CLARA’S CHAPTER.
The second summer after their return to Boston, Clara went down to
spend in Seaton with Hester; and, late in July, the ship _Edith
Yorke_, Captain Cary, came sailing up Seaton River. The captain had
made a prosperous voyage to India, and, having nothing else to do
just now, had come down to Maine for a load of barrel-staves and
boxes. To his mind, the fresh pine and ash made a pleasing contrast
to his rich Eastern cargo.
Hester and her husband immediately made him at home with them.
Their house was not so full but there was room for him, if he could
live in the house with six boys.
“You can, perhaps, bear it better, since they are sure to be very
fond of you,” Mrs. Hester said. For the boys had clustered about
the sailor before he had been ten minutes with them.
Mrs. Cleaveland was wont to say that the masculine element in hers
and her mother’s immediate descendants would be rather overpowering
were its members not the salt of the earth.
“Poor little mamma was quite alarmed,” she said. “She protested
that, if Melicent’s husband or mine called her mother, she would
leave the country. So they are careful how they address her. Now, I
am made of sterner stuff, and nothing else makes me so proud as to
have all these boys call me mother.”
Hester’s boys presented rather an imposing array. There were Major
Cleaveland’s eldest, Charles and Henry, college-students of twenty
and twenty-two years of age, healthy, honest lads, not very clever,
but full of energy and good sense. They were favorites at college,
where the renaissance of muscle had destroyed the old empire of
hollow chests and pale cheeks, and established as the watchword
_mens sana in corpore sano_. Next to these was Eugene, now a
slender youth of fifteen, cleverer than his brothers, but somewhat
effeminate in character.
Then came Hester’s three boys, Philip, Carl, and Robert. The last,
an infant a year old, had been named by Edith for her father, and
he was, consequently, her dearest pet.
“And now my troubles begin all over again,” soliloquized Clara,
as she prepared to meet the sailor. “Captain Cary’s sudden flight
seemed to cut the Gordian knot; but his coming back makes the
affair more double-and-twisted than ever.”
She went to meet him, however, with an air of pleasant ease
which betrayed no sign of complicated emotions, and asked of his
adventures, and told all that had chanced to them during his
absence, in the most friendly manner.
Nor was the sailor less dignified, though the blush that overspread
his face when she first appeared showed a momentary agitation.
But this highly proper and decorous demeanor did not last long.
Before many days, Mrs. Cleaveland perceived that her boys were not
the chief attraction which Captain Cary found in her house. It was
plain that he was devoted, heart and soul, to Clara; and it was
plain, also, that Clara was fully aware of that devotion, and made
her sport of it, so Hester thought.
It was true, the young woman did take a very high hand with her
colossal admirer. She snubbed him, ordered him about, made him
dance attendance, fetch and carry, and, altogether, tyrannized over
him outrageously. And he bore it all with the magnanimous patience
of a great Newfoundland dog petting and bearing with the freaks of
a captious child. But he grew sober and silent, and lost his smiles
day by day.
Sometimes Clara’s mood changed, and there would be little flits
of sunshine, momentary gleams of kindness and penitence; but her
victim learned that he could not depend on the continuance of such
friendliness.
One day she had treated him so much worse than usual that, instead
of staying to bear her raillery, he left the room, and went out
into the garden where the children were playing. Clara seated
herself in the window presently, and watched him, saw him set
little Bob-o’-Lincoln, as they called the baby, on his shoulder,
so that the child could reach the branch of a tree, saw him gently
restrain and persuade Philip from throwing stones at the birds, and
talk to Carl and Philip, when they came to blows about something,
till they kissed each other. And through it all she read in his
face the indication of a heart sad and ill at ease.
A yellow-bird flew over the garden, and dropped a pretty feather
down. “Oh! that is what Aunt Clara likes,” cried Philip, running to
pick it up. “She puts ’em in her books for marks.”
He carried it to the sailor, who fastened it carefully in his
button-hole, posy-wise. Even the children had perceived that what
Aunt Clara liked was a matter of interest to their new friend.
A servant came out to call the children in to their early supper;
and Captain Cary, catching sight of Clara in the window, went to
her with the little feather in his hand. “Philip says you make
book-marks of these,” he said, and offered it to her.
There was no sign of coldness or resentment, neither was there any
of subservience. It was the patience and affection of a tender and
generous heart, and the self-respect of one who is not humbled by
the pettishness of another.
Clara dropped her eyes as she took the little offering. “Yes,” she
said gently; “and see the passage I am going to mark with it.”
The book she held was Landor’s _Imaginary Conversations_, open at
the dialogue between Æschines and Phocion.
The sailor bent his head and read: “Your generosity is more
pathetic than pity or than pain;” and, looking up quickly into her
face, to see what she meant, saw her eyes humid.
His face brightened a little, but he said nothing. He was like a
traveller among the Alps, who knows that a breath may bring the
avalanche upon him.
After a few weeks of this hide-and-seek, Hester was moved to
expostulate with her sister, whose conduct had astonished her. For,
however gay and reckless Clara might be in talk, exaggerating on
one side when she saw people lean too much to the other, and often
saying what she did not mean, taking for granted that she was too
well known to have her jests taken for earnest--in spite of this
liveliness and effervescence of spirits, she had never been guilty
of the slightest frivolity in her intercourse with gentlemen. Mrs.
Yorke had taught her daughters, or had cherished in them the pure
feminine instinct, to treat with careful reserve any man who should
show a marked preference for them, unless that preference was fully
reciprocated. Hester, therefore, felt herself called on to admonish.
“I must say, Clara, I think you do wrong,” she said. “Any one
can see that the captain sets his life by you, and you treat him
cruelly.”
“Do you wish me to marry him?” Clara asked in a cold voice.
“Why, no!” exclaimed her sister. “You two are not at all suited to
each other. But I would have you treat him kindly.”
“If I treat him kindly, he will think I like him,” Clara said
quickly.
“Oh! I don’t mean very kindly, but with calm friendliness,”
answered her preceptress.
“Calm friendliness!” repeated the culprit with emphasis. “Oh!
the airs that these little married kittens put on! Hester, seat
yourself there, and look me in the face, while I lecture you.
Fold your hands, and attend to me. Now, allow me to remind you
of two or three little facts. Firstly, I am two years older than
you. Secondly, I am not a staid married woman with six boys, and
I won’t try to act as if I were. Thirdly, you don’t know as much
about this business as you think you do. Fourthly, women who have
a great facility for being shocked on all occasions are, according
to my observation, very likely to be shocking women. Fifthly, if
you wish well to Captain Cary, you should wish to have him cease to
care about me; and the surest way to attain that end is to treat
him just as I am treating him. No man can long desire a vixen for a
wife. Sixthly”--and sixthly, Clara began to cry.
Hester, who never could bear to be blamed, had been herself on the
point of crying, but, seeing her sister’s tears, concluded not to.
“Why, what is the matter, Clara?” she asked in distress.
“The matter is that I am tired of being criticised,” answered her
sister, wiping her eyes. “I am tired of having people tell me what
I mean, instead of asking what I mean. I am tired of having people
whom I know to be not so good as I am, set themselves up to be
better.”
“I never meant to set myself up to be better than you, Clara,”
Hester began pitifully. “I--”
“Bless me! Are you here still?” exclaimed Miss Yorke, with a laugh
“I’d forgotten you. I was not talking to you at all, you little
goose! The truth is, Hester, I am getting as nervous as a witch.
You mustn’t bother me.”
Clara did seem to be nervous, and unlike herself.
Having failed in her attempt to admonish her sister, Mrs.
Cleaveland took occasion soon after to comfort the sailor.
“You must not mind if Clara seems a little hard sometimes,”
she said with gentle kindness. “She does not mean to hurt your
feelings. It is only her way. I know she thinks very highly of you.”
“Oh! I understand her pretty well,” he replied gravely. “Clara has
a good heart, and she never gives me a blow but she is sorry for it
afterward. I don’t blame her. I suppose she sees that I rather took
a liking to her”--he blushed up--“and that’s the way she makes me
keep my distance. I understand Clara. She suits me.”
He said this with a certain stateliness. Not even Clara’s sister
might blame her to him.
“Rather took a liking,” was Captain Cary’s way of expressing the
fact that he had surrendered the whole of his honest, generous
heart.
There were fires in the woods about Seaton that summer, and, August
being very dry, they increased so as to be troublesome. From
Major Cleaveland’s house, which stood on the hill-top west of the
village, they could see smoke encircling nearly all the horizon
by day; and by night flames were visible in every direction but
the south, where the sea lay. The air was rank with smoke, cinders
came on the wind when it rose, and vegetation turned sooty. Crops
were spoiling, farm-houses were threatened, and large quantities
of lumber were burned. People looked every day more anxiously for
rain, prayers were offered in the churches for it, and still it
did not come. The blue of the sky changed to brazen, the silver
and gold of moonlight and sunlight became lurid, the springs began
to dry up. Sometimes the day would darken with clouds, and they
looked up hopefully, and watched to see the saving drops descend.
But week followed week, and the refreshing messengers passed by
on the other side. More than once, when the sun was in the west,
it showed them through that canopy of smoke the dense black peaks
and rolling volumes of the thunder-cloud, and at night they could
see the beautiful lightning crinkling round the horizon, and hear
the music of far-away thunder that came down with pelting rain on
distant hills; but still their land was dry, their throats and eyes
inflamed, and the fires crept nearer.
Major Cleaveland came home to tea one night with an anxious face.
“They are afraid the fire will reach Arnold’s woods to-night,” he
said; “and, if it does, Marvin’s house must go, and there is danger
that some part of the town may burn. The wind is very high from the
northwest.”
Mr. Marvin, Mrs. Yorke’s tenant, had purchased her house and
land, and lived there, but the woods still bore their old name of
Arnold’s woods.
Later in the evening, while they sat looking out at the baleful
glow that grew every moment brighter in the northwest, Charles and
Henry Cleaveland came up from the village with later news. Half the
men in the town, they said, had gone out beyond Grandfather Yorke’s
place to fight fire. The firemen were all there, and Mr. Marvin
had his furniture packed ready to send away from the house at a
moment’s warning.
“And those poor Pattens!” Clara asked anxiously. “Have they wit
enough to save themselves? Has any one thought of them?”
The boys had heard no mention made of the Pattens. They supposed
that, if the family had common sense, they had left their house by
this time, for every one said that, unless there should be a shower
with that wind, the fire was not two hours distant.
Captain Cary leaned from the window, and looked overhead. The only
sign of sky was a cluster of stars in the zenith. All else was
smoke. “This wind will bring a shower pretty near, at least, before
the night is over,” he said. “It isn’t a wind out of a clear sky.”
“I must know about those poor creatures!” Clara exclaimed. “They
are so shut in that they would not be able to see which way to go,
if the fire should come upon them; and I am afraid no one will
think of them. Charley, if you will have the buggy out, I will
drive over to Mr. Marvin’s.”
“All right!” says Charley promptly.
Captain Cary had already risen. “I’ve been thinking that I’d go
over and help the men a little,” he remarked, with a moderate air,
as if he had been in the habit of fighting fire every day of his
life for recreation.
“But you will have to change your clothes,” Clara said. “That linen
will never do. Now, see which will be dressed first. I must take
off this organdie, of course. Hester, take out your watch and count
the minutes.”
She flew off merrily, her rose-colored cloud of skirts filling
the doorway as she went through, and Captain Cary walked quietly
after, one of his strides equal to three of her small steps. In
ten minutes they were heard again, opening the doors of their rooms
at the same moment, and Clara appeared in a plaided waterproof
suit, and a sailor hat set jauntily over the rich black coils of
her hair, and laughingly claimed the victory. “We opened our doors
at the same instant,” she said; “but I stopped to button my gloves,
and he has no gloves on. Never say again that a lady cannot dress
as quickly as a gentleman.”
Captain Cary displayed a pair of thick boots, for which he had
exchanged his summer shoes. “May I be allowed to see what you have
on your feet?” he asked.
She put out a foot clad in the thinnest stocking, and a low kid
slipper.
“I appeal!” said the sailor.
“And I give up!” she answered. “Now let me see if you are prepared
to go into Gehenna. Are those clothes all wool?”
She made him turn round, tried with her own fingers the texture
of his sleeve, ordered him to button his coat tightly at neck and
wrists, so that no sparks could get in, and gave him a woollen
scarf, which she commanded him to tie about his face at the proper
time. Then they went out together, dropping their laughter at the
door. For the wind blew in their faces a hard gale, and over the
northwestern horizon glowed an angry aurora, and in the zenith
still hung that cluster of stars.
They drove over to Mr. Marvin’s almost in silence. Carts partly
filled with furniture stood at the avenue-gate, and trunks and
packages had been set out on the steps, ready to be taken away.
Two little children stood in the door, crying with fear, while a
servant tried vainly to pacify them.
“Their mother told me to take them out to the village, to the
Seaton House,” she said to Clara. “And they don’t want to go.”
Mrs. Marvin was up in the cupola, watching the progress of the fire.
Clara reassured the little ones, put them and the girl into the
buggy with Charles Cleaveland, and sent them back home with him.
“But how are you to get back, Aunt Clara?” he asked.
“Oh! in the same way the people out here do,” she answered. “I
shall not be alone. Drive along, Charley. The horse won’t bear this
smoke much longer. He begins to dance now.”
As soon as they had gone, she started off through the woods.
Captain Cary had already preceded her, thinking that she meant to
await him at the house.
Down in the wood-path all was darkness, only a faint reflected
light showing where the path lay; but the tree-tops shone as if
with sunset, and the sky hung close, in a deep-red canopy. Now
and then the light steps of some wild creature, driven from its
forest home, flitted by, and its fleet shape was dimly seen for an
instant. The voices of men were heard, and the sound of axes, not
far away.
When she reached the opening where the Pattens’ house was built,
the whole scene burst upon her sight. The open square of ten acres
was as light as an illuminated drawing-room. Volumes of red smoke
poured over it, dropping cinders, which men and boys ran about
trampling out as soon as they fell. Some men were at work digging a
trench along the furthest side of the opening, others felled trees,
others dragged them away, and others sought for water, and threw it
about the barrier they were making. They worked like tigers, for,
scarcely two miles distant, the fire was leaping toward them like
a courser, or like that flying flame that brought the news from
Ilium to Mount Ida.
Clara’s eyes searched the space. “Do you know where the Pattens
are?” she asked of some one who stood near, but without looking to
see who it was.
“Here we be!” said a piteous voice in reply.
She turned her glance at that, and beheld Joe, with his children
clustered about him, standing beside the path. A large bundle lay
on the ground by them, containing their valuables, probably, and
they were all looking back, with the light in their faces.
She asked him where his wife was.
“She’s there fighting fire among the men,” answered Joe, with an
accusing gesture toward the workers. “I told her that it was my
place to be there, but she sent me off. She thinks now that I and
the children are down at the village; but I am going to stay to
protect my wife. It shall never be said that I deserted her in the
hour of danger.”
“Have you seen Captain Cary?” was the next question.
“That ’ere big sailor? Lor, yes! He’s been working like ten men.
There he is, chopping down a tree.”
Miss Yorke drew her mantle over her head, as a protection against
the cinders, and walked forward. The sky in front of her was like
the mouth of a furnace from which a fiery blast is rushing, and the
tree-trunks in the forest opposite showed a faint glimmer of light
beyond them. Some of the workers were retreating at that last sign.
The wind caught a burning branch, and bore it almost to her feet.
The men stopped to trample it out, then ran. Not more than half
their number remained.
“Good heavens!” she cried excitedly, “will he never start?”
As she spoke, a drop of water fell on her face. She looked up, and
another and another fell.
On the very frontier of the battleground, midway between the woods
that were on fire and those they tried to save, stood a tall maple,
its arms outstretched, as if inviting the enemy. Captain Cary was
cutting that tree down, swinging the axe rapidly in resounding
strokes. A few courageous men still lingered near, working with
renewed hope as they felt the scattering drops, and perceived that
the wind began to lull. But they gave a cry of alarm, and fled
also; for a fiery crest was suddenly lifted above the forest, and
the enemy was upon them. No one was left but Captain Cary, and his
work was not done. If there was a chance of checking the fire, it
was in having that tree down.
It bent slightly under the heavy strokes that smote it, and, as it
bent, a long, flickering tongue of flame shot across the space, and
curled around its topmost tuft of foliage, and devoured it in a
twinkling. Twigs, boughs, branches, all as dry as tinder, kindled
instantly, and the whole tree, wrapped in flame, toppled over, and
fell.
With a cry of terror, Clara Yorke lifted her face, that she might
not see that man perish; and, looking upward, saw the redness
vividly threaded with a blinding white light. Then there were a
rattle and a rumble, and the rain came down in torrents.
“God be thanked!” said a deep voice near by.
There stood Captain Cary, panting, blackened, scorched, torn,
wiping his face on his sleeve, and looking to see how much more
effectually fire could be fought by the powers of heaven than by
the powers of earth. The flames cowered down from the tree-tops
under that tumultuous descent, the brands and cinders died out,
hissing, and streams of water pursued the fire that fled along the
ground.
“Providence arrived just in time,” observed one of the men who had
gathered about him.
The sailor looked at him with a reproving glance. “Providence
always does arrive in time,” he said reverently.
Here Mrs. Patten, looking like one of those witches we see in
the play of Macbeth, not even lacking the long pole, made her
appearance about as mysteriously as those witches do.
“Gentlemen,” she said, “since the hour of peril has gone past, and
you must be fatigued by your exertions, I hope that you will take
shelter from the rain in my poor mansion. You shall be welcome to
such humble hospitality as I can offer you.”
They were nearly in darkness now, having only such light as came
from the frequent flashes overhead.
The sailor thanked her politely. “I shall be glad if you can lend
me a lantern,” he said; “for I want to get through to Mr. Marvin’s
as soon as I can. Somebody is there waiting for me.”
Mrs. Patten led the way, and the others followed. In the
semi-darkness, a smaller figure, which Captain Cary had not noticed
before, came close to his side, and slipped a hand in his arm; and
the “somebody” who should have been waiting for him at Mr. Marvin’s
said quietly, “You see, I cannot walk very well without help, for I
have lost one of my slippers.”
The sailor’s heart had not given such a jump when the burning tree
fell and just missed him, as it gave at the sound of that voice.
“You here!” he exclaimed. “What did you come for?”
“To see the fire,” replied Miss Yorke.
“And you are barefoot?”
“Oh! no,” she said cheerfully. “I have a Lisle-thread stocking,
what there is left of it, between my right foot and the sticks, and
stones, and briers, and thistles, and--so forth.”
He groaned out, “Oh! you poor little dear!” and seemed on the
point of saying something he was afraid to say, hesitated, almost
stopped, then stammered, “I suppose it would be impudent to offer
to carry you as far as the house, but I hate to have you walk that
way.”
“Oh! thank you!” answered Miss Clara. “I could not think, though,
of receiving so much assistance from any one but my husband, or the
one who is to be my husband.”
The sailor swallowed a great sigh, and they walked on, Clara
hobbling fearfully.
“I wish that he were here now, whoever he may be,” she said in a
plaintive voice, after a minute. “For, really--”
Her escort said not a word.
In a few minutes they reached the log-house, where Joe and the
children had already arrived; and, waiting only for the men to wash
the soot from their faces and hands, and to find a shoe which Miss
Yorke could keep on her foot, they set out again, with a lantern.
At Mr. Marvin’s they found Major Cleaveland’s carriage awaiting
them, and in twenty minutes they were at home, without having
spoken a word on the way.
But when they reached there, Clara looked anxiously at her
companion. “Can’t I do anything for you?” she asked.
He thanked her gravely. No, he needed nothing. She had better see
to herself.
She made a movement to leave the room, and did not go. She
lingered, looking to see what was the matter with him. He was in a
deplorable condition as to his clothing, his hair was singed, his
hands and face blistering in places; but that did not seem to be
the trouble. Neither was he angry. The deep thoughtfulness of his
expression forbade that supposition.
She chose to say, though, “I hope you are not offended about
anything.”
He seemed surprised, and recollected himself. “Why, no!” he
answered. “Have I been cross? Excuse me! I was thinking of
something.” He looked at her earnestly. “There is something I would
like to know--not because I am curious, or want to interfere in any
person’s private affairs, but because I think it might settle my
mind to know. I’ll tell you what it is, and I hope you’ll believe
that I don’t mean any offence, though it may sound impudent. You
must know, Miss Clara”--his eyes dropped humbly--“that I took
a liking to you at first. Of course I wasn’t such a fool as to
expect anything from you; but what you said back there in the woods
to-night showed me that I am a greater fool than I thought I could
be. Do you want me to stop now?”
“No,” Clara answered gently. “I would like to hear what you have
been thinking of, and to say anything I can to quiet your mind.”
“Well,” he went on, “I should feel better to know if you have any
man in your eye that you like. It’s none of my business,” he added
hastily, “but it might do me good to know the truth.”
Clara blushed to the forehead, but her laughing glance was raised
to his face.
“Yes, Captain Cary,” she said, “I have a man in both my eyes whom I
like and esteem.”
He was silent a moment. Perhaps his sunburnt face grew a shade
paler.
“That’s all I want to know,” he said then. “I thank you for telling
me; and I wish you every happiness that earth and heaven can give.”
He bowed, and took a step toward the door.
“Oh! you great stupid!” she cried out in a voice of ringing
impatience, and with a laugh that seemed to be on the verge of
crying.
The sailor turned at that, and drew himself up with proud
indignation. For the first time his eyes flashed on her, and she
saw how lofty he could be in self-assertion.
“Miss Yorke,” he said, “I’m but a rough man, not learned nor polite
enough to be the husband of an accomplished lady like you; but I’m
an honest man, and I won’t be scorned by any woman. My love may not
be fit for your taking, but it’s too good for your mocking. I know
what I am worth!”
“You do not!” she exclaimed. “You don’t know anything about it!”
He looked severely down upon her, but said nothing.
“I didn’t mean to mock you, nor treat you with any disrespect,” she
said. “You misunderstand me, Captain Cary.”
His face softened. “I suppose I do,” he replied. “You have a
laughing way, but I know you don’t mean any harm. Forget my rough
talk, and forget all I have said to you to-night.”
He went toward the door again.
“I shall not forget it,” she said. “I shall never forget that
one of the best of men liked me, yet was capable of deserting me
because I would not offer myself to him.”
He looked round as if he thought she had lost her senses. “Why,
Miss Clara, what do you mean?”
She clasped her hands, and raised her eyes to the ceiling. “Did you
ever,” she asked, addressing, apparently, a wreath of stucco faces
there--“did you ever witness such obtuseness?”
He stared at her a moment, standing; then he sat down, and
continued looking at her intently.
“And did you ever witness such inconsistency?” she continued, still
to the stucco faces. “He pretends to like me, and in the same
breath tells me that he won’t have me--as if I had asked him to!”
“Miss Clara!”
She glanced at him disdainfully, and returned to her communication
with the ceiling. “I shall not, however, break my heart for him.”
Over the sailor’s weather-beaten face a soft, uncertain light was
stealing, as you may sometimes see the morning light steal over the
face of a rugged bluff, covering it with beauty.
“Clara,” he said--she had heard him speak to the little ones in
that low voice--“do you mean to say that you will marry me?”
“Captain Cary,” she replied, with an expression of excellent candor
and good sense, “how am I to marry a man who won’t ask me?”
Then Captain Cary asked her.
A week after that she was at home with her family; and the first
day, after dinner was over, when they sat quietly alone, she told
her story to her father and mother.
They could scarcely believe her in earnest, and fifteen minutes
were taken up with exclamations and expressions of incredulity.
Clara received it all with patience, and, at length, succeeded in
convincing her parents that, with their consent, she meant to
become Miss Clara Cary, “which will be the first alliteration I
ever purposely committed,” she said.
It happens too frequently that persons of an original turn of mind
are less understood by their familiar associates, and even by
their own families, than by strangers, and that those to whom they
naturally look for appreciation give it only when the example is
set them from abroad.
With all their affection for her, Clara’s parents often mistook
her, because they took for granted that they knew her perfectly,
and, therefore, never paused to examine. The consciousness of this
involuntary injustice on their part had increased her natural
impatience, and made her disinclined to explain herself; and, with
a perversity for which, they were half to blame, she sometimes
said what they evidently expected her to say, rather than what she
meant. It was not surprising, therefore, that the first reasons she
gave for her choice were superficial ones.
She liked brave, manly men, she said; and Captain Cary would give
her just that life of adventure which she would most delight
in. With him, that pretty old myth of women looking to men for
protection in danger would be realized.
“Why, papa,” she said, “when I go out with any of the nice young
men I know, if a dog barks, or a cow shakes her head at us, my
escort is more frightened than I am. I shall call the captain
Jason, and myself Medea--with a difference. There will be no
Creusa. We will go after the golden fleece, and bring it home to
put under little mamma’s feet. We will gather something for you in
every sea, and from under every sky,
‘As we sail, as we sail.’”
Mr. and Mrs. Yorke neglected to observe the one significant
sentence: “_There will be no Creusa_.” They did not object to the
sailor on account of his character or wealth, they said. They did
not even object because they would be so much separated from their
daughter, though that would be a grief to them; but they thought
the two incongruous in tastes and habits, and feared that Clara was
mistaking that for a serious and lasting affection which was only a
temporary artistic enthusiasm for a _unique_ specimen of mankind.
“I do not choose Captain Cary because he is rough, as you call it,
but in spite of his roughness,” Clara said. “Our tastes are not as
dissimilar as you imagine, though. He has great delicacy of feeling
and perception, and he is as true a gentleman as I ever knew. I
have always looked more to the spirit than the letter, and I can
perceive and admire a good mind and heart in spite of some outward
defects. I trust and believe in him entirely. If he is not honest,
then no one is. He is magnanimous and truthful. I don’t care if he
does not know Latin and Greek. One may know too much of them. He
pretends to nothing, and he never appears ignorant. I’m not ashamed
of him.”
“I did not know you were so much in earnest, Clara,” her father
said, looking at her with a smile of approval. “If you are really
satisfied with him, I have not a word to say against your marrying
him. Only I thought you would prefer a person who was more literary
and enthusiastic. Captain Cary is rather taciturn, and very sober.”
“But he can be roused,” Clara replied with animation; “and when
he is, it is something lyric. You remember, papa, Villemain’s
definition of the true ode, as distinguished from the conventional
one: ‘_L’émotion d’une âme ébranlée et frémissante comme les cordes
d’une lyre._’ It is no little factious stir at every touch, and
snapping at a blow, but ‘smitten and vibrating’ grandly on great
occasions.”
Mrs. Yorke gave a little sigh of expiring opposition. “One of my
chief objections,” she said, “was that it would look so _bizarre_.
If you do not care for that, then it is nothing.”
“Mamma,” Clara replied, “you would be astonished to know how little
thought I give to the opinions of the Rose-pinks and Priscillas and
pasteboard highnesses.”
And so the matter was tacitly settled.
But later, when Mr. and Mrs. Yorke sat together in the falling
twilight, Clara came in softly behind them, pushed a footstool
between their chairs, and sat there, holding a hand of each.
“Papa, mamma,” she said, “I want you to be satisfied that I am
doing nothing without thought, and that I have chosen wisely. I
tell you truly, Captain Cary is the only Protestant gentleman I
know whom I can marry, and would not be afraid to marry. Look how
the world is going. See what a frightful change has come over
Boston since we can remember. Why, I have heard stories of some of
our old acquaintances, people whom we thought respectable, which
have sickened me. Your other two daughters have married good men,
whom they can trust; but they are old-fashioned men, old enough to
be their wives’ fathers instead of husbands. But of that class of
men from whom you would think I might properly choose, would you
dare to have me choose? I would not dare. Marriage has no longer
any sacredness, except among Catholics. Other men desert or divorce
their wives for nothing, and do the most horrible things. I should
think that one-half the Protestant married ladies would look on
their husbands with terror and distrust; and I wonder how any girl
dares to marry. The weddings I’ve seen lately, instead of seeming
happy occasions to me, have seemed most sad and painful. I heard a
lady say this summer that in fifty years, or less, there would be
no marriage outside the Catholic Church.”
“Charles, it is but too true,” the mother said. “I am terrified
when I think of what is so evidently coming. It was the thought of
this which reconciled me to Carl’s being a Catholic.”
“I wish we were all Catholics!” Clara exclaimed. “Not that I know
or think much of theology; but it is better to believe too much
than too little, and they are on the safe side. If we were wrecked,
and our ship going to pieces, we would be glad of any vessel to
pick us up. We wouldn’t quarrel with the cut of her jib.”
Mr. Yorke smiled. “See how she already draws her illustrations from
the sea!” he said, and passed over her wish. “Well, Amy, she has
proved herself a sensible girl, has she not? and deserves that we
not only consent, but applaud.”
The mother’s answer was a silent embrace.
If the thought of either parent glanced with a momentary longing
toward that strong inviolate church, against which the fiercest
powers of hell beat in vain, which seems now to loom an ark indeed,
while the rising waves of sin are submerging all beside, they said
nothing.
Of the shock Melicent felt on learning of this engagement, we do
not speak. Edith received the news with delight.
Edith had also other sources of pleasure. She had good news
from Seaton. Mass was said there now once a fortnight, without
any disturbance; and Mrs. Patten, with all her family, had been
baptized. After that fire, which had so nearly swept away their
home, and had put their lives in peril, the poor woman hesitated
no longer. She had vowed that night, in the midst of her terror,
that, if her life was spared, she would ask to be admitted to the
church the first time the priest came again; and she kept her vow.
Edith carefully read the long letter written to her descriptive of
the occasion, and, through all its absurdities, rejoiced to see the
spirit of a sincere faith and obedience.
This baptism excited a good deal of comment in Seaton. It was
said that Boadicea had taken a stick to her husband to assist his
conversion, and that, at the beginning, poor Joe was no more a
Catholic than Sganarelle the wood-cutter was a doctor; but, however
that may have been, he certainly became afterward a most exemplary
Catholic, as far as he went. And it is likely that He who sees
through all outward forms, and scorns only the scorner, received
these humble penitents with a welcome as fatherly as that accorded
to any illustrious convert.
Through Father John, Edith had frequent news of her childhood’s
friend, and all she heard was such as to fill her with contentment.
He did not wish to hold direct communication with the world, but
to pursue his studies with but two thoughts in his mind--a God to
serve and adore, and a world full of sinners to save for God’s sake.
Mrs. Rowan-Williams, seeing that her son was not despised and cast
down, but rather elevated higher, and being convinced that, in some
way she could not comprehend, he was entirely satisfied and happy,
took comfort. She could not, however, any longer attend on a church
where his belief and profession might at any time be traduced, and
gradually, from staying at home on Sundays, began to go to his
church, to listen with curiosity, then with interest, then with
growing admiration, and, at last, to feel happy and at home there.
And in the spring, Carl was coming home.
“Bind on thy sandals, O thou most fleet!
Over the splendor and speed of thy feet.”
But not in idle wishing was the winter passed. There was work,
lightened by joyful anticipations, work persevered in in spite of
doubts and fears, and work dear and joyful for its own sake. And
thus the spring was earned.
The snows melted, the robins returned, tiny green leaves appeared,
and there came a day when they sat with their windows open. Every
one who passed by looked smiling; no one was sad that day, it
seemed, so delightful is the coming of spring. Up-stairs Clara went
about from room to room, singing snatches from a hymn to joy. Mrs.
Yorke and Edith, sewing and talking in the parlor below, smiled to
each other as they heard her.
“Joy, thou spark of heavenly brightness,
Daughter from Elysium!
Hearts on fire, with steps of lightness,
On thy holy ground we come.
Thou canst bind all, each to other,
Custom sternly rends apart,
All mankind are friend and brother,
When thy soft wing fans the heart.”
A letter had come from Clara’s Jason that morning. He was at Havana
when he wrote, and about sailing for England. In the fall he would
return to America, and then he and his lady were to sail in search
of the golden fleece.
The aunt and niece spoke softly together of her hopes and their
own, of their poor, of their friends, of the robins that twittered
just outside the windows, of the rose-vines that were so forward,
of the rainbows of crocuses in the yard, of the unexpected help
they had received in some benevolent projects of their own.
“People are so much better than one thinks,” Edith said. “It is
delightful how much goodness there is, and how kind almost any
one will be if approached in the right way. I have great hopes of
the world. There’s nothing like trying to be a saint one’s self.
If we should all try, there wouldn’t be a sinner on earth. If I
should try, perhaps some one else would, and then, may be, some
other person would be excited to try, and so it would go on round
the world. It seems to me that cheerfulness, and kindness, and a
helping hand, and a looking at the bright side, and a determination
to find a bright side, and, altogether, a persistent shining, is
what is wanted. Light is good, and joy is good, and pain is good
only because it may be the birth of delight. Great is gladness, if
the Lord is behind it!”
“All mankind are friend and brother,
When thy soft wing fans the heart,”
sang Clara, in the room above; then stopped, with a little outcry.
The two below glanced through the window, and saw a gentleman in
the street, near their steps. He walked slowly, looking straight
on, so that they saw his profile. They dropped their work, and
gazed at him steadily. Mrs. Yorke put her hand to her heart, Edith
held her breath, and two red, red roses bloomed in her cheeks.
Up-stairs, Clara made not a sound.
This gentleman’s step was light and firm, his figure graceful and
manly, his face sunburnt, and the bright spring sunshine found
golden lights in his hair and long moustache.
At the step he paused, then turned and came up, rapidly now, taking
off his hat, and looking eagerly, since he had ventured to look at
all.
Clara came flying down the stairs, and reached the parlor-door,
with her arms twined around the new-comer, leading him in triumph.
Mrs. Yorke, without rising from her chair, stretched her hands out
to her son.
“O Lord! let me never forget thee!” sighed Edith, waiting her
turn. “Let me never forget thee!”