In the summer of 1837, Maverick, who had continued eminently successful,
determined to sail for America, and to make good his promise of a visit
to the Doctor and Adele. It may appear somewhat inexplicable that a
father should have deferred to so late a day the occasion of meeting and
greeting an only child. That his attachment was strong, his letters,
full of expressions of affection, had abundantly shown; but the
engrossments of business had been unceasing, and he had met them with
that American abandonment of other thought, which, while it insures
special success, is too apt to make shipwreck of all besides. He was
living, moreover, without experience of those tender family ties which
ripen a man's domestic affections, and make the absence of a child--most
of all, an only child--a daily burden.
Maverick shows no more appearance of age than when we saw him ten years
since, placing his little offering of flowers upon the breakfast-table
of poor Rachel,--an excellently well-preserved man,--dressed always in
that close conformity to the existing mode which of itself gives a young
air,--brushing his hair sedulously so as to cover the growing spot of
baldness,--regulating all his table indulgences with the same precision
with which he governs his business,--using all the appliances of
flesh-brushes and salt-baths to baffle any insidious ailment,--a strong,
hale, cheery man, who would have ranked by a score (judging from his
exterior) younger than the Doctor. In our time the clerical fraternity
are putting a somewhat wiser valuation upon those aids to firm muscle
and good digestion which forty years ago in New England their brethren
gave over contemptuously to men of the world. What fearful, pinching
dyspepsias, what weak, trembling knees and aching sides have been
carried into pulpits, and have been strained to the propagation of
spiritual doctrine, under the absurd belief that these bodies of ours
were not given us to be cherished! As if a Gabriel would not need clean
limbs and a firm hand in a grapple with the ministers of misrule!
Shall we look for a moment at the French home which Maverick is leaving?
A compact country-house of yellow stone upon a niche of the hills that
overlook the blue Bay of Lyons; a green arbor over the walk leading to
the door; clumps of pittosporum and of jessamine, with two or three
straggling fig-trees, within the inclosure; a billiard-room and
_salle-a-manger_ upon the ground-floor, and _au premier_ a _salon_,
opening, by its long, heavily draped windows, upon a balcony shielded
with striped awning. Here on many an evening, when the night wind comes
in from the sea, Maverick lounges sipping at his _demi-tasse_, whiffing
at a fragrant Havana, (imported to order,) and chatting with some friend
he has driven out from the stifling streets of Marseilles about the
business chances of the morrow. A tall, agile Alsatian woman, with a
gilt crucifix about her neck, and a great deal of the peasant beauty
still in her face, glides into the _salon_ from time to
time, acting apparently in the capacity of mistress of the
establishment--respectfully courteous to Maverick and his friend, yet
showing something more than the usual familiarity of a dependent
housekeeper.
The friend who sits with him enjoying the night breeze and those rare
Havanas is an open-faced, middle-aged companion of the city, with whom
Maverick has sometimes gone to a _bourgeois_ home near to Montauban,
where a wrinkle-faced old Frenchman in velvet skull-cap--the father of
his friend--has received him with profound obeisance, brought out for
him his best _cru_ of St. Peray, and bored him with long stories of the
times of 1798, in which he was a participant. Yet the home-scenes there,
with the wrinkled old father and the stately mamma for partners at whist
or boston, have been grateful to Maverick, as reminders of other
home-scenes long passed out of reach; and he has opened his heart to
this son of the house.
"Monsieur Papiol," (it is the Alsatian woman who is addressing the
friend of Maverick,) "ask, then, why it is Monsieur Frank is going to
America."
"Ah, Lucille, do you not know, then, there is a certain Puritan belle he
goes to look after?"
"Pah!" says the Alsatian, "Monsieur is not so young!"
Maverick puffs at his cigar thoughtfully,--a thoughtfulness that does
not encourage the Alsatian to other speech,--and in a moment more she is
gone.
"Seriously, Maverick," says Papiol, when they are alone again, "what
will you do with this Puritan daughter of yours?"
"Keep her from ways of wickedness," said Maverick, without losing his
thoughtfulness.
"Excellent!" said the friend, laughing; "but you will hardly bring her
to this home of yours, then?"
"Hardly to this country of yours, Pierre."
"Nonsense, Maverick! You will be too proud of her, _mon ami_. I'm sure
of that. You'll never keep her cribbed yonder. We shall see you
escorting her some day up and down the Prado, and all the fine young
fellows hereabout paying court to the _belle Americaine_. My faith! I
shall be wishing myself twenty years younger!"
Maverick is still very thoughtful.
"What is it, my good fellow? Is it--that the family question gives
annoyance among your friends yonder?"
"On the contrary," says Maverick,--and reaching a file of letters in his
cabinet, he lays before his companion that fragment of the Doctor's
epistle which had spoken of the rosary, and of his discovery that it had
been the gift of the mother, "so near, and he trusted dear a relative."
_"Mais, comme il est innocent_, your good old friend there!"
"I wish to God, Pierre, I were as innocent as he," said Maverick, and
tossed his cigar over the edge of the balcony.
* * * * *
Upon his arrival at New York, Maverick did not communicate directly with
the Doctor, enjoying the thought, very likely, of surprising his old
friend by his visit, very much as he had surprised him many years
before. He takes boat to a convenient point upon the shore of the Sound,
and thence chooses to approach the town that holds what is most dear to
him by an old, lumbering stage-coach, which still plies across the
hills, as twenty years before, through the parish of Ashfield. The same
patches of tasselled corn, (it is August,) the same outlying bushy
pastures, the same reeling walls of mossy cobble-stones meet his eye
that he remembered on his previous visit. But he looks upon all wayside
views carelessly,--as one seeing, and yet not seeing them.
His daughter Adele, she who parted from him a toy-child eight years
gone, whom a new ribbon would amuse in that day, must have changed. That
she has not lost her love of him, those letters have told; that she has
not lost her girlish buoyancy, he knows. She must be tall now, and
womanly in stature, he thinks. She promised to be graceful. That he will
love her, he feels; but will he be proud of her? A fine figure, a sweet,
womanly voice, an arch look, a winning smile, a pretty coquetry of
glance,--will he find these? And does he not build his pride on hope of
these? Will she be clever? Will there be traces, ripened in these last
years, of the mother,--offensive traces possibly?
But Maverick is what the world calls a philosopher; he hums,
unconsciously, a snatch of a French song, by which he rouses the
attention of the spectacled old lady, (the only other occupant of the
coach,) with whom he has already made some conversational ventures, and
who has just finished a lunch which she has drawn from her capacious
work-bag. Reviving now under the influence of Maverick's chance fragment
of song, and dusting the crumbs from her lap, she says,--
"We don't have very good singin' now in the Glostenbury meetin'."
"Ah!" says Maverick.
"No: Squire Peter's darters have bin gittin' married, and the young
girls ha'n't come on yit."
"You attend the Glostenbury Church, then, Madam?" says Maverick, who
enjoys the provincialisms of her speech, like a whiff of the lilac
perfume which he once loved.
"In gineral, Sir; but we come down odd spells to hear Dr. Johns, who
preaches at the Ashfield meetin'-house. _He's_ a real smart man."
"Ah! And this Dr. Johns has a family, I think?"
"Waael, the Doctor lost his wife, you see, quite airly; and Miss
Johns--that's his sister--has bin a-keepin' house for him ever sence.
I'm not acquainted with her, but I've heerd she's a very smart woman.
And there's a French girl that came to live with 'em, goin' on now seven
or eight year, who was a reg'lar Roman Catholic; but I kind o' guess the
old folks has tamed her down afore now."
"Ah! I should think that a Roman Catholic would have but a poor chance
in a New England village."
"Not much of a chance anywhere, I guess," said the old lady, wiping her
spectacles, "if folks only preached the Gospil."
Even now the coach is creaking along through the outskirts of Ashfield;
and presently the driver's horn wakes the echoes of the hills, while the
horses plunge forward at a doubled pace. The eyes of Maverick are intent
upon every house, every open window, every moving figure.
"It's a most a beautiful town," said the old lady.
"Charming, charming, Madam!"--and even as he spoke, Maverick's eye
fastens upon two figures before them with a strange yearning in his
gaze,--two figures of almost equal height: a little, coquettish play of
ribbons about the head of one, which in the other are absent; a girlish,
elastic step to one, that does not belong to the other.
Is there something in the gait, something in the poise of the head, to
which the memory of Maverick so cleaves? It is, indeed, Adele, taking
her noon-day walk with Madame Arles. A lithe figure and a buoyant step,
holding themselves tenderly in check for the slower pace of the
companion. Maverick's gaze keeps fast upon them,--fast upon them, until
the old coach is fairly abreast,--fast upon them, until by a glance back
he has caught full sight of the faces.
"_Mon Dieu!_" he exclaims, and throws himself back in the coach.
"Haeow?" says the old lady.
"_Mon Dieu_, it is she!" continues Maverick, speaking under intense
excitement to himself, as if unconscious of any other presence.
"Haeow?" urged the old lady, more persistently.
"Damn it, nothing, Madam!"
And the old lady drew the strings of her bag closely, and looked full
out of the opposite window.
Within, a half-hour the stage-coach arrived at the Eagle Tavern.
Maverick demanded a chamber, and asked to see the landlord. The stout,
blear-eyed Boody presently made his appearance.
"How can I reach New York soonest, my friend?"
Mr. Boody consulted his watch.
"Well, by fast driving you might catch the night-boat on the river."
"Can you get me there in time?"
"Well, Sir," reflecting a moment, "I guess I can."
"Very good. Have your carriage ready as soon as possible."
And within an hour, Maverick, dejected, and with an anxious air, was on
his return to the city.
Three days after, the Doctor summons Adele into his study.
"Adaly, here is a letter from your father, which I wish you to read."