margaret Harold smiled. Her smile was a very pleasant one; she and
Winthrop greeted each other with what seemed like a long-established,
though quiet and well-governed, coldness.