Presentiments.
Mr. Granger's family took the full benefit of their holiday at
the seaside. They rose before the lark, and watched the days come
in: radiant, solemn mornings, all light and silence; tender,
mist-veiled dawns, less like day than a dream of day; and angry,
magnificent sunrises, blazing with stormy colors all over the
sky, soon to be quenched in a fine gray fall of rain.
They lay in hammocks slung out under the pine-trees, till nature
adopted them for her own, and little wild creatures came and went
about them unscared.
"Margaret," Mrs. Lewis called, one day, out of her hammock over
to the other, "you remember how the foxes went to St.
Francis--wasn't it St. Francis?--and held out their paws to shake
hands with him, and said, 'How do you do, St. Francis?' and he
gave them his hand, and said, 'How do you do?"'
"I remember nothing of the kind," was the indignant reply. "But I
know that Robinson Cru--"
"O fie!" cries the little lady. "Why won't you own that my legend
is beautiful and sublime, whether true or not? And it will be
true when the kingdom comes for which all good people pray. For
the last hour I have been trying to get acquainted with a
squirrel; but just as I thought that he understood me, and as I
was about to offer my hand to him, the little wretch darted away.
At this moment he is perched in the very top of a pine-tree, and
peering down at me as if I were a hyena. Alas!"
They wandered on the beach at evening, singing, talking, silent;
or if in merry mood, skooning little flat stones over the water,
and counting how many wave-tips they would trip before falling.
"_Mon armant m'aime--un peu--beaucoup--passionnément--pas du
tout!_" laughed Mrs. Lewis, seeing Miss Hamilton counting to
herself. "You must only try that oracle in flower petals, my
dear. To count it in salt water signifies tears."
Sometimes they floated out in the harbor, and felt the fresh
breath of the ocean, while the treacherous waters lapped, and
fawned, and gurgled about the bows of their boat, and overhead
the sky was thick with stars.
All this was not with the ladies mere idle pleasure, but was as
seriously planned as it was heartily enjoyed. They had resolved
that whatever exciting discussions and differences the gentlemen
should have abroad, at home they should find nothing but peace.
Politics were banished; and they sometimes even restrained their
impatience to hear the war-news when they suspected that the
relation was likely to produce any unpleasant entanglement.
Without being religious, they yet had some perception of a
pathway lying changeless and peaceful, far above parties and
nationalities, and they felt that woman's proper place is there.
The gentlemen soon learned to submit to a restraint which they
would never have imposed on themselves. When they stepped out at
the little station near their cottage, their discussions were at
an end.
{304}
"There is our flag of truce," Mr. Lewis would say, pointing to
the thread of smoke that showed, over the trees, Mrs. James's
kitchen-fire just kindled to prepare their dinner. "Understand,
Mr. Southard, I oppose both you and Louis tooth and nail, and I'd
like to fight it out with you now. But our time is up; and there
are three little girls behind the trees there who would break
their hearts if we should go home with cross faces. Let's shake
hands till next time."
The only news of which they could all speak fearlessly and with
pleasure was what concerned Mr. Granger's cousin. Scarcely a week
passed that did not bring some laudation of him. He was one of
those men who, without effort, are always conspicuous wherever
they go. Opportunities that others sought with pain presented
themselves unsought to him; and he had a gallant, dashing, and,
withal, a lordly way that embellished even brilliant exploits.
"Upon my word," his cousin said, "at this rate it is not
impossible that he may be made lieutenant-general."
Mr. Southard was, perhaps, the hardest to keep within bounds,
probably because he felt himself religiously obliged to "cry
aloud and spare not." But even he was subdued after a while. He
seemed indeed too dependent on the ladies to willingly offend
them. All the time he was not in the city he spent in their
company, unbending as much as was possible to him, that his
presence might not be a restraint on their pleasures. He brought
his books to the parlor, and had his special corner there, the
"lion's den," he called it, with a slight touch of reproach in
his voice, when he saw how the others kept away from its
vicinity. He rendered himself agreeable in many ways. He read
aloud to them, he played and sang for them, sometimes he took the
brush from Miss Hamilton's hand, and helped her with a bolder
line than she could achieve.
"It takes a strong hand to give a fine stroke," she said. "Where
I would be delicate, I am only soft." "Let me finish this for
you, since the stippling is done," he said, as she paused to
contemplate a major-general reposing pacifically on her easel. "I
will not touch the face. Say what you will, there is a softness
and richness in your shading which I can never attain. I may have
a fine or bold touch, but it is hard. Shall I deepen this
background a little to throw the figure out? And may I intensify
his shoulder-straps?"
Margaret left her work to him, and, taking possession of his den,
divided her attention between a book, and watching Dora at play
with Aurelia outside.
Since they left the city the child had been set loose from all
city restraints, and turned out to consort with bees and
grasshoppers, harrowing the soul of Mrs. James by the number and
heinousness of her soiled frocks and stockings, but drawing in
full draughts of health. Both Dora and her father were bankers.
But his bank in the city dealt in paper and specie; hers was a
flower-bank. When she wanted him to buy her anything, she brought
him buttercups, which were gold dollars with handles to them, and
he scrupulously kept account and returned her change. No lover
could wear in his buttonhole the rosebud presented by his lady's
hand with a more tender pride than this father cherished for the
bunch of wildflowers given him by his little daughter.
{305}
Mrs. Lewis approached the minister's table, and began turning
over his books. "I don't know anything," she said mournfully,
opening a Greek copy of Homer, and passing her fingers
caressingly over the dear little quaint letters. "Wallace, wasn't
it?--that poor Horace Binney--
'Doubly dead,
In that he died so young,'
writes of the 'arrowy certainty of Grecian phrases.' Woe is me! I
cannot get at the point. I can only see the feathering."
Margaret looked up with an exclamation from the book in her hand.
"Listen! Coleridge, _à propos_ of having republished his
earlier poems without correction, writes, 'I was afraid of
disentangling the weed for fear of snapping the flower.'
Snapping! only a poet would have chosen that word. The
flower-stem that you can _snap_ must be of sudden and
luxuriant growth, made up of water and color, with just fibre
enough to hold the two together. As I read that, I thought
instantly of a red tulip bursting up bright and hasty through the
moist, warm mould. That sends me outdoors. I want to see weeds
and flowers growing tangled together."
"Wait a little and let me go with you," Mr. Southard said. "And
meantime let Mrs. Lewis read us one of her poems, as she promised
to do."
Mrs. Lewis had been for years one of those pretty lady writers of
which the country is full, by no means an artist, or dreaming of
any such distinction, but writing acceptably to her friends, and
sometimes pleasing a not too critical public. But she had abjured
the pen from the day when a friendly publisher, meaning to
compliment her, issued a volume of "Extracts" from her writings.
"A volume!" she cried in dismay. "Why not a bottle? There were my
poor little fancies torn from their homes and set up in rows,
like flies and bugs transfixed on pins. I shuddered. I wrote no
more."
"I forgive you for asking me," she said to Mr. Southard. "I dare
say you want to hear my rhyme, and will think it very pretty. And
she read:
Beating The Bars.
"0 morning air! O pale, pure fire!
Wrap and consume my bonds away.
This stifling mesh of sordid flesh
Shuts in my spirit from the day.
"Through sudden chinks the radiance blinks,
And drives the winged creature wild.
She hears rejoice each ringing voice,
She guesses at each happy child.
"In fleeting glints are shining hints
Of freer beings, good and glad;
Her dream can trace each lovely face,
Each form, in lofty beauty clad.
"She hears the beat of joyous feet
That break no flower, fear no thorn;
And almost feels the breeze that steals
From out the ever-growing morn.
"She hears the flow of voices low,
And strains to catch the half-known tongue.
She hears the gush of streams that rush
Their thrilling waters into one.
"With longing sighs, her baffled eyes
She sets where burn the unseen stars.
With frantic heats her wings she beats,
And breaks them on the stubborn bars.
"O light!' she cries, 'unseal mine eyes,
Or blind me in thine ardent glow.
O life and breath! O life in death!
O bonds! dissolve, and let me go.
"'Let drop this crust of cankering rust,
The only crown my brow hath won;
Shake off the sears of briny tears,
And dry my pinions in the sun!'"
"You don't mean it!" exclaimed Margaret.
"My dear," said Mrs. Lewis, "I do not mean it as a rule, but as
an exception. That was written during my equinoctial."
Miss Hamilton waited for an explanation.
"You don't know it yet," the lady continued, "but you will learn
in time that every woman has her line-gale. It usually comes
between thirty and forty, sooner or later, and is more or less
violent. After that, we settle down and let the snows fall on
us."
Ending, she laughed a little; but there was a tightening of the
lines about the mouth that showed at least remembered pain.
{306}
Margaret, going out, stopped to look over Mr. Southard's
shoulder, drawn there by the absent, dreamy expression of his
face. If he was painting backgrounds, she thought, what mountains
of melting blue, what far-away waters, half cloud, half glitter,
must be stealing to life beneath his hand!
He had placed a blank sheet on the easel, and was idly covering
it with fragmentary improvisations. Under the heading of
"synonyms" he had written, "_Cogito quia sum, et sum quia
cogito_," the text illustrated by a drawing of a cat running
round after her own tail.
"Or a mouse going in at the same hole it came out from," thought
Margaret.
He drew steady, straight lines, crossing them off with wonderful
regularity; then some airy grace stole down to the tips of his
firm white fingers, and the ends of the lines leaved and budded
out, audacious tendrils draped the severest angles, and stars and
crescents peeped through the spaces. Half impatiently he returned
to geometrical figures; but pentagons grouped themselves to look
like five-petaled blossoms or star-crystals of frost, and
hexagons gathered themselves into a mosaic pavement whereon a
sandalled foot was set.
"This is the Nile," he said, going over all with bold, flowing
lines; "and here comes Cleopatra's barge, the dusky queen dropped
among her cushions, a line of steady glow showing under each
lowered eyelid, cords of cool pearls trying in vain to press into
quiet her untamable pulses.
"This is a close-shut forest solitude, with a carpet of greenest,
softest moss, whereon I lie like Danae while the heavens shower
gold on me."
Then, with a start, came recollection, and the rush-tip became an
asp to the Egyptian, and the Greek was drowned in ink.
"Come out!" he said abruptly. "The air is close here."
"Will you come, Mrs. Lewis?" asked Miss Hamilton, looking back
from the door.
The lady shook her head in an exhausted manner.
"Aura," said Margaret when they reached the veranda," will you
come down to the beach with us?"
"Thank you, dear," said Aurelia gently, "I do not care to go."
Miss Hamilton's eyes flashed a little impatiently. She did not
like the way in which they withdrew themselves when she was with
Mr. Southard. But after going a few steps, she glanced back at
Aurelia, and the two smiled. At the moment it struck her that
there was something new in Miss Lewis's expression, an unusual
seriousness and dignity under her sweetness.
The day was sultry, but otherwise perfect, the green as fresh as
at spring, the harbor purple and sparkling, and the sky a deep
azure, except where a rim of darkness lay piled around the north
and west, cloud-peaks and cliffs showing as hard and sharp as if
hewn of stone, but illuminated now and then by lightnings that
stirred uneasily within them, changing their dense shadows to
molten gold, or leaping in dazzling crinkled flashes from point
to point. It seemed a gala-day of nature, so wide, so brilliant,
so consciously beautiful was everything.
"'Visibly in his garden walketh God!'" quoted Margaret, looking
abroad with delight.
"The god Pan, you mean," said the minister, whose little sparkle
of gayety seemed to have been suddenly extinguished.
"The Creator pronounced his work good," she said.
"Yes; but we have changed all that," was the reply. "We have put
the heart in the wrong place."
{307}
"Moses and Molière," thought Miss Hamilton, amused at the
juxtaposition; then added aloud, "Christ pointed to the lilies of
the field."
"For a moral and a reproof, yes. He made them not a text, but the
illustration of a text. This delight in inanimate nature is not
harmful if subordinate to the thought of God; otherwise it is a
lure. It leads to materialism, or to sentimental religion that is
worse than none, since it bars the way to a true piety."
Margaret made no reply. In spite of herself, his remarks
depressed her, and cast some faint shadow over the beauty of the
scene.
"The breakers are coming in," Mr. Southard said presently, in a
tone of voice that showed his regretful sense of having been
disagreeable. "We shall have a tempest."
They had reached the shore, and stood looking off over the water,
The liquid emerald wave they watched came rolling toward them,
paused an instant, then rose and flung itself at their feet,
rustling away in foam and sliding, silky water, no longer a
breaker, but a broken.
"Mr. Southard," Margaret said after a minute, "you know that I
would like to be religious, if I knew how; but it doesn't seem
possible. I am like one who, in the dark, wanting to get into a
house, knocks all about the walls without finding a door. I am
trying--in a sort of way--" She hesitated. What would he say if
he knew in what way she was trying?
"Give up all," he said; "forget self; and think only of God."
"What you propose to me is not a path, but a pedestal!" she
exclaimed, turning from him to go back to the house. "And I am
not marble."
He followed her, looking both hurt and annoyed. Outside the door
she stopped, and bending toward a little cluster of violets that
grew there, shook a warning finger in their innocent blue eyes.
"Don't look at me," she said. "You're wicked!"
"Do not give all your kindness to those who think only of your
temporal welfare," said the minister hastily, "Remember those
also who care for your soul."
"Oh! why should I remember those who do me good for God's sake?"
said Miss Hamilton coldly, "Let him reward them; I shall not."
There was no one in the parlor when they went in; but they did
not perceive that at first, it was so dim. The sky had darkened
rapidly, the clouds rolling up as if self-impelled; for there was
scarcely a breath of air stirring. A shadow had swept the sparkle
off the water, and all the western view was shrouded in gloom.
Southward a single point shone out like a torch amid the
surrounding obscurity, a beam of sunlight drop-ping on it through
a cleft cloud, and showing in a golden path visible across the
heavens. Suddenly, like a torch, it was quenched; and all was
darkness.
Mr. Southard stood before an open window, with his hands clasped
be-hind him, and his clear eyes lifted heavenward. Margaret heard
him repeating lowly, "'Canst thou send lightnings, and will they
go, and will they return and say to thee, Here we are?'"
"After all," she said, "God is love, And however circumstances
may hem us in from each other, he looks down on all. Perhaps some
day, lifting us, each after his own way, he will show us not only
himself, but one another, face to face. I think that there are
more mistakes than sins in the world; and God is love."
"God is justice!" said the minister austerely.
{308}
His words were almost lost in a
low rumble of thunder that curdled all about the heavens.
Margaret stood beside him, and looked out at the piled-up
blackness shot through by flying thunderbolts.
"Ossa upon Pelion," she said. "It is the battle of the gods over
again, and Jove is everywhere, 'treading the thunders from the
clouds of air.'"
As she spoke, a flash sprang from the north and a flash from the
west, and caught in their glittering toils the grouped inky
crests of the tempest, that for an instant stood out against the
pale blue of the zenith, a stupendous, writhing Laocoon. Then the
lightnings leaped from that height to the midst of the harbor,
and stung the hissing waves till far and wide they quivered with
a froth of flame. As they fell, the heavens seemed to burst in
one awful report.
There were cries through the house, and the whole family,
servants and all, came rushing into the parlor. Mr. Southard was
leaning against the wall, with both hands over his face. The
shock had been severe, and for a little while he was stunned.
"Are you hurt?" asked Aurelia, going to him at once.
He recovered himself, and looked up. "No. Where is Miss
Hamilton?" Miss Lewis drew back immediately, and showed him
Margaret holding the frightened Dora in her arms and hushing her
cries.
"God be thanked!" he exclaimed. "We have all escaped."
"Are the skies falling?" cried Mrs. Lewis.
It seemed indeed as though they were. That thunder-clap had
loosened the pent rain, and it came pouring down in floods,
veiling them in grayness, the multitudinous plash and patter
mingling with a sound like myriad chariot wheels driving
overhead.
They closed the windows, which immediately became sheeted with
water, the servants went back to their places, Dora took courage,
and ventured to uncover one blue eye, with which she looked
askance at the window. Mrs. Lewis began to take an esthetic view
of the matter, and Miss Hamilton a practical, which she carried
out by setting herself to kindle a fire against the coming of the
absent ones. They were sure to be drenched.
She had wood brought, removed the pine boughs from the fireplace,
and, kneeling on the hearth, began arranging the pile after the
most scientific country fashion, miniature back-log, back-stick,
and fore-stick, then the finished pyramid, sloping smoothly with
the chimney. It was pretty enough to burn, built of birch, amber
and golden-hearted, with bark of silver and cinnamon. Nothing
else in woods so beautiful as those birch colors.
Then it must be lighted with ceremony, being their first fire,
their beltane a little belated. Fresh, drowned roses were
snatched in out of the drip to crown the pyre, and the ladies had
the temerity to despatch the minister, as officiating priest,
with a wax taper, to bring sacred fire from the kitchen grate.
Lucifer matches were not to be thought of.
The lambent flame shone softly out through the chinks, then
reddened and grew broader, tongues of fire lapped the sticks, and
disappeared and reappeared, becoming bolder each time, blistering
brownly the silvery bark, catching at the edges, and rolling it
up and off the sticks. Columns of milk-white smoke rose, propped
by half-sheathed flames, and curled over, mimicking every order
of convolution. Mr. Southard recited:
"'A gleam--a gleam from Ida's height,
By the fire-god sent it came,
From watch to watch it leaped, that light,
As a rider rode the flame.'"
{309}
The smoke shut thickly down, a moment; then a broad blaze burst
out, wrapped the logs, and began to devour them, roaring like a
lion.
The others gathered about the cheerful fire which was reflected
in their faces; but Margaret glanced out at the storm, then went
up to the long chamber entry from which a window looked down the
townward road, and began walking to and fro there, wringing her
hands, and listening to the wind and the rain lash the windows. A
sudden darkness and terror had settled upon her. It was more than
that atmospheric influence to which many are susceptible, more
than a mere vague impression of evil; it was a thought as clearly
defined as if some one had that moment given it utterance in her
hearing, and it held her like a conviction. Some one whom she
knew was at that instant dying, or dead!
Her hands grew cold; she shook as with an ague fit.
She had been too happy. She might have known that it could not
last. She had known it. In all those happy months, had she not
drunk every sweet moment with eager lips that had felt, and must
again feel, the bitterness of thirst? Had she not constantly said
to herself, It is too bright to last?
"I was not meant for earthly happiness," she thought, wringing
her hands.
The walls shook in the clutch of the blast. Noises came up from
the sea; and wild voices answered them from echoing rocks and
from out the hollow woods. A great wall seemed to have risen
between her and paradise, with a ceaseless swing of lightning
guarding the entrance.
She fell on her knees and prayed, one of those terrible,
voiceless prayers when the heart strains upward, but utters no
petition, because it dares not think what it fears or what it
desires.
Leaning exhausted then against the window frame, whom should she
see but her great drenched hero striding down the road, no form
but his, she knew, though a slouched hat covered his face, and a
long cloak wrapped him from neck to heel.
In a flash, the great wall changed its front, and now shut her
inside paradise. She ran joyfully downstairs to open the door,
and caught the wind and rain in her face, but caught also with
them a smile.
"Where is Mr. Lewis?" she asked, thinking of that gentleman by a
happy inspiration.
Mr. Granger stepped in and shook himself like a half-drowned
Newfoundland dog. "Mr. Lewis stopped to drink General Sinclair's
health. He will come down in the next train."
"General?"
"Yes; Maurice is made a brigadier. He doesn't have to climb the
ladder, you see, the ladder comes down to him. And truly he is a
gallant fellow. He goes in front of his men, and laughs at danger
as he laughs at fortune."
"I've got a fire in the parlor for you," she said.
He looked at her smilingly, pleased at the childish delight in
his coming which she did not try to hide. Why should she? "Have
you? That's pleasant. Now help me off with my cloak. I cannot
unfasten that buckle at the back of the neck. Stand on the stair
with the railing between us, that you may not get wet."
As she stood near him, she caught a sweet breath of English
violets.
"I brought them out for you," he said, giving them to her. "See!
not a stem is broken."
{310}
She ran up-stairs to put the flowers in her chamber--they were
too sacred to be shared with others--and coming down, entered the
parlor just after Mr. Granger. Presently Mr. Lewis appeared, and
they had dinner.
The conversation chanced to turn on presentiments; and since they
were all in very friendly humor, Miss Hamilton told of her
afternoon terror, making it as presentable as possible. "I
suffered a few minutes of mortal fear," she said. "I seemed to
_know_ that some dreadful accident had happened to one of
the family. What is the meaning of those impressions that are
often false, but sometimes true, and that come to us so suddenly,
uninvited and unexpected?"
"They are the conclusion of which a woman is one of the
premises," Mr. Lewis said in his rough way. "Did you ever hear of
a man having presentiments? Of course not. He may have if his
liver is out of order; not otherwise."
"I'm not bilious," pouted Miss Hamilton.
Mrs. Lewis had been listening with interest. She was one of those
persons who believe that there are more things in heaven and
earth than are dreamed of in most philosophies. Her husband
called her superstitious.
"I believe in those presentiments which come to us unexpectedly,"
she said. "We may know that they come from outside by the shock
of their coming. We may not be clear. We may think that they
point to the past or the present, when really they indicate the
future. I think that what we call a true presentiment is a
communication from some outside intelligence."
Margaret started and looked uneasily at the speaker. Mr. Lewis
regarded his wife with affectionate contempt. "There's the woman
who always wishes when she sees two white-faced horses coming
toward her, and when she sees the new moon over her right
shoulder, and who won't wear an opal because it's an unlucky gem,
though it is her favorite. That's the way with women. Their
manner of arriving at conclusions is a caution to common sense.
Mrs. Lewis sugared her strawberries, and seemed to soliloquize.
"'Two wings are better than ten legs,' says the butterfly to the
caterpillar."
Mr. Granger good-naturedly came to the rescue. "It is my
opinion," he said, "that these excessively reasonable people make
as many mistakes as the most imaginative, only their mistakes are
not so obvious, though often far worse. They chill fresh
spontaneous feeling, they dampen enthusiasm, they wound hearts
that they cannot heal. In ordinary matters, I set reason above
all; but when we would measure the walls of the new Jerusalem, we
must have a reed of gold, and it must be in the hand of an
angel."
Mr. Southard had also his word to say in defence of woman against
Mr. Lewis's slighting remarks. But his serious defence was more
irritating than the others' laughing attack. He spoke honorably,
and often truly; but in the tone of one who understands the
subject, root and branch. The three ladies listening felt as if
they were three primers with pretty pictures, and nice little
good lessons in large print, which Mr. Southard had read with
edification to himself in the intervals of more serious study.
"Woman," he said, "woman is--" And paused there, catching an
impatient sparkle in Miss Hamilton's eyes.
{311}
"Oh! I know," she exclaimed with the stammering eagerness of a
child who can spell a big word--"I know what woman is!
'_Hominis confusio_.' I--I read it in a book."
The minister sat silent and confounded.
"I propose the health of General Sinclair," said Mr. Lewis.
After dinner the party gathered about the parlor fire, and as it
fell from flame to coal, told stories of hurricanes, and
tornadoes, and shipwrecks, the fearful recitals intensifying
their sense of comfort and safety.
While they talked, the storm passed away, and there was only the
sound of vines swinging against the panes, and the ceaseless
murmur of the sea. When they opened the window, clouds of perfume
came in. The sky was quite clear, and there was a tinge of orange
yet lingering in the west. In the east was a still brighter
aurora, and the full moon, coming up, feathered with a crest of
gold every crisp, bright wavelet.
They all went out and strolled down to the beach. Every leaf and
twig and blossom, and the long line of the eaves, were hung full
of glittering rain-drops, and the grass shone as if sheathed in
burnished silver.
They sighed and were silent. A scene so lovely and peaceful is
always like a rebuke.