WE suppose the heroine of a novel, among other privileges and
immunities, has a prescriptive right to her own private boudoir, where,
as a French writer has it, ‘she appears like a lovely picture in its
frame.’
Well, our little Mary is not without this luxury, and to its sacred
precincts we will give you this morning a ticket of admission. Know,
then, that the garret of this gambrel-roofed cottage had a projecting
window on the seaward side, which opened into an immensely large old
apple-tree, and was a look-out as leafy and secluded as a robin’s nest.
Garrets are delicious places, in any case, for people of thoughtful,
imaginative temperament. Who has not loved a garret in the twilight
days of childhood, with its endless stores of quaint, cast-off,
suggestive antiquity,—old worm-eaten chests,—rickety chairs,—boxes
and casks full of old comminglings, out of which, with tiny,
childish hands, we fished wonderful hoards of fairy treasure? What
peep-holes, and hiding-places, and undiscoverable retreats we made
to ourselves,—where we sat rejoicing in our security, and bidding
defiance to the vague, distant cry which summoned us to school, or to
some unsavoury every-day task! How deliciously the rain came pattering
on the roof over head, or the red twilight streamed in at the window,
while we sat snugly ensconced over the delicious pages of some romance,
which careful aunts had packed away at the bottom of all things, to be
sure we should never read it! If you have anything, beloved friends,
which you wish your Charlie or your Susie to be sure and read, pack it
mysteriously away at the bottom of a trunk of stimulating rubbish, in
the darkest corner of your garret;—in that case, if the book be at all
readable, one that by any possible chance can make its way into a young
mind, you may be sure that it will not only be read, but remembered to
the longest day they have to live.
Mrs. Katy Scudder’s garret was not an exception to the general rule.
Those quaint little people who touch with so airy a grace all the
lights and shadows of great beams, bare rafters, and unplastered
walls, had not failed in their work there. Was there not there a grand
easy-chair of stamped-leather, minus two of its hinder legs, which had
genealogical associations through the Wilcoxes with the Vernons, and
through the Vernons quite across the water with Old England? and was
there not a dusky picture, in an old tarnished frame, of a woman of
whose tragic end strange stories were whispered,—one of the sufferers
in the time when witches were unceremoniously helped out of the world,
instead of being, as now-a-days, helped to make their fortune in it by
table-turning?
Yes, there were all these things, and many more which we will not stay
to recount, but bring you to the boudoir which Mary has constructed for
herself around the dormer-window which looks into the whispering old
apple-tree.
The enclosure was formed by blankets and bed-spreads, which, by reason
of their antiquity, had been pensioned off to an undisturbed old age
in the garret,—not _common_ blankets or bed-spreads, either,—bought,
as you buy yours, out of a shop,—spun or woven by machinery,—without
individuality or history. Every one of these curtains had its story.
The one on the right, nearest the window, and already falling into
holes, is a Chinese linen, and even now displays unfaded, quaint
patterns of sleepy-looking Chinamen, in conical hats, standing on the
leaves of most singular herbage, and with hands for ever raised in act
to strike bells, which never are struck and never will be till the
end of time. These, Mrs. Katy Scudder had often instructed Mary, were
brought from the Indies by her great-great-grandfather, and were her
grandmother’s wedding-curtains,—the grandmother who had blue eyes like
hers, and was just about her height.
The next spread was spun and woven by Mrs. Katy’s beloved Aunt
Eunice,—a mythical personage, of whom Mary gathered vague accounts that
she was disappointed in love, and that this very article was part of a
bridal outfit, prepared in vain, against the return of one from sea,
who never came back,—and she heard of how she sat wearily and patiently
at her work, this poor Aunt Eunice, month after month, starting every
time she heard the gate shut, every time she heard the tramp of a
horse’s hoof, every time she heard the news of a sail in sight,—her
colour, meanwhile, fading and fading as life and hope bled away at an
inward wound,—till at last she found comfort and reunion beyond the
veil.
Next to this was a bed-quilt pieced in tiny blocks, none of them bigger
than a sixpence, containing, as Mrs. Katy said, pieces of the gowns of
all her grandmothers, aunts, cousins, and female relatives for years
back,—and mated to it was one of the blankets which had served Mrs.
Scudder’s uncle in his bivouac at Valley Forge, when the American
soldiers went on the snows with bleeding feet, and had scarce anything
for daily bread except a morning message of patriotism and hope from
George Washington.
Such were the memories woven into the tapestry of our little boudoir.
Within, fronting the window, stands the large spinning-wheel, one end
adorned with a snowy pile of fleecy rolls,—and beside it, a reel and
a basket of skeins of yarn,—and open, with its face down on the beam
of the wheel, lay always a book, with which the intervals of work were
beguiled.
The dusky picture of which we have spoken hung against the rough wall
in one place, and in another appeared an old engraved head of one
of the Madonnas of Leonardo da Vinci, a picture which to Mary had a
mysterious interest, from the fact of its having been cast on shore
after a furious storm, and found like a waif lying in the sea-weed;
and Mrs. Marvyn, who had deciphered the signature, had not ceased
exploring till she found for her, in an Encyclopædia, a life of that
wonderful man, whose greatness enlarges our ideas of what is possible
to humanity,—and Mary, pondering thereon, felt the sea-worn picture as
a constant vague inspiration.
Here our heroine spun for hours, and hours with intervals, when,
crouched on a low seat in the window, she pored over her book, and
then, returning again to her work, thought of what she had read to the
lulling burr of the sounding wheel.
By chance a robin had built its nest so that from her retreat she could
see the five little blue eggs whenever the patient brooding mother
left them for a moment uncovered. And sometimes, as she sat in dreamy
reverie, resting her small, round arms on the window-sill, she fancied
that the little feathered watcher gave her familiar nods and winks of a
confidential nature,—cocking the small head first to one side and then
to the other, to get a better view of her gentle human neighbour.
I dare say it seems to you, reader, that we have travelled, in our
story, over a long space of time, because we have talked so much, and
introduced so many personages and reflections; but, in fact, it is only
Wednesday week since James sailed, and the eggs which were brooded when
he went are still unhatched in the nest, and the apple-tree has changed
only in having now a majority of white blossoms over the pink buds.
This one week has been a critical one to our Mary: in it she has made
the great discovery that she loves; and she has made her first step
into the gay world; and now she comes back to her retirement to think
the whole over by herself. It seems a dream to her, that she who sits
there now reeling yarn in her stuff petticoat and white short-gown is
the same who took the arm of Colonel Burr amid the blaze of wax-lights,
and the sweep of silks and rustle of plumes. She wonders dreamily as
she remembers the dark, lovely face of the foreign madame, so brilliant
under its powdered hair and flashing gems,—the sweet, foreign accents
of the voice,—the tiny, jewelled fan, with its glancing pictures and
sparkling tassels, whence exhaled vague and floating perfumes; then she
hears again that manly voice, softened to tones so seductive, and sees
those fine eyes with the tears in them, and wonders within herself that
_he_ could have kissed her hand with such veneration, as if she had
been a throned queen.
But here the sound of busy, pattering footsteps is heard on the old,
creaking staircase, and soon the bows of Miss Prissy’s bonnet part the
folds of the boudoir drapery, and her merry, May-day face looks in.
‘Well, really, Mary, how do you do, to be sure? You wonder to see me,
don’t you? but I thought I must just run in a minute on my way up to
Miss Marvyn’s. I promised her at least a half a day, though I didn’t
see how I was to spare it,—for I tell Miss Wilcox I just run and run
till it does seem as if my feet would drop off; but I thought I must
just step in to say, that I, for my part, _do admire_ the Doctor more
than ever, and I was telling your mother we mus’n’t mind too much
what people say. I ’most made Miss Wilcox angry, standing up for him;
but I put it right to her, and says I, “Miss Wilcox, you know folks
_must_ speak what’s on their mind,—in particular ministers must; and
you know, Miss Wilcox,” I says, “that the Doctor _is_ a good man, and
lives up to his teaching, if anybody in this world does, and gives
away every dollar he can lay hands on to those poor negroes, and works
over ’em and teaches ’em as if they were his brothers;” and says I,
“Miss Wilcox, you know I don’t spare myself, night nor day, trying
to please you and do your work to give satisfaction; but when it
comes to my conscience,” says I, “Miss Wilcox, you know I always must
speak out, and if it was the last word I had to say on my dying bed,
I’d say that I think the Doctor is right.” Why! what things he told
about the slave-ships, and packing those poor creatures so that they
couldn’t move nor breathe!—why, I declare, every time I turned over
and stretched in bed, I thought of it; and says I, “Miss Wilcox, I do
believe that the judgments of God will come down on us, if something
a’n’t done, and I shall always stand by the Doctor,” says I;—and if
you’ll believe me, just then I turned round and saw the General; and
the General, he just haw-hawed right out, and says he, “Good for you,
Miss Prissy! that’s real grit,” says he, “and I like you better for
it.”’—‘Laws,’ added Miss Prissy, reflectively, ‘I sha’n’t lose by it,
for Miss Wilcox knows she never can get anybody to do the work for her
that I will.’
‘Do you think,’ said Mary, ‘that there are a great many made angry?’
‘Why, bless your heart, child, haven’t you heard? Why, there never
was such a talk in all Newport. Why, you know Mr. Simeon Brown is
gone clear off to Doctor Stiles; and Miss Brown, I was making up her
plum-coloured satin a’ Monday, and you ought to ’a’ heard her talk.
But, I tell you, I fought her. She used to talk to me,’ said Miss
Prissy, sinking her voice to a mysterious whisper, ‘’cause I never
could come to it to say that I was willin’ to be lost, if it was
for the glory of God; and she always told me folks could just bring
their minds right up to anything they knew they must; and I just got
the tables turned on her, for they talked and abused the Doctor till
they fairly wore me out, and says I, “Well, Miss Brown, I’ll give in,
that you and Mr. Brown _do_ act up to your principles; you certainly
_act_ as if you were willing to be damned;”—and so do all those
folks who will live on the blood and groans of the poor Africans, as
the Doctor said; and I should think, by the way Newport people are
making their money, that they were all pretty willing to go that way,
though, whether it’s for the glory of God, or not, I’m doubting. But
you see, Mary,’ said Miss Prissy, sinking her voice again to a solemn
whisper, ‘I never was _clear_ on that point; it always did seem to me a
dreadful high place to come to, and it didn’t seem to be given to me;
but I thought, perhaps, if it _was_ necessary, it would be given, you
know,—for the Lord always has been so good to me that I’ve faith to
believe that, and so I just say, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not
want;”’—and Miss Prissy hastily whisked a little drop out of her blue
eye with her handkerchief.
At this moment Mrs. Scudder came into the boudoir with a face
expressive of some anxiety.
‘I suppose Miss Prissy has told you,’ she said, ‘the news about the
Browns. That’ll make a great falling off in the Doctor’s salary; and I
feel for him, because I know it will come hard to him not to be able
to help and do, especially for these poor negroes, just when he will.
But then we must put everything on the most economical scale we can,
and just try, all of us, to make it up to him. I was speaking to
Cousin Zebedee about it, when he was down here, on Monday, and he is
all clear;—he has made out three papers for Candace and Cato and Dinah,
and they couldn’t, one of ’em, be hired to leave him; and he says, from
what he’s seen already, he has no doubt but they’ll do enough more to
pay for their wages.’
‘Well,’ said Miss Prissy, ‘I haven’t got anybody to care for but
myself. I was telling sister Elizabeth, one time (she’s married and
got four children), that I could take a storm a good deal easier than
she could, ’cause I hadn’t near so many sails to pull down; and now,
you just look to me for the Doctor’s shirts, ’cause, after this,
they shall all come in ready to put on, if I have to sit up till
morning. And I hope, Miss Scudder, you can trust me to make them; for
if I do say it myself, I a’n’t afraid to do fine stitching ’longside
of anybody,—and hemstitching ruffles, too; and I haven’t shown you
yet that French stitch I learned of the nuns;—but you just set your
heart at rest about the Doctor’s shirts. I always thought,’ continued
Miss Prissy, laughing, ‘that I should have made a famous hand about
getting up that tabernacle in the wilderness, with the blue and the
purple and fine-twined linen; it’s one of my favourite passages, that
is;—different things, you know, are useful to different people.’
‘Well,’ said Mrs. Scudder, ‘I see that it’s our call to be a remnant
small and despised, but I hope we sha’n’t shrink from it. I thought,
when I saw all those fashionable people go out Sunday, tossing their
heads and looking so scornful, that I hoped grace would be given me to
be faithful.’
‘And what does the Doctor say?’ said Miss Prissy.
‘He hasn’t said a word; his mind seems to be very much lifted above all
these things.’
‘La, yes,’ said Miss Prissy, ‘that’s one comfort; he’ll never know
where his shirts come from; and besides that, Miss Scudder,’ she said,
sinking her voice to a whisper, ‘as you know, I haven’t any children
to provide for,—though I was telling Elizabeth t’other day, when I was
making up frocks for her children, that I believed old maids, first and
last, did more providing for children than married women: but still I
do contrive to slip away a pound-note, now and then, in my little old
silver teapot that was given to me when they settled old Mrs. Simpson’s
property (I nursed her all through her last sickness, and laid her out
with my own hands), and, as I was saying, if ever the Doctor should
want money, you just let me know.’
‘Thank you, Miss Prissy,’ said Mrs. Scudder; ‘we all know where your
heart is.’
‘And now,’ added Miss Prissy, ‘what do you suppose they say? Why, they
say Colonel Burr is struck dead in love with our Mary; and you know
his wife’s dead, and he’s a widower; and they do say that he’ll get
to be the next President. Sakes alive! Well, Mary must be careful, if
she don’t want to be carried off; for they do say that there can’t
any woman resist him, that sees enough of him. Why, there’s that poor
Frenchwoman, Madame —— what do you call her, that’s staying with the
Vernons?—they say she’s over head and ears in love with him.’
‘But she’s a married woman,’ said Mary; ‘it can’t be possible!’
Mrs. Scudder looked reprovingly at Miss Prissy, and for a few moments
there was great shaking of heads and a whispered conference between the
two ladies, ending in Miss Prissy’s going off, saying, as she went down
stairs,—
‘Well, if women will do so, I, for my part, can’t blame the men.’
In a few moments Miss Prissy rushed back as much discomposed as a
clucking hen who has seen a hawk.
‘Well, Miss Scudder, what do you think? Here’s Colonel Burr come to
call on the ladies!’
Mrs. Scudder’s first movement, in common with all middle-aged
gentlewomen, was to put her hand to her head and reflect that she had
not on her best cap; and Mary looked down at her dimpled hands, which
were blue from the contact with mixed yarn she had just been spinning.
‘Now, I’ll tell you what,’ said Miss Prissy,—‘wasn’t it lucky you had
me here? for I first saw him coming in at the gate, and I whipped in
quick as a wink and opened the best room window-shutters, and then I
was back at the door, and he bowed to me as if I’d been a queen, and
says he, “Miss Prissy, how fresh you’re looking this morning!” You see,
I was in working at the Vernons’, but I never thought as he’d noticed
me. And then he inquired in the handsomest way for the ladies and the
Doctor, and so I took him into the parlour and settled him down, and
then I ran into the study, and you may depend upon it I flew round
lively for a few minutes. I got the Doctor’s study-gown off, and got
his best coat on, and put on his wig for him, and started him up kinder
lively,—you know it takes me to get him down into this world,—and so
there he’s in talking with him; and so you can just slip down and dress
yourselves,—easy as not.’
Meanwhile Colonel Burr was entertaining the simple-minded Doctor with
all the grace of a young neophyte come to sit at the feet of superior
truth. There are some people who receive from Nature as a gift a sort
of graceful facility of sympathy by which they incline to take on,
for the time being, the sentiments and opinions of those with whom
they converse, as the chameleon was fabled to change its hue with
every surrounding. Such are often supposed to be wilfully acting a
part, as exerting themselves to flatter and deceive, when in fact
they are only framed so sensitive to the sphere of mental emanation
which surrounds others that it would require an exertion _not_ in some
measure to harmonize with it. In approaching others in conversation,
they are like a musician who joins a performer on an instrument,—it
is impossible for them to strike a discord; their very nature urges
them to bring into play faculties according in vibration with those
which another is exerting. It was as natural as possible for Burr to
commence talking with the Doctor on scenes and incidents in the family
of President Edwards, and his old tutor, Dr. Bellamy,—and thence to
glide on to the points of difference and agreement in theology, with
a suavity and deference which acted on the good man like a June sun
on a budding elm-tree. The Doctor was soon wide awake, talking with
fervent animation on the topic of disinterested benevolence,—Burr
the meanwhile studying him with the quiet interest of an observer of
natural history, who sees a new species developing before him. At all
the best possible points he interposed suggestive questions, and set up
objections in the quietest manner for the Doctor to knock down, smiling
ever the while as a man may who truly and genuinely does not care a
_sou_ for truth on any subject not practically connected with his own
schemes in life. He therefore gently guided the Doctor to sail down the
stream of his own thoughts till his bark glided out into the smooth
waters of the Millennium, on which, with great simplicity, he gave his
views at length.
It was just in the midst of this that Mary and her mother entered.
Burr interrupted the conversation to pay them the compliments of
the morning,—to inquire for their health, and hope they suffered no
inconvenience from their night ride from the party; then, seeing the
Doctor still looking eager to go on, he contrived with gentle dexterity
to tie again the broken thread of conversation.
‘Our excellent friend,’ he said, ‘was explaining to me his views of
a future Millennium. I assure you, ladies, that we sometimes find
ourselves in company which enables us to believe in the perfectibility
of the human species. We see family retreats, so unaffected, so
charming in their simplicity, where industry and piety so go hand
in hand! One has only to suppose all families such, to imagine a
Millennium!’
There was no disclaiming this compliment, because so delicately worded,
that, while perfectly clear to the internal sense, it was, in a manner,
veiled and unspoken.
Meanwhile, the Doctor, who sat ready to begin where he left off, turned
to his complaisant listener and resumed an exposition of the Apocalypse.
‘To my mind, it is certain,’ he said, ‘as it is now three hundred years
since the fifth vial was poured out, there is good reason to suppose
that the sixth vial began to be poured out at the beginning of the last
century, and has been running for a hundred years or more, so that it
is run nearly out; the seventh and last vial will begin to run early
in the next century.’
‘You anticipate, then, no rest for the world for some time to come?’
said Burr.
‘Certainly not,’ said the Doctor, definitively; ‘there will be no rest
from overturnings till He whose right it is shall come.’
‘The passage,’ he added, ‘concerning the drying up of the river
Euphrates, under the sixth vial, has a distinct reference, I think,
to the account in ancient writers of the taking of Babylon, and
prefigures, in like manner, that the resources of that modern Babylon,
the Popish power, shall continue to be drained off, as they have now
been drying up for a century or more, till, at last, there will come a
sudden and final downfall of that power. And after that will come the
first triumphs of truth and righteousness,—the marriage-supper of the
Lamb.’
‘These investigations must undoubtedly possess a deep interest for
you, sir,’ said Burr; ‘the hope of a future as well as the tradition
of a past age of gold seems to have been one of the most cherished
conceptions of the human breast.’
‘In those times,’ continued the Doctor, ‘the whole earth will be of one
language.’
‘Which language, sir, do you suppose will be considered worthy of such
pre-eminence?’ inquired his listener.
‘That will probably be decided by an amicable conference of all
nations,’ said the Doctor; ‘and the one universally considered most
valuable will be adopted; and the literature of all other nations being
translated into it, they will gradually drop all other tongues. Brother
Stiles thinks it will be the Hebrew. I am not clear on that point. The
Hebrew seems to me too inflexible, and not sufficiently copious. I do
not think,’ he added, after some consideration, ‘that it will be the
Hebrew tongue.’
‘I am most happy to hear it, sir,’ said Burr, gravely; ‘I never felt
much attracted to that language. But, ladies,’ he added, starting up
with animation, ‘I must improve this fine weather to ask you to show
me the view of the sea from this little hill beyond your house, it is
evidently so fine;—I trust I am not intruding too far on your morning?’
‘By no means, sir,’ said Mrs. Scudder, rising; ‘we will go with you in
a moment.’
And soon Colonel Burr, with one on either arm, was to be seen on the
top of the hill beyond the house,—the very one from which Mary, the
week before, had seen the retreating sail we all wot of. Hence, though
her companion contrived, with the adroitness of a practised man of
gallantry, to direct his words and looks as constantly to her as if
they had been in a _tête-à-tête_, and although nothing could be more
graceful, more delicately flattering, more engaging, still the little
heart kept equal poise; for where a true love has once bolted the door,
a false one serenades in vain under the window.
Some fine, instinctive perceptions of the real character of the man
beside her seemed to have dawned on Mary’s mind in the conversation
of the morning;—she had felt the covert and subtile irony that lurked
beneath his polished smile, felt the utter want of faith or sympathy
in what she and her revered friend deemed holiest, and therefore there
was a calm dignity in her manner of receiving his attentions which
rather piqued and stimulated his curiosity. He had been wont to boast
that he could subdue any woman, if he could only see enough of her: in
the first interview in the garden, he had made her colour come and go,
and brought tears to her eyes in a manner that interested his fancy,
and he could not resist the impulse to experiment again. It was a new
sensation to him, to find himself quietly studied and calmly measured
by those thoughtful blue eyes; he felt, with his fine instinctive
tact, that the soul within was enfolded in some crystalline sphere of
protection, transparent, but adamantine, so that he could not touch it.
What was that secret poise, that calm, immutable centre on which she
rested, that made her, in her rustic simplicity, so unapproachable and
so strong?
Burr remembered once finding in his grandfather’s study, among a mass
of old letters, one in which that great man, in early youth, described
his future wife, then known to him only by distant report. With his
keen natural sense of everything fine and poetic, he had been struck
with this passage, as so beautifully expressing an ideal womanhood,
that he had in his earlier days copied it in his private _recueil_.
‘They say,’ it ran, ‘that there is a young lady who is beloved of that
Great Being who made and rules the world, and that there are certain
seasons in which this Great Being, in some way or other invisible,
comes to her and fills her mind with such exceeding sweet delight,
that she hardly cares for anything except to meditate on Him; that she
expects, after a while, to be received up where He is, to be raised
up out of the world and caught up into heaven, being assured that He
loves her too well to let her remain at a distance from Him always.
Therefore, if you present all the world before her, with the richest
of its treasures, she disregards it. She has a strange sweetness in
her mind, and singular purity in her affections; and you could not
persuade her to do anything wrong or sinful, if you should give her all
the world. She is of a wonderful sweetness, calmness, and universal
benevolence of mind, especially after this great God has manifested
Himself to her mind. She will sometimes go from place to place singing
sweetly, and seems to be always full of joy and pleasure; and no one
knows for what. She loves to be alone, walking in fields and groves,
and seems to have some invisible one always conversing with her.’
A shadowy recollection of this description crossed his mind more than
once, as he looked into those calm and candid eyes. Was there, then, a
truth in that inner union of chosen souls with God, of which his mother
and her mother before her had borne meek witness,—their souls shining
out as sacred lamps through the alabaster walls of a temple?
But then, again, had he not logically met and demonstrated, to his
own satisfaction, the nullity of the religious dogmas on which New
England faith was based? There could be no such inner life, he said
to himself,—he had demonstrated it as an absurdity. What was it,
then,—this charm, so subtile and so strong, by which this fair child,
his inferior in age, cultivation, and knowledge of the world, held him
in a certain awe, and made him feel her spirit so unapproachable? His
curiosity was piqued. He felt stimulated to employ all his powers of
pleasing. He was determined that, sooner or later, she should feel his
power.
With Mrs. Scudder his success was immediate: she was completely won
over by the deferential manner with which he constantly referred
himself to her matronly judgments; and, on returning to the house, she
warmly pressed him to stay to dinner.
Burr accepted the invitation with a frank and almost boyish _abandon_,
declaring that he had not seen anything for years that so reminded
him of old times. He praised everything at table,—the smoking brown
bread, the baked beans steaming from the oven, where they had been
quietly simmering during the morning walk, and the Indian pudding,
with its gelatinous softness, matured by long and patient brooding in
the motherly old oven. He declared that there was no style of living
to be compared with the simple, dignified order of a true New England
home, where servants were excluded, and everything came direct from
the polished and cultured hand of a lady. It realized the dreams of
Arcadian romance. A man, he declared, must be unworthy the name, who
did not rise to lofty sentiments and heroic deeds, when even his animal
wants were provided for by the ministrations of the most delicate and
exalted portion of the creation.
After dinner he would be taken into all the family interests. Gentle
and pliable as oil, he seemed to penetrate every joint of the _ménage_
by a subtile and seductive sympathy. He was interested in the spinning,
in the weaving,—and, in fact, nobody knows how it was done, but before
the afternoon shadows had turned, he was sitting in the cracked
arm-chair of Mary’s garret-boudoir, gravely giving judgment on several
specimens of her spinning, which Mrs. Scudder had presented to his
notice.
With that ease with which he could at will glide into the character
of the superior and elder brother, he had, without seeming to ask
questions, drawn from Mary an account of her reading, her studies, her
acquaintances.
‘You read French, I presume?’ he said to her, with easy negligence.
Mary coloured deeply, and then, as one who recollects one’s self,
answered, gravely,—
‘No, Mr. Burr, I know no language but my own.’
‘But you should learn French, my child,’ said Burr, with that gentle
dictatorship which he could at times so gracefully assume.
‘I should be delighted to learn,’ said Mary, ‘but have no opportunity.’
‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Scudder, ‘Mary has always had a taste for study, and
would be glad to improve in any way.’
‘Pardon me, madam, if I take the liberty of making a suggestion. There
is a most excellent man, the Abbé Léfon, now in Newport, driven here
by the political disturbances in France; he is anxious to obtain a few
scholars, and I am interested that he should succeed, for he is a most
worthy man.’
‘Is he a Roman Catholic?’
‘He is, madam; but there could be no manner of danger with a person so
admirably instructed as your daughter. If you please to see him, madam,
I will call with him some time.’
‘Mrs. Marvyn will, perhaps, join me,’ said Mary. ‘She has been studying
French by herself for some time, in order to read a treatise on
astronomy, which she found in that language. I will go over to-morrow
and see her about it.’
Before Colonel Burr departed, the doctor requested him to step a
moment with him into his study. Burr, who had had frequent occasions
during his life to experience the sort of paternal freedom which the
clergy of his country took with him in right of his clerical descent,
began to summon together his faculties of address for the avoidance
of a kind of conversation which he was not disposed to meet. He was
agreeably disappointed, however, when, taking a paper from the table,
and presenting it to him, the Doctor said,—
‘I feel myself, my dear sir, under a burden of obligation for
benefits received from your family, so that I never see a member of
it without casting about in my own mind how I may in some measure
express my good-will towards him. You are aware that the papers of
your distinguished grandfather have fallen into my hands, and from
them I have taken the liberty to make a copy of those maxims by which
he guided a life which was a blessing to his country and to the world.
May I ask the favour that you will read them with attention? and if you
find anything contrary to right reason or sober sense, I shall be happy
to hear of it on a future occasion.’
‘Thank you, Doctor,’ said Burr, bowing, ‘I shall always be sensible of
the kindness of the motive which has led you to take this trouble on my
account. Believe me, sir, I am truly obliged to you for it.’
And thus the interview terminated.
That night, the Doctor, before retiring, offered fervent prayers
for the grandson of his revered master and friend, praying that his
father’s and mother’s God might bless him and make him a living stone
in the Eternal Temple.
Meanwhile, the object of these prayers was sitting by a table in
dressing-gown and slippers, thinking over the events of the day.
The paper which Dr. H. had handed him contained the celebrated
‘Resolutions’ by which his ancestor led a life nobler than any mere
dogmas can possibly be. By its side lay a perfumed note from Madame
de Frontignac,—one of those womanly notes, so beautiful, so sacred in
themselves, but so mournful to a right-minded person who sees whither
they are tending. Burr opened and perused it,—laid it by,—opened the
document which the Doctor had given, and thoughtfully read the first of
the ‘Resolutions’:—
‘Resolved, That I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God’s glory,
and my own good profit and pleasure _in the whole of my duration_,
without any consideration of time, whether now or never so many myriad
ages hence.
‘Resolved, To do whatever I think to be my duty and most for the good
and advantage of mankind in general.
‘Resolved, To do this, whatsoever difficulties I meet with, and how
many and how great soever.’
Burr read the whole paper through attentively once or twice, and
paused thoughtfully over many parts of it. He sat for some time
after, lost in reflection; the paper dropped from his hand, and then
followed one of those long, deep seasons of fixed reverie, when the
soul thinks by pictures and goes over endless distances in moments.
In him, originally, every moral faculty and sensibility was as keenly
strung as in any member of that remarkable family from which he was
descended, and which has, whether in good or ill, borne no common
stamp. Two possible lives flashed before his mind at that moment,
rapidly as when a train sweeps by with flashing lamps in the night. The
life of worldly expediency, the life of eternal rectitude,—the life of
seventy years, and that life eternal in which the event of death is no
disturbance. Suddenly he roused himself up, picked up the paper, filed
and dated it carefully, and laid it by; and in that moment was renewed
again that governing purpose which sealed him, with all his beautiful
capabilities, as the slave of the fleeting and the temporary, which
sent him, at last, a shipwrecked man, to a nameless, dishonoured grave.
He took his pen and gave to a friend his own views of the events of the
day.
‘MY DEAR ——,
‘We are still in Newport, conjugating the verb _s’ennuyer_,
which I, for one, have put through all the moods and tenses.
_Pour passer le temps_, however, I have _la belle Française_
and my sweet little Puritan. I visited there this morning.
She lives with her mother, a little walk out toward the
sea-side in a cottage quite prettily sequestered among
blossoming apple-trees, and the great hierarch of modern
theology, Dr. H., keeps guard over them. No chance here for
any indiscretions, you see.
‘By-the-by, the good Doctor astonished our _monde_ here on
Sunday last, by treating us to a solemn onslaught on slavery
and the slave-trade. He had all the chief captains and
counsellors to hear him, and smote them hip and thigh, and
pursued them even unto Shur.
‘He is one of those great, honest fellows, without the
smallest notion of the world we live in, who think, in
dealing with men, that you must go to work and prove the
right and wrong of a matter; just as if anybody cared for
that! Supposing he is right,—which appears very probable
to me,—what is he going to do about it? No moral argument,
since the world began, ever prevailed over twenty-five per
cent. profit.
‘However, he is the spiritual director of _la belle
Puritaine_, and was a resident in my grandfather’s family,
so I did the agreeable with him as well as such an
uncircumcised Ishmaelite could. I discoursed theology,—sat
with the most docile air possible while he explained to
me all the ins and outs in his system of the universe,
past, present, and future,—heard him dilate calmly on the
Millennium, and expound prophetic symbols, marching out
before me his whole apocalyptic menagerie of beasts and
dragons with heads and horns innumerable, to all which I
gave edifying attention, taking occasion now and then to
turn a compliment in favour of the ladies,—never lost, you
know.
‘Really, he is a worthy old soul, and actually believes all
these things with his whole heart, attaching unheard-of
importance to the most abstract ideas, and embarking his
whole being in his ideal view of a grand Millennial _finale_
to the human race. I look at him and at myself, and ask, Can
human beings be made so unlike?
‘My little Mary to-day was in a mood of “sweet austere
composure” quite becoming to her style of beauty; her _naïve
nonchalance_ at times is rather stimulating. What a contrast
between her and _la belle Française!_—all the difference
that there is between a diamond and a flower. I find the
little thing has a cultivated mind, enriched by reading, and
more by a still, quaint habit of thinking, which is new and
charming. But a truce to this.
‘I have seen our friends at last. We have had three or four
meetings, and are waiting to hear from Philadelphia,—matters
are getting in train. If Messrs. T. and S. dare to repeat
what they said again, let me know; they will find in me a
man not to be trifled with. I shall be with you in a week or
ten days at farthest. Meanwhile, stand to your guns.
‘Ever yours,
‘BURR.’