It is at Jennings's old City Hotel, far down Broadway, that Maverick has
taken rooms and awaits the arrival of Adele. That glimpse of her upon
the street of Ashfield (ay, he knew it must be she!) has added pride to
the instinctive love of the parent. The elastic step, the graceful
figure, the beaming, sunny face,--they all haunt him; they put him in a
fever of expectation. He reads over again the few last letters of hers
under a new light; up and down along the page, that lithe, tall figure
is always coming forward, and the words of endearment are coupled with
that sunny face.
He even prepares his toilette to meet her, as a lover might do to meet
his affianced. And the meeting, when it comes, only deepens the pride.
Graceful? Yes! That bound toward him,--can anything be fuller of grace?
Natural? The look and the speech of Adele are to Maverick a new
revelation of Nature. Loving? That clinging kiss of hers was worth his
voyage over the sea.
And she, too, is so beautifully proud of her father! She has loved the
Doctor for his serenity, his large justice, notwithstanding his
stiffness and his awkward gravity; but she regards with new eyes the
manly grace of her father, his easy self-possession, his pliability of
talk, his tender attention to her comfort, his wistful gaze at her, so
full of a yearning affection, which, if the Doctor had ever felt, he had
counted it a duty to conceal. Nay, the daughter, with a womanly eye,
took pride in the aptitude and becomingness of his dress,--so different
from what she had been used to see in the clumsy toilette of the Doctor,
or of the good-natured Squire Elderkin. Henceforth she will have a new
standard of comparison, to which her lovers, if they ever declare
themselves, must submit.
Adele, enjoying this easy familiarity with such a pattern of
manhood,--as she fondly imagines her father to be,--indulges in full,
hearty story of her experiences, at school, with Miss Johns, with the
Elderkins, with all those whom she has learned to call friends. And
Maverick listens, as he never listened to a grand opera in the theatre
of Marseilles.
"And so you have stolen a march upon them all, Adele? I suppose they
haven't a hint of the person you were to meet?"
"All,--at least nearly all, dear papa; there was only good Madame Arles,
to whom I could not help saying that I was coming to see you."
A shade passed over the face of Maverick, which it required all his
self-possession to conceal from the quick eye of his daughter.
"And who, pray, is this Madame Arles, Adele?"
"Oh, a good creature! She has taught me French; no proper teaching, to
be sure; but in my talk with her, all the old idioms have come back to
me: at least, I hope so."
And she rattles on in French speech, explaining how it was,--how they
walked together in those sunny noontides at Ashfield; and taking a
girlish pride in the easy adaptation of her language to forms which her
father must know so well, she rounds off a little torrent of swift
narrative with a piquant, coquettish look, and says,--
"_N'est ce pas, que j'y suis, mon pere?_"
"_Parfaitement, ma chere_," says the father, and drops an admiring kiss
upon the glowing cheeks of Adele.
But the shade of anxiety has not passed from the face of Maverick.
"This Madame Arles, Adele,--has she been long in the country?"
"I don't know, papa; yet it must be some years; she speaks English
passably well."
"And she has told you, I suppose, very much about the people among whom
you were born, Adele?"
"Not much, papa,--and never anything about herself or her history; yet I
have been so curious!"
"Don't be too curious, _petite_; you might learn only of badness."
"Not badness, I am very, very sure, papa!"
Adele is sitting on the arm of his chair, fondling those sparse locks of
his, sprinkled with gray. It is a wholly new sensation for him;
charming, doubtless; but even under the caresses of this daughter, of
whom he has reason to be proud, anxious thoughts crowd upon him. Are not
our deepest loves measured, after all, by the depth of the accompanying
solicitude?
The Doctor is met very warmly by Maverick, and feels something like a
revival of the glow of his youthful days as he takes his hand; and yet
they are wider apart by far than when they met in the life-time of
Rachel. Both feel it; they have travelled widely divergent roads, these
last twenty years. The Doctor is satisfied by the bearing and talk of
Maverick (whatever kindness may lie in it) that his worldliness is more
engrossing and decided than ever. And Maverick, on his part,
scrutinizing, carelessly, but unerringly, that embarrassed country
manner of the parson's, that stark linen in which he is arrayed by the
foresight of the spinster sister, and the constraint of his speech, is
sure that his old friend more than ever bounds his thought by the duties
of his sacred office.
The Doctor is, moreover, sadly out of place in that little parlor of the
hotel, looking out upon Broadway; there is no adaptiveness in his
nature; he comes out from the little world of his study, where Tillotson
and Poole and Newton have been his companions, athwart the roar of the
city street which sounds in his ear like an echo of the murmurs of
Pandemonium. Under these circumstances he scarce dares to expostulate so
boldly as he would wish with Maverick upon the worldliness of his
career; it would seem like bearding the lion in his own den. Nor,
indeed, does Maverick provoke such expostulation; he is so considerate
of the Doctor's feelings, so grateful for his attentions to Adele, so
religiously disposed (it must be said) in all that concerns the
daughter's education and future, and waives the Doctor's personal
advices with so kind and easy a grace, that the poor parson despairs of
reaching him with the point of the sword of Divine truth.
"My good friend," says Maverick, "you have been a father to my child,--a
better one than I have made,--I wish I could repay you."
The Doctor bows stiffly; he has lost the familiarity which at their last
interview had lingered from their boyish days at college.
"I suppose that under your teaching," continues Maverick, "she is so
fixed in the New England faith of our fathers, that she might be trusted
now even to my bad guidance."
"I have tried to do my duty, Maverick. I could have wished to see more
of self-abasement in her, and a clearer acceptance of the doctrine we
are called upon to teach."
"But she has been constant in the performance of all the duties you have
enjoined, hasn't she, Doctor?"
"Entirely so,--entirely; but, my friend, our poor worldly efforts at
duty do not always call down the gift of Grace."
"By Jove, Doctor, but that seems hard doctrine."
"Hard to carnal minds, Maverick; but the evidences are abundant that
justification"----
"Nay, nay," said Maverick, interrupting him; "you know I'm not strong in
theology; I don't want to be put _hors du combat_ by you; I know I
should be. But about that little affair of the rosary,--no harm came of
it, I hope?"
"None, I believe," said the Doctor, "but I must not conceal from you,
Maverick, that a late teacher of hers, to whom unfortunately she seems
very much attached, is strongly wedded to the iniquities of the Romish
Church."
"That would seem a very awkward risk to take, Doctor," said Maverick,
with more of seriousness than he had yet shown.
"A risk, certainly; but I took the precaution of warning Madame Arles,
who is the party in question, against any conversation with Adaly upon
religious subjects."
"And you ventured to trust her? Upon my word, Johns, you give me a
lesson in faith. I should have been more severe than you. I wouldn't
have admitted such intercourse; and, my good friend, if I should ask
permission to reinstate Adele in your household for a time, promise me
that all intercourse with Madame Arles shall be cut off. I know
Frenchwomen better than you, my friend."
The Doctor assured him that he would do as he desired, and would be glad
to have the father's authority for the interruption of an intercourse
which had almost the proportions of a tender friendship.
Maverick was thoughtful for a moment.
"Well, yes, Doctor, be gentle--I know you are always--with the dear
girl; but if there be any demur on her part, pray give her to understand
that what you will ask in this respect has my express sanction. If I
know myself, Johns, there is no object I have so near at heart as the
happiness of my child; not alone now; but in her future, I hope to God
(I speak reverently, Doctor) that she may have immunity from suffering
of whatever kind. I wish wealth could buy it; but it can't. Mind the
promise, Johns; keep her away from this Frenchwoman."
The Brindlocks, of course, with whom the Doctor was quartered during his
stay, took an early occasion to show civilities to Mr. Maverick and his
daughter; and Mrs. Brindlock kindly offered her services to Adele in
negotiating such additions to her wardrobe as the proud father insisted
upon her making; and in the necessary excursions up and down the city,
Reuben, by the pleasant devices of Mrs. Brindlock, was an almost
constant out-of-door attendant.
He was no longer the shy boy Adele had at first encountered. Nay, grown
bold by his city experiences, he was disposed to assume a somewhat
patronizing air toward the bright-eyed country-girl who was just now
equipping herself for somewhat larger contact with the world. Adele did
not openly resent the proffered patronage, but, on the contrary,
accepted it with an excess of grateful expressions, whose piquant irony,
for two whole days, Reuben, with his blunter perceptions, never
suspected. What boy of eighteen is a match for a girl of sixteen?
Patronize, indeed! But suspicion came at last, and full knowledge broke
upon him under a musical little laugh of Adele's, (half smothered in her
kerchief,) when the gallant young man had blundered into some idle
compliment. The instinct of girls in matters of this sort is
marvellously quick.
But if the laugh of Adele cured Reuben of his patronage, it did not cure
him of thought about her. It kindled a new train, indeed, of whose
drift he was himself unconscious.
"Isn't she pretty?" said Mrs. Brindlock, on a certain occasion, upon
their return from one of the excursions named.
"Oh, so, so!" said Reuben.
"But I think she's perfectly charming," said Mrs. Brindlock.
"Pho, Aunt Mabel! I could name ten girls as pretty."
And he could. But this did not forbid his accepting his Aunt Mabel's
invitation for the next day's shopping.
He is not altogether the same lad we saw upon the deck of the Princess,
under Captain Saul. He would hardly sail for China now in a tasselled
cap. He never will,--this much we can say, at least, without
anticipating the burden of our story.