THE next morning, before the early dews had yet dried off the grass,
Mary started to go and see her friend Mrs. Marvyn. It was one of those
charming, invigorating days, familiar to those of Newport experience,
when the sea lies shimmering and glittering in deep blue and gold,
and the sky above is firm and cloudless, and every breeze that comes
landward seems to bear health and energy upon its wings.
As Mary approached the house, she heard loud sounds of discussion from
the open kitchen-door, and, looking in, saw a rather original scene
acting.
Candace, armed with a long oven-shovel, stood before the open door of
the oven, whence she had just been removing an army of good things
which appeared ranged around on the dresser. Cato, in the undress of a
red flannel shirt and tow-cloth trousers, was cuddled, in a consoled
and protected attitude, in the corner of the wooden settle, with a mug
of flip in his hand, which Candace had prepared, and, calling him in
from his work, authoritatively ordered him to drink, on the showing
that he had kept her awake the night before with his cough, and she
was sure he was going to be sick. Of course, worse things may happen
to a man than to be vigorously taken care of by his wife, and Cato had
a salutary conviction of this fact, so that he resigned himself to his
comfortable corner and his flip with edifying serenity.
Opposite to Candace stood a well-built, corpulent negro man, dressed
with considerable care, and with the air of a person on excellent
terms with himself. This was no other than Digo, the house-servant and
factotum of Dr. Stiles, who considered himself as the guardian of his
master’s estate, his title, his honour, his literary character, his
professional position, and his religious creed.
Digo was ready to assert before all the world, that one and all of
these were under his special protection, and that whoever had anything
to say to the contrary of any of these must expect to take issue
with him. Digo not only swallowed all his master’s opinions whole,
but seemed to have the stomach of an ostrich in their digestion. He
believed everything, no matter what, the moment he understood that
the Doctor held it. He believed that Hebrew was the language of
heaven,—that the ten tribes of the Jews had reappeared in the North
American Indians,—that there was no such thing as disinterested
benevolence, and that the doings of the unregenerate had some
value,—that slavery was a divine ordinance, and that Dr. H. was a
Radical, who did more harm than good,—and, finally, that there never
was so great a man as Dr. Stiles: and as Dr. Stiles belonged to him
in the capacity of master, why, he, Digo, owned the greatest man in
America. Of course, as Candace held precisely similar opinions in
regard to Dr. H., the two never could meet without a discharge of the
opposite electricities. Digo had, it is true, come ostensibly on a mere
worldly errand from his mistress to Mrs. Marvyn, who had promised to
send her some turkeys’ eggs, but he had inly resolved with himself that
he would give Candace his opinion,—that is, what Dr. Stiles had said at
dinner the day before about Dr. H.’s Sunday’s discourse. Dr. Stiles had
not heard it, but Digo had. He had felt it due to the responsibilities
of his position to be present on so very important an occasion.
Therefore, after receiving his eggs, he opened hostilities by
remarking, in a general way, that he had attended the Doctor’s
preaching on Sunday, and that there was quite a crowded house. Candace
immediately began mentally to bristle her feathers like a hen who sees
a hawk in the distance, and responded with decision:—
‘Den you _heard_ sometin’, for once in your life!’
‘I must say,’ said Digo, with suavity, ‘dat I can’t give my ’proval to
such sentiments.’
‘More shame for you,’ said Candace, grimly. ‘_You_ a man, and not stan’
by your colour, and flunk under to mean white ways! Ef you was _half_ a
man, your heart would ’a’ bounded like a cannon-ball at dat ’ar sermon.’
‘Dr. Stiles and me we talked it over after church,’ said Digo,—‘and de
Doctor was of my ’pinion, dat Providence didn’t intend—’
‘Oh, you go ’long wid your Providence! Guess, ef white folks had let us
alone, Providence wouldn’t trouble us.’
‘Well,’ said Digo, ‘Dr. Stiles is clear dat dis yer’s a-fulfillin’ de
prophecies and bringin’ in de fulness of de Gentiles.’
‘Fulness of de fiddlesticks!’ said Candace, irreverently. ‘Now what
a way dat ar’ is of talkin’! Go look at one o’ dem ships we come
over in,—sweatin’ and groanin’—in de dark and dirt,—cryin’ and
dyin’,—howlin’ for breath till de sweat run off us,—livin’ and dead
chained together,—prayin’ like de rich man in hell for a drop o’ water
to cool our tongues! Call dat ar’ a-bringin’ de fulness of de Gentiles,
do ye?—Ugh!’
And Candace ended with a guttural howl, and stood frowning and gloomy
over the top of her long kitchen-shovel, like a black Bellona leaning
on her spear of battle.
Digo recoiled a little, but stood too well in his own esteem to give
up; so he shifted his attack.
‘Well, for my part, I must say I never was ’clined to your Doctor’s
’pinions. Why, now, Dr. Stiles says, notin’ couldn’t be more absurd dan
what he says ’bout disinterested benevolence. _My_ Doctor says, dere
a’n’t no such ting!’
‘I should tink it’s likely!’ said Candace, drawing herself up with
superb disdain. ‘_Our_ Doctor knows dere _is_,—and why? ’cause he’s got
it IN HERE,’ said she, giving her ample chest a knock which resounded
like the boom from a barrel.
‘Candace,’ said Cato, gently, ‘you’s gettin’ too hot.’
‘Cato, you shut up!’ said Candace, turning sharp round. ‘What did I
make you dat ar’ flip for, ’cept you was so hoarse you oughtn’ for
to say a word? Pootty business, you go to agitatin’ _your_-self wid
dese yer! Ef you wear out your poor old throat talkin’, you may get de
’sumption; and den what’d become o’ me?’
Cato, thus lovingly pitched _hors de combat_, sipped the sweetened cup
in quietness of soul, while Candace returned to the charge.
[Illustration: _A Discussion._
_Page 173._
Sampson Low, Son. & Co, July, 25th, 1859.]
‘Now, I tell ye what,’ she said to Digo,—‘jest ’cause you wear your
master’s old coats and hats, you tink you must go in for all dese yer
old, mean, white ’pinions. A’n’t ye ’shamed—you, a black man—to have
no more pluck and make cause wid de Egyptians? Now, ’ta’n’t what my
Doctor gives me,—he never giv’ me the snip of a finger-nail,—but it’s
what he does for _mine_; and when de poor critturs lands dar, tumbled
out like bales on de wharves, ha’n’t dey seen his great cocked hat,
like a lighthouse, and his big eyes lookin’ sort o’ pitiful at ’em, as
ef he felt o’ one blood wid ’em? Why, de very looks of de man is worth
everyting; and who ever thought o’ doin’ anyting for deir souls, or
cared ef dey had souls, till he begun it?’
‘Well, at any rate,’ said Digo, brightening up, ‘I don’t believe his
doctrine about de doings of de unregenerate,—it’s quite clear he’s
wrong dar.’
‘Who cares?’ said Candace,—‘generate or unregenerate, it’s all one to
me. I believe a man dat _acts_ as he does. Him as stands up for de
poor,—him as pleads for de weak,—he’s my man. I’ll believe straight
through anyting he’s a mind to put at me.’
At this juncture, Mary’s fair face appearing at the door put a stop to
the discussion.
‘Bress _you_, Miss Mary! comin’ here like a fresh June rose! it makes
a body’s eyes dance in deir head! Come right in! I got Cato up from de
lot, ’cause he’s rader poorly dis mornin’; his cough makes me a sight
o’ concern; he’s allers a-pullin’ off his jacket de wrong time, or
doin’ sometin’ I tell him not to,—and it just keeps him hack, hack,
hackin’, all de time.’
During this speech, Cato stood meekly bowing, feeling that he was
being apologized for in the best possible manner; for long years of
instruction had fixed the idea in his mind, that he was an ignorant
sinner, who had not the smallest notion how to conduct himself in this
world, and that, if it were not for his wife’s distinguishing grace, he
would long since have been in the shades of oblivion.
‘Missis is spinnin’ up in de north chamber,’ said Candace; ‘but I’ll
run up and fetch her down.’
Candace, who was about the size of a puncheon, was fond of this
familiar manner of representing her mode of ascending the stairs; but
Mary, suppressing a smile, said, ‘Oh, no, Candace; don’t for the world
disturb her. I know just where she is.’ And before Candace could stop
her, Mary’s light foot was on the top step of the staircase that led up
from the kitchen.
The north room was a large chamber, overlooking a splendid reach of
sea-prospect. A moving panorama of blue water and gliding sails was
unrolled before its three windows, so that stepping into the room gave
one an instant and breezy sense of expansion. Mrs. Marvyn was standing
at the large wheel, spinning wool,—a reel and basket of spools on her
side. Her large brown eyes had an eager joy in them when Mary entered;
but they seemed to calm down again, and she received her only with that
placid, sincere air which was her habit. Everything about this woman
showed an ardent soul, repressed by timidity and by a certain dumbness
in the faculties of outward expression; but her eyes had, at times,
that earnest, appealing language which is so pathetic in the silence of
inferior animals. One sometimes sees such eyes, and wonders whether the
story they intimate will ever be spoken in mortal language.
Mary began eagerly detailing to her all that had interested her since
they last met: the party,—her acquaintance with Burr,—his visit to the
cottage,—his inquiries into her education and reading,—and, finally,
the proposal that they should study French together.
‘My dear,’ said Mrs. Marvyn, ‘let us begin at once;—such an opportunity
is not to be lost. I studied a little with James, when he was last at
home.’
‘With James?’ said Mary, with an air of timid surprise.
‘Yes,—the dear boy has become, what I never expected, quite a student.
He employs all his spare time now in reading and studying;—the second
mate is a Frenchman, and James has got so that he can both speak and
read. He is studying Spanish, too.’
Ever since the last conversation, with her mother on the subject of
James, Mary had felt a sort of guilty constraint when any one spoke
of him; instead of answering frankly, as she once did when anything
brought his name up, she fell at once into a grave, embarrassed silence.
Mrs. Marvyn was so constantly thinking of him, that it was difficult
to begin on any topic that did not in some manner or other knit itself
into the one ever present in her thoughts. None of the peculiar
developments of the female nature have a more exquisite vitality than
the sentiment of a frail, delicate, repressed, timid woman, for a
strong, manly, generous son. There is her ideal expressed; there is the
out-speaking and out-acting of all she trembles to think, yet burns to
say or do; here is the hero that shall speak for her, the heart into
which she has poured hers, and that shall give to her tremulous and
hidden aspirations a strong and victorious expression. ‘I have gotten
a _man_ from the Lord,’ she says to herself; and each outburst of
his manliness, his vigour, his self-confidence, his superb vitality,
fills her with a strange, wondering pleasure, and she has a secret
tenderness and pride even in his wilfulness and waywardness. ‘What a
creature he is!’ she says, when he flouts at sober argument and pitches
all received opinions hither and thither in the wild capriciousness
of youthful paradox. She looks grave and reproving; but he reads the
concealed triumph in her eyes,—he knows that in her heart she is full
of admiration all the time. First love of womanhood is something
wonderful and mysterious,—but in this second love it rises again,
idealized and refined: she loves the father and herself united and made
one in this young heir of life and hope.
Such was Mrs. Marvyn’s still intense, passionate love for her son.
Not a tone of his manly voice, not a flash of his dark eyes, not one
of the deep, shadowy dimples that came and went as he laughed, not a
ring of his glossy black hair, that was not studied, got by heart, and
dwelt on in the inner shrine of her thoughts: he was the romance of
her life. His strong, daring nature carried her with it beyond those
narrow, daily bounds where her soul was weary of treading; and just
as his voyages had given to the trite prose of her _ménage_ a poetry
of strange, foreign perfumes, of quaint objects of interest, speaking
of many a far-off shore, so his mind and life were a constant channel
of outreach through which her soul held converse with the active and
stirring world. Mrs. Marvyn had known all the story of her son’s love;
and to no other woman would she have been willing to resign him: but
her love to Mary was so deep, that she thought of his union with
her more as gaining a daughter than as losing a son. She would not
speak of the subject: she knew the feelings of Mary’s mother; and the
name of James fell so often from her lips, simply because it was so
ever-present in her heart that it could not be helped.
Before Mary left, it was arranged that they should study together, and
that the lessons should be given alternately at each other’s houses;
and with this understanding they parted.