The walk lasted till all the afterglow had faded and all the stars come
out, and till half Pattaquasset had done tea; having its own glow and
starlight, and its flow of conversation to which the table talk was
nothing.
Of course, Faith's first business on reaching home was to see about the
tea. She and Mrs. Derrick were happily engaged together in various
preparations, and Mr. Linden alone in the sitting-room, when the
unwelcome sound of a knock came at the front door; and the next minute
his solitude was broken in upon.
"Good evening!" said the doctor. "Three-quarters of a mile off 'I heard
the clarion of the unseen midge!' so I thought it was best to come to
close quarters with the enemy.--There is nothing so annoying as a
distant humming in your ears. How do you do?" He had come up and laid
his hand on Mr. Linden's shoulder before the latter had time to rise.
"What a perverse taste!" Mr. Linden said, laughing and springing up.
"All the rest of the world think a near-by humming so much worse."
"Can't distinguish at a distance," said the doctor;--"one doesn't know
whether it's a midge or a dragon-fly. How is Mignonette? and
Mignonette's mother?"
"They were both well the last time I saw them. In what sort of a calm
flutter are you, doctor?"
"Do you think that is my character?" said the doctor, taking his
favourite position on the rug.
"You go straight to the fire--like all the rest of the tribe," said Mr.
Linden.
"Is it inconsistent with the character of such an extra ordinary midge,
to go straight to the mark?"
"Nobody ever saw a midge do that yet, I'll venture to say."
"And you are resolved to act in character," said the doctor gravely.
"You have got clean away from the point. I asked you last night to tell
me what you thought of me. We are alone now--do it, Linden!"
"Why do you want to know?"
"I don't know. A man likes to talk of himself--cela s'entend--but I
care enough about you, to care to know how I stand in your thoughts. If
you asked me how I stand in my own, I could not tell you; and I should
like to know how the just balances of your mind--I'm not talking
ironically, Linden,--weigh and poise me;--what sort of alloy your
mental tests make me out. No matter why!--indulge me, and let me have
it. I presume it is nothing better than philosophical curiosity. I
am--every man is to himself--an enigma--a mystery;--and I should like
to have a sudden outside view--from optics that I have some respect
for."
"I gave you the outside view last night," Mr. Linden said. But then he
came and stood near the doctor and answered him simply; speaking with
that grave gentleness of interest which rarely failed to give the
speaker a place in people's hearts, even when his words failed of it.
"I think much of you, in the first place,--and in the second place, I
wish you would let me think more;--you stand in my thoughts as an
object of very warm interest, of very earnest prayer. Measured--not by
my standards, but by those which the word of God sets up, you are like
your own admirably made and adjusted microscope, with all the higher
powers left off. The only enigma, the only mystery is, that you
yourself cannot see this."
Dr. Harrison looked at him with a grave, considerative face, drawing a
little back; perhaps to do it the better.
"Do you mean to say, that _you_ do such a thing as pray for _me?_"
A slight, sweet smile came with the answer--"Can you doubt it?"
"Why I might very reasonably doubt it,--though not your word. Why do
you,--may I ask?"
"What can I do for a man in deadly peril, whom my arm cannot reach?"
The tone was very kindly, very earnest; the eyes with their deep light
looked full into the doctor's.
Dr. Harrison was silent, meeting the look and taking the depth and
meaning of it, so far as fathomable by him. The two faces and figures,
fine as they both were, made a strange contrast. The doctor's face was
in one of its serious and good expressions; but the other had come from
a region of light which this one had never entered. And even in
attitude--the dignified unconsciousness of the one, was very different
from the satisfied carelessness of the other.
"May I further ask," he said in a softened tone,--"why you do this for
me?"
"Because I care about you."
"It's incredible!" said the doctor, his eye wavering, however. "One man
care about another! Why, man, I may be the worst enemy you have in the
world, for aught you know."
"That cannot hinder my being your friend."
"Do you know," said the other looking at him half curiously,--"I am
ready to do such a foolish thing as to believe you? Well--be as much of
a friend to me as you can; and I'll deserve it as well as I can--which
maybe won't be very well. Indeed that is most likely!" He had stretched
out his hand to Mr. Linden however, and clasped his warmly. He quitted
it now to go forward and take that of Faith.
She came in just as usual, and met the doctor with her wonted manner;
only the crimson stain on her cheek telling anything against her. She
did not give him much chance to observe that; for Cindy followed her
with the tea things and Faith busied herself about the table. The
doctor went back to his stand and watched her.
"Mignonette has changed colour," he remarked presently. "How is that,
Miss Derrick?"
"How is what, sir?"
"How come you to change the proper characteristics of mignonette? Don't
you know that never shews high brilliancy?"
"I suppose I am not mignonette to-night," said Faith, returning to the
safer observation of the tea-table.
"Are you my flower, then? the Rhodora?" he said with a lowered tone,
coming near her.
If Faith heard, she did not seem to hear this question. Her attention
was bestowed upon the preparations for tea, till Mrs. Derrick came in
to make it; and then Faith found a great deal to do in the care of the
other duties of the table. It was a mystery, how she managed it; she
who generally had as much leisure at meals as anybody wanted. Dr.
Harrison's attention however was no longer exclusively given to her.
"Do you _always_ have these muffins for tea, Mrs. Derrick?" he remarked
with his second essay.
"Why no!" said Mrs. Derrick,--"we have all sorts of other things. Don't
you like muffins, doctor?"
"Like them!" said the doctor. "I am thinking what a happy man Mr.
Linden must be."
"Marvellously true!" said Mr. Linden. "I hope you'll go home and write
a new 'Search after happiness,' ending it sentimentally in muffins."
"Not so," said the doctor. "I should only begin it in muffins--as I am
doing. But my remark after all had a point;--for I was thinking of the
possibility of detaching anybody from such a periodical attraction.
Mrs. Derrick, I am the bearer of an humble message to you from my
sister and father--who covet the honour and pleasure of your presence
to-morrow evening. Sophy makes me useful, when she can. I hope you will
give me a gracious answer--for yourself and Miss Faith, and so make me
useful again. It is a rare chance! I am not often good for anything."
"I don't know whether I know how to give what you call gracious
answers, doctor," said Mrs. Derrick pleasantly. "I'm very much obliged
to Miss Sophy, but I never go anywhere at night."
With the other two the doctor's mission was more successful; and then
he disclosed the other object of his visit.
"Miss Derrick, do you remember I once threatened to bring the play of
Portia here--and introduce her to you?"
"I remember it," said Faith.
"Would it be pleasant to you that I should fulfil my threat this
evening?"
"I don't know, sir," said Faith smiling,--"till I hear the play."
"Mr. Linden,--what do you think?" said the doctor, also with a smile.
"I am ready for anything--if you will let me be impolite enough to
finish writing a letter while I hear the first part of your reading."
"To change the subject slightly--what do you suppose, Mr. Linden, would
on the whole be the effect, on society, if the hand of Truth were in
every case to be presented without a glove?" The doctor spoke gravely
now.
"The effect would be that society would shake hands more cordially--I
should think," said Mr. Linden; "though it is hard to say how such an
extreme proposition would work."
"Do you know, it strikes me that it would work just the other way, and
that hands would presently clasp nothing but daggers' hilts. But there
is another question.--How will one fair hand of truth live among a
crowd of steel gauntlets?"
"_What?_" Mr. Linden said, with a little bending of his brows upon the
doctor. "I am wearing neither glove nor gauntlet,--what are you talking
about?--And my half-finished letter is a fact and no pretence."
"I sha'n't believe you," said the doctor, "if you give my fingers such
a wring as that. Well, go to your letter, and I'll take Miss Derrick to
Venice--if she will let me."
Venice!--That exquisite photograph of the Bridge of Sighs, and "the
palace and the prison on each hand," about which such a long, long
entrancing account had been given by Mr. Linden to her--the scene and
the talk rose up before Faith's imagination; she was very ready to go
to Venice. Its witching scenery, its strange history, floated up, in a
fascinating, strange cloud-view; she was ready for Shylock and the
Rialto. Nay, for the Rialto, not for Shylock; him, or anything like
him, she had never seen nor imagined. She was only sorry that Mr.
Linden had to go to his letter; but there was a compensative side to
that, for her shyness was somewhat less endangered. With only the
doctor and Shylock to attend to, she could get along very well.
Shyness and fears however, were of very short endurance. To Venice she
went,--Shylock she saw; and then she saw nothing else but Shylock, and
those who were dealing with him; unless an occasional slight glance
towards the distant table where Mr. Linden sat at his writing, might be
held to signify that she _had_ powers of vision for somewhat else. It
did not interrupt the doctor's pleasure, nor her own. Dr. Harrison had
begun with at least a double motive in his mind; but man of the world
as he was, he forgot his unsatisfied curiosity in the singular
gratification of reading such a play to such a listener. It was so
plain that Faith was in Venice! She entered with such simplicity, and
also with such intelligence, into the characters and interests of the
persons in the drama; she relished their words so well; she weighed in
such a nice balance of her own the right and the wrong, the true and
the false, of whatever rested on nature and truth for its proper
judgment;--she was so perfectly and deliciously ignorant of the world
and the ways of it! The fresh view that such pure eyes took of such
actors and scenes, was indescribably interesting; Dr. Harrison found it
the best play he had ever read in his life. He made it convenient
sometimes to pause to indoctrinate Faith in characters or customs of
which she had no adequate knowledge; it did not hurt her pleasure; it
was all part of the play.
In the second scene, the doctor stopped to explain the terms on which
Portia had been left with her suitors.
"What do you think of it?"
"I think it was hard," said Faith smiling.
"What would you have done if you had been left so?"
"I would not have been left so."
"But you might not help yourself. Suppose it had been a father's or a
mother's command? that anybody might come up and have you, for the
finding--if they could pitch upon the right box of jewelry?"
"My father or mother would never have put such a command on me," said
Faith looking amused.
"But you may _suppose_ anything," said the doctor leaning forward and
smiling. "_Suppose_ they had?"
"Then you must suppose me different too," said Faith laughing. "Suppose
me to have been like Portia; and I should have done as she did."
The doctor shook his head and looked gravely at her.
"Are you so impracticable?"
"Was she?" said Faith.
"Then you wouldn't think it right to obey Mrs. Derrick in all
circumstances?"
"Not if she was Portia's mother," said Faith.
"Suppose you had been the Prince of Arragon--which casket would you
have chosen?" said Mr. Linden, as he came from his table, letter in
hand.
"I suppose I should have chosen as he did," said the doctor
carelessly--"I really don't remember how that was. I'll tell you when I
come to him. Have you done letter-writing?"
"I have done writing letters, for to-night. Have I permission to go to
Venice in your train?"
"I am only a locomotive," said the doctor. "But you know, with two a
train goes faster. If you had another copy of the play, now,
Linden--and we should read it as I have read Shakspeare in certain
former times--take different parts--I presume the effect would excel
steam-power, and be electric. Can you?"
This was agreed to, and the "effect" almost equalled the doctor's
prognostications. Even Mrs. Derrick, who had somewhat carelessly held
aloof from his single presentation of the play, was fascinated now, and
drew near and dropped her knitting. It would have been a very rare
entertainment to any that had heard it; but for once an audience of two
was sufficient for the stimulus and reward of the readers. That and the
actual enjoyment of the parts they were playing. Dr. Harrison read
well, with cultivated and critical accuracy. His voice was good and
melodious, his English enunciation excellent; his knowledge of his
author thorough, as far as acquaintanceship went; and his habit of
reading a dramatically practised one. But Faith, amid all her delight,
had felt a want in it, as compared with the reading to which of late
she had been accustomed; it did not give the soul and heart of the
author--though it gave everything else. _That_ is what only soul and
heart can do. Not that Dr. Harrison was entirely wanting in those gifts
either; they lay somewhere, perhaps, in him; but they are not the ones
which in what is called "the world" come most often or readily into
play; and so it falls out that one who lives there long becomes like
the cork oak when it has stood long untouched in _its_ world; the heart
is encrusted with a monstrous thick, almost impenetrable, coating of
bark. When Mr. Linden joined the reading, the pleasure was perfect; the
very contrast between the two characters and the two voices made the
illusion more happy. Then Faith was in a little danger of betraying
herself; for it was difficult to look at both readers with the same
eyes; and if she tried to keep her eyes at home, that was more
difficult still.
In the second act, Portia says to Arragon,
"In terms of choice I am not solely led
By nice direction of a maiden's eyes," etc.
"What do you think of that, Miss Derrick?" said the doctor pausing when
his turn came. "Do you think a lady's choice ought to be so determined?"
Faith raised her eyes, and answered, "No, sir."
"By what then? You don't trust appearances?"
Faith hesitated.
"I should like to hear how Portia managed," she said, with a little
heightened colour. "I never thought much about it."
"What do you think of Portia's gloves, doctor?" said Mr. Linden.
"Hum"--said the doctor. "They are a pattern!--soft as steel, harsh as
kid-leather. They fit too, so exquisitely! But, if I were marrying her,
I think I should request that she would give her gloves into my
keeping."
"Then would your exercise of power be properly thwarted. Every time you
made the demand, Portia would, like a juggler, pull off and surrender a
fresh pair of gloves, leaving ever a pair yet finer-spun upon her
hands."
"I suppose she would," said the doctor comically. "Come! I won't marry
her. And yet, Linden,--one might do worse. Such gloves keep off a
wonderful amount of friction."
"If you happen to have fur which cannot be even _stroked_ the wrong
way!"
The doctor's eye glanced with fun, and Faith laughed The reading went
on. And went on without much pausing, until the lines--
"O ten times faster Venus' pigeons fly
To seal love's bonds new made, than they are wont
To keep obliged faith unforfeited!
----Who riseth from a feast,
With that keen appetite that he sits down?
Where is the horse, that doth untread again
His tedious measures with the unbated fire
That he did pace them first? All things that are,
Are with more spirit chased than enjoyed."
"Do you believe in that doctrine, Miss Faith?" said the doctor, with a
gentle look in her direction.
"I suppose it is true of some things,"--she said after a minute's
consideration.
"What a wicked truth it is, Linden!" said the doctor.
"There is 'an error i' the bill,'" said Mr. Linden.
Faith's eyes looked somewhat eagerly, the doctor's philosophically.
"Declare and shew," said the doctor. "I thought it was a universal,
most deplorable, human fact; and here it is, in Shakspeare, man; which
is another word for saying it is in humanity."
"It is true only of false things. The Magician's coins are next day but
withered leaves--the real gold is at compound interest."
The doctor's smile was doubtful and cynical; Faith's had a touch of
sunlight on it.
"Where is your 'real gold'?" said the doctor.
"Do you expect me to tell you?" said Mr. Linden laughing. "I have found
a good deal in the course of my life, and the interest is regularly
paid in."
"Are you talking seriously?"
"Ay truly. So may you."
"From any other man, I should throw away your words as the veriest
Magician's coin; but if they are true metal--why I'll ask you to take
me to see the Mint some day!"
"Let me remind you," said Mr. Linden, "that there are many things in
Shakspeare. What do you think of this, for a set-off?--
'Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out e'en to the edge of doom.
If this be error, and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.'"
"There's an error proved upon _me_," said the doctor, biting his lips
as he looked at Faith who had listened delightedly. "Come on! I'll stop
no more. The thing is, Linden, that I am less happy than you--I never
found any real gold in my life!"
"Ah you expect gold to come set with diamonds,--and that cannot always
be. I don't doubt you have gold enough to start a large fortune, if you
would only rub it up and make it productive."
The doctor made no answer to that, and the reading went on; Faith
becoming exceedingly engrossed with the progress of the drama. She
listened with an eagerness which both the readers amusedly took heed
of, as the successive princes of Morocco and Arragon made their trial:
the doctor avowing by the way, that he thought he should have "assumed
desert" as the latter prince did, and received the fool's head for his
pains. Then they came to the beautiful "casket scene." The doctor had
somehow from the beginning left Portia in Mr. Linden's hands; and now
gave with great truth and gracefulness the very graceful words of her
successful suitor. He could put truth into these, and did, and
accordingly read beautifully; well heard, for the play of Faith's
varying face shewed she went along thoroughly with all the fine turns
of thought and feeling; here and elsewhere. But how well and how
delicately Mr. Linden gave Portia! That Dr. Harrison could not have
done; the parts had fallen out happily, whether by chance or design.
Her ladylike and coy play with words--her transparent veil of delicate
shifting turns of expression--contriving to say all and yet as if she
would say nothing--were rendered by the reader with a grace of tone
every way fit to them. Faith's eye ceased to look at anybody, and her
colour flitted, as this scene went on; and when Portia's address to her
fortunate wooer was reached--that very noble and dignified declaration
of her woman's mind, when she certainly pulled off her gloves, wherever
else she might wear them;--Faith turned her face quite away from the
readers and with the cheek she could not hide sheltered by her hand--as
well as her hand could--she let nobody but the fire and Mrs. Derrick
see what a flush covered the other. Very incautious in Faith, but it
was the best she could do. And the varied interests that immediately
followed, of Antonio's danger and deliverance, gradually brought her
head round again and accounted sufficiently for the colour with which
her cheeks still burned. The Merchant of Venice was not the only play
enacting that evening; and the temptation to break in upon the one,
made the doctor, as often as he could, break off the other; though the
interest of the plot for a while gave him little chance.
"So shines a good deed in a naughty world."
"Do you suppose, Miss Derrick," said Dr. Harrison with his look of
amused pleasure,--"that is because the world is so dark?--or because
the effects of the good deed reach to such a distance?"
"Both," said Faith immediately.
"You think the world is so bad?"
"I don't know much of the world," said Faith,--"but I suppose the
_shining_ good deeds aren't so very many."
"What makes a good deed _shining?_" said the doctor.
Faith glanced at Mr. Linden. But he did not take it up, and she was
thrown back upon her own resources. She thought a bit.
"I suppose,"--she said,--"its coming from the very spirit of light."
"You must explain," said the doctor good-humouredly but smiling,--"for
that puts me in absolute darkness."
"I don't know very well how to tell what I mean," said Faith colouring
and looking thoughtful;--"I think I know. Things that are done for the
pure love of God and truth, I think, shine; if they are ever so little
things, because really there is a great light in them. I think they
shine more than some of the greater things that people call very
brilliant, but that are done from a lower motive."
"I should like"--said the doctor--"Can you remember an instance or two?
of both kinds?"
Well Faith remembered an instance or two of _one_ kind, which she could
not instance. She sought in her memory.
"When Daniel kneeled upon his knees three times a day to pray, with his
windows open, after the king's law had for bidden any one to do it on
pain of death,--" said Faith.--"I think that was a shining good deed!"
"But that was a very notable instance," said the doctor.
"It was a very little thing he did," said Faith. "Only kneeled down to
pray in his own room. And it has shined all the way down to us."
"And in later times," said Mr. Linden,--"when the exploring shallop of
the Mayflower sought a place of settlement, and after beating about in
winter storms came to anchor Friday night at Plymouth Rock;--all
Saturday was lost in refitting and preparing, and yet on Sunday they
would not land. Those two dozen men, with no human eye to see, with
every possible need for haste!"
"That hasn't shined quite so far," said the doctor, "for it never
reached me. And it don't enlighten me now! I should have landed."
"Do you know nothing of the _spirit_ of Say and Seal, as well as the
province?" said Mr. Linden.
"As how, against landing?"
"They rested that day '_according to the commandment_.' Having promised
to obey God in all things, the seal of their obedience was unbroken."
"Well, Miss Faith," said the doctor--"Now for a counter example."
"I know so little of what has been done," said Faith. "Don't you
remember some such things yourself, Dr. Harrison?--Mr. Linden?"--The
voice changed and fell a little as it passed from one to the other.
"General Putnam went into the wolf's den, and pulled him out"--said the
doctor humorously,--"that's all I can think of just now, and it is not
very much in point. I don't know that there was anything very bright
about it except the wolf's eyes!--But here we are keeping Portia out of
doors, and Miss Derrick waiting! Linden--fall to." And with comical
life and dramatic zeal on the doctor's part, in a few minutes more, the
play was finished.
"Mrs. Derrick," said the doctor gravely as he rose and stood before
her,--"I hope you approve of plays."
Mrs. Derrick expressed her amusement and satisfaction.
"Miss Faith," he said extending his hand,--"I have to thank you for the
most perfect enjoyment I have ever had of Shakspeare. I only wish
to-morrow evening would roll off on such swift wheels--but it would be
too much. Look where this one has rolled to!" And he shewed his watch
and hurried off; that is, if Dr. Harrison could be said to do such a
thing.
The rest of the party also were stirred from their quiet. Mrs Derrick
went out; and Mr. Linden, coming behind Faith as she stood by the fire,
gently raised her face till he could have a full view of it, and asked
her how she liked being in Venice?
"Very much," she said, smiling and blushing at him,--"very much!"
"You are not the magician's coin!" he said, kissing her. "You are not
even a witch. Do you know how I found that out?"
"No"--she said softly, the colour spreading over her face and her eyes
falling, but raised again immediately to ask the question of him.
"A witch's charms are always dispelled whenever she tries to cross
running water!"--
She laughed; an amused, bright, happy little laugh, that it was
pleasant to hear.
"But what did Dr. Harrison mean,--by what he said when he thanked me?
What did he thank me for?"
"He _said_--for a new enjoyment of Shakspeare."
"What did he mean?"
"Do you understand how the sweet fragrance of mignonette can give new
enjoyment to a summer's day?"
She blushed exceedingly. "But, Mr. Linden, please don't talk so! And I
don't want to give Dr. Harrison enjoyment in that way."
"Which part of your sentence shall I handle first?" he said with a
laughing flash of the eyes,--"'Dr. Harrison'--or 'Mr. Linden'?"
"The first," said Faith laying her hand deprecatingly on his arm;--"and
let the other alone!"
"How am I to 'please not to talk'?"
"So--as I don't deserve," she said raising her grave eyes to his face.
"I would rather have you tell me my wrong things."
He looked at her, with one of those rare smiles which belonged to her;
holding her hand with a little soft motion of it to and fro upon his
own.
"I am not sure that I dare promise 'to be good,'" he said,--"I am so
apt to speak of things as I find them. And Mignonette you are to
me--both in French and English. Faith, I know there is no glove upon
your hand,--and I know there is none on mine; but I cannot feel, nor
imagine, any friction,--can you?"
She looked up and smiled. So much friction or promise of it, as there
is about the blue sky's reflection in the clear deep waters of a
mountain lake--so much there was in the soft depth--and reflection--of
Faith's eyes at that moment. So deep,--so unruffled;--and as in the
lake, so in the look that he saw, there was a mingling of earth and
heaven.