THE LITTLE BLACK BOOK.
Our eyes met, I said; they remained fixed for a moment, and then mine
dropped. I had been, as it were, detected, while meditating upon this
capricious person. I daresay I even blushed; I certainly was
embarrassed. He was repeating his salutation, "How d'ye do, Miss Ware?"
"Oh, I'm very well, thanks, Mr. Carmel," I answered, looking up;
"and--and I heard from mamma on Thursday. They are very well; they are
at Genoa now. They think of going to Florence in about three weeks."
"I know; yes. And you have no thoughts of joining them?"
"Oh! none. I should not like to leave this. They have not said a word
about it lately."
"It is such a time, Miss Ethel, since I had the pleasure of seeing
you--I don't mean, of course, at a distance, but near enough to ask you
how you are. I dared not ask to see you too soon, and I thought--I
fancied--you wished your walks uninterrupted."
I saw that he had observed my strategy; I was not sorry.
"I have often wished to thank you, Mr. Carmel; you were so very kind."
"I had no opportunity, Miss Ethel," he answered, with more feeling than
before. "My profession obliges me to be kind--but I had no
opportunity--Miss Grey is quite well?"
"She is very well, thanks."
With a softened glory, in level lines, the beams of the setting sun
broke, scattered, through the trunks of the old elms, and one touched
the head of the pale young man, as he stood at the window, looking in;
his delicate and melancholy features were in the shade, and the golden
light, through his thick, brown hair, shone softly, like the glory of a
saint. As, standing thus, he looked down in a momentary reverie, Laura
Grey came in, and paused, in manifest surprise, on seeing Mr. Carmel at
the window.
I smiled, in spite of my efforts to look grave, and the governess,
advancing, asked the young ecclesiastic how he was? Thus recalled, by a
new voice, he smiled and talked with us for a few minutes. I think he
saw our tea-equipage, and fancied that he might be, possibly, in the
way; for he was taking his leave when I said, "Mr. Carmel, you must take
tea before you go."
"Tea!--I find it very hard to resist. Will you allow me to take it, like
a beggar-man, at the window? I shall feel less as if I were disturbing
you; for you have only to shut the window down, when I grow prosy."
So, laughing, Laura Grey gave him a cup of tea, which he placed on the
window-stone, and seating himself a little sideways on the bench that
stands outside the window, he leaned in, with his hat off, and sipped
his tea and chatted; and sitting as Miss Grey and I did, near the
window, we made a very sociable little party of three.
I had quite given up the idea of renewing our speaking acquaintance with
Mr. Carmel, and here we were, talking away, on more affable terms than
ever! It seemed to me like a dream.
I don't say that Mr. Carmel was chatting with the _insouciance_ and
gaiety of a French abbe. There was, on the contrary, something very
peculiar, both in his countenance and manner, something that suggested
the life and sufferings of an ascetic. Something also, not easily
defined, of command; I think it was partly in the severe though gentle
gravity with which he spoke anything like advice or opinion.
I felt a little awed in his presence, I could not exactly tell why; and
yet I was more glad than I would have confessed that we were good
friends again. He sipped his cup of tea slowly, as he talked, and was
easily persuaded to take another.
"I see, Miss Ethel, you are looking at my book with curious eyes."
It was true; the book was a very thick and short volume, bound in black
shagreen, with silver clasps, and lay on the window-stone, beside his
cup. He took it up in slender fingers, smiling as he looked at me.
"You wish to know what it is; but you are too ceremonious to ask me. I
should be curious myself, if I saw it for the first time. I have often
picked out a book from a library, simply for its characteristic binding.
Some books look interesting. Now what do you take this to be?"
"Haven't you books called breviaries? I think this is one," said I.
"That is your guess; it is not a bad one--but no, it is not a breviary.
What do you say, Miss Grey?"
"Well, I say it is a book of the offices of the Church."
"Not a bad guess, either. But it is no such thing. I think I must tell
you--it is what you would call a storybook."
"Really!" I exclaimed, and Miss Grey and I simultaneously conceived a
longing to borrow it.
"The book is two hundred and seventy years old, and written in very old
French. You would call them stories," he said, smiling on the back of
the book; "but you must not laugh at them; for I believe them all
implicitly. They are legends."
"Legends?" said I, eagerly--"I should so like to hear one. Do, pray,
tell one of them."
"I'll read one, if you command me, into English. They are told here as
shortly as it is possible to relate them. Here, for instance, is a
legend of John of Parma. I think I can read it in about two minutes."
"I'm sorry it is so short; do, pray, begin," I said.
Accordingly, there being still light enough to read by, he translated
the legend as follows:--
"John of Parma, general of the order of Friars Minors, travelling one
winter's night, with some brothers of the order, the party went astray
in a dense forest, where they wandered about for several hours, unable
to find the right path. Wearied with their fruitless efforts, they at
length knelt down, and having commended themselves to the protection of
the mother of God, and of their patron, Saint Francis, began to recite
the first nocturn of the Office of the Blessed Virgin. They had not been
long so engaged, when they heard a bell in the distance, and rising at
once, and following the direction whence the sound proceeded, soon came
to an extensive abbey, at the gate of which they knocked for admittance.
The doors were instantly thrown open, and within they beheld a number of
monks evidently awaiting their arrival, who, the moment they appeared,
led them to a fire, washed their feet, and then seated them at a table,
where supper stood ready; and having attended them during their meal,
they conducted them to their beds. Wearied with their toilsome journey,
the other travellers slept soundly; but John, rising in the night to
pray, as was his custom, heard the bell ring for matins, and quitting
his cell, followed the monks of the abbey to the chapel, to join with
them in reciting the divine office.
"Arrived there, one of the monks began with this verse of the
Thirty-fifth Psalm, 'Ibi ceciderunt qui operantur iniquitatem;' to which
the choir responded, 'Expulsi sunt nec potuerunt stare.' Startled by the
strange despairing tone in which the words were intoned, as well as by
the fact that this is not the manner in which matins are usually
commenced, John's suspicions were aroused, and addressing the monks, he
commanded them, in the name of the Saviour, to tell him who and what
they were. Thus adjured, he who appeared an abbot replied, that they
were all angels of darkness, who, at the prayer of the Blessed Virgin,
and of Saint Francis, had been sent to serve him and his brethren in
their need. As he spoke, all disappeared; and the next moment John found
himself and his companions in a grotto, where they remained, absorbed in
prayer and singing the praises of God, until the return of day enabled
them to resume their journey."
"How picturesque that is!" I said, as he closed the little book.
He smiled, and answered:
"So it is. Dryden would have transmuted such a legend into noble verse;
painters might find great pictures in it--but, to the faithful, it is
more. To me, these legends are sweet and holy readings, telling how the
goodness, vigilance, and wisdom of God work by miracles for his
children, and how these celestial manifestations have never ceased
throughout the history of his Church on earth. To you they are, as I
said, but stories; as such you may wish to look into them. I believe,
Miss Grey, you may read them without danger." He smiled gently, as he
looked at the governess.
"Oh! certainly, Laura," cried I. "I am so much obliged."
"It is very kind of you," said Miss Grey. "They are, I am sure, very
interesting; but does this little book contain anything more?"
"Nothing, I am afraid, that could possibly interest you: nothing, in
fact, but a few litanies, and what we call elevations--you will see in a
moment. There is nothing controversial. I am no proselytiser, Miss
Grey,"--he laughed a little--"my duty is quite of a different kind. I am
collecting authorities, making extracts and precis, and preparing a
work, not of my own, for the press, under a greater than I."
"Recollect, Laura, it is lent to me--isn't it, Mr. Carmel?" I pleaded,
as I took the little volume and turned over its pages.
"Very well--certainly," he acquiesced, smiling.
He stood up now. The twilight was deepening; he laid his hand on the
window sash, and leaned his forehead upon it, as he looked in, and
continued to chat for a few minutes longer; and then, with a slight
adieu, he left us.
When he was gone, we talked him over a little.
"I wonder what he is?--a priest only or a Jesuit," said I; "or, perhaps,
a member of some other order. I should like so much to know."
"You'd not be a bit wiser if you did," said Laura.
"Oh, you mean because I know nothing of these orders; but I could easily
make out. I think he would have told us to-night in the twilight, if we
had asked him."
"I don't think he would have told us anything he had not determined
beforehand to tell. He has told us nothing about himself we did not know
already. We know he is a Roman Catholic, and an ecclesiastic--his
tonsure proclaims that; and your mamma told you that he is writing a
book, so that is no revelation either. I think he is profoundly
reserved, cautious, and resolute; and with a kind of exterior
gentleness, he seems to me to be really inflexible and imperious."
"I like that unconscious air of command, but I don't perceive those
signs of cunning and reserve. He seemed to grow more communicative the
longer he stayed." I answered.
"The darker it grew," she replied. "He is one of those persons who
become more confident the more effectually their countenances are
concealed. There ceases to be any danger of a conflict between looks and
language--a danger that embarrasses some people."
"You are suspicious this evening," I said. "I don't think you like him."
"I don't know him; but I fancy that, talk as he may to us, neither you
nor I have for one moment a peep into his real mind. His world may be
perfectly celestial and serene, or it may be an ambitious, dark, and bad
one; but it is an invisible world for us."
The candles were by this time lighted, and Miss Grey was closing the
window, when the glitter of the silver clasp of the little book caught
her eye.
"Have you found anything?" said I.
"Only the book--I forgot all about it. I am almost sorry we allowed him
to lend it."
"We borrowed it; I don't think he wanted to lend it," said I; "but,
however it was, I'm very glad we have got it. One would fancy you had
lighted on a scorpion. I'm not afraid of it; I know it can't do any one
the least harm, for they are only stories."
"Oh, I think so. I don't see myself that they can do any harm; but I am
almost sorry we have got into that sort of relation with him."
"What relation, Laura?"
"Borrowing books and discussing them."
"But we need not discuss them; I won't--and you are so well up in the
controversy with your two books of theology, that I think he's in more
danger of being converted than you. Give me the book, and I'll find out
something to read to you."