‘VENI, VIDI, VICI’
After the death of Ezekiel Fish the care of the farm devolved upon the
two brothers, both of them typical Yankee farmers, but without a trace
of the kindliness so characteristic of the Eddys. Rube had never been a
favourite with them. They dared not despise him openly--he was too big
and strong for that; but they spoke of him behind his back in terms of
disparagement, and did all in their power to discourage the slightest
feeling of affection for him that they imagined their sister to have.
Jake, the elder brother, a man some three years older than Rube, had
by virtue of his seniority assumed full charge of affairs, and already
had begun to launch out in various speculative ways that troubled the
old lady sorely. His visits to Boston ‘on business’ were frequent and
prolonged, and already he was becoming known to a few of his less
reputable associates as a ’feller thet wuz makin’ things hum a bit.’
In these altered circumstances it was no wonder that Rube pressed his
suit more earnestly than ever. His unselfish nature was fully alarmed
for Priscilla’s immediate future, and his anxiety on her behalf gave
his love an added lustre which it had lacked before. But to his
distress and chagrin, the steady growth of his affection did not
awaken in her the slightest responsiveness. To a stranger it would
have been at once manifest that she merely tolerated the young man;
even to his love-blinded perceptions the fact stubbornly persisted in
revealing itself. Rube endured this coldness patiently for months,
until on the evening of the commencement of our story he had drifted
almost unconsciously into a protest against this treatment of himself
by Priscilla who, if she had never given him any encouragement worth
speaking of, had at least tacitly accepted him as a lover. She had
received his complaint in the manner already specified, speaking the
exact truth about the state of her feelings towards him as far as she
knew them. The trouble was that she had not quite realised the strength
of a feeling of unrest and discontent with her surroundings which had
been steadily eating into her mind for months past. It was largely due
to her brother Jake, who, in the elated condition generally noticeable
on his return from Boston, was wont to launch into extravagant praise
of city life with its light and bustle and abundant enjoyments.
Naturally he was correspondingly contemptuous of the well-ordered
procession of days characteristic of the country. The majestic
harmonies and sweet confidences of Nature, the changeful orchestra of
each day, and the placid stillness of the nights, had become to his
disorganised ideas like the stagnation of death. His was that subtle
malaise that stealthily undermines the natural order of things, and,
leaving the countryside to go out of cultivation, herds men and women
together in vast feverish crowds to stew and fret and die, but never to
return to the quiet of the country again.
This miserable change had, without her knowledge, infected Priscilla
also in such a manner that now every task was irksome, the stillness
of the evenings almost unbearable. Irritability, which had never
before disfigured her character, became increasingly noticeable. Even
Rube saw the change, but could not dream of its cause, and innocently
added to it by his dog-like untiring affection. Matters were in this
unsatisfactory state when one evening the sound of wheels through the
crisp air warned the inmates of the Fish place that Jake was returning
from one of his Boston jaunts. Priscilla dropped her knitting and went
to the door which looked across the wide paddock down the road. To her
surprise she saw in the fast approaching buggy two forms. Jake was
bringing a visitor! The prospect of any break in what had now become
almost an intolerable monotony so affected her that she felt nearly
intoxicated, her face flushed rosily, and a tingling thrill that was
almost pain rushed all over her. Yet she could not move, but stood
there framed in the portal like a graceful picture, while the buggy
drew up at the roadside and the men alighted. As they came across the
paddock towards her she saw that the stranger was tall and stalwart,
walking with the easy loose-jointed swing of the smart sailor. He
was dressed in the garb of an ordinary well-clothed townsman, but a
wide sombrero, of brown velvet apparently, shaded his face. Whether
by accident or design on his part, this hat completed his resemblance
to one of the old conquistadores or grandees of Spain painted by
Velasquez. For his visage was swarthy and oval, his eyes large, black,
and brilliant, and the lower half of his face was covered by a pointed
beard and immense moustache so black and thick and silky that it hardly
seemed of natural growth. To Priscilla’s eyes he looked as if he had
just stepped across the years out of Prescott’s living page, and, like
so many others of her sex, in that moment she gave him her whole heart,
offered herself up to the husk of a man, unknowing and uncaring what it
contained.
Her mind in a confused whirl of thought, she stood as if petrified
until the travellers reached her, and made no sign, even when Jake
said, ‘Thishyer’s my sister Priscilla, Cap’n. Pris, Cap’n Da Silva.’
The Captain bowed, gracefully enough because naturally, but with
evident signs that the movement was unusual, and held out his small and
well-shaped brown hand to meet Priscilla’s white and plump one. The
contact of their hands acted upon her like a vigorous restorative, and
the blood fled back again from her face and neck, leaving them for the
moment unnaturally pale as she found her voice and bade the stranger
welcome. Even Jake’s dull eyes could not fail to see how powerfully his
sister was impressed by the Captain, and it pleased him well. Selfish
and grasping, he was by no means sorry to get rid of his sister, nor
did the thought of his mother’s loneliness affect him in the slightest
degree. So that it was with a chuckle of satisfaction he turned away to
put up his horse and buggy, saying carelessly as he did so, ‘’Scuse me,
Cap. My sister’ll look after you in shape, won’t ye, Pris?’
Thenceforward Priscilla and the Captain were constant companions,
their intimacy tacitly encouraged by Jake, who was in a high state
of satisfaction at the prospect of getting rid of his sister finally.
The mother made many attempts to gain her daughter’s confidence,
for she felt an innate distrust of the handsome stranger. But
Priscilla, forgetting all her mother’s claims, avoided with intuitive
diplomacy any approach to the subject on her part, showing at times
an irritability of manner that sorely troubled the old lady, who,
having no one to turn to in her distress of mind, was lonely indeed.
At last, one day when Pris, the Captain, and Jake had driven off upon
some excursion of pleasure, she felt that she could bear the trouble
alone no longer, and taking advantage of her younger son’s absence at
a neighbouring farm, she made a pilgrimage over to the Eddy farmhouse,
intent upon pouring out her heart to Mrs. Eddy. The meeting between the
two old dames was full of pathetic interest, for Mrs. Eddy loved her
boy so fondly that, although she had never felt drawn to Priscilla,
it was enough for her that Rube loved the girl. His happiness was
the consideration that overtopped all others in her heart. So that
when Mrs. Fish unburdened herself, her hearer was torn by maternal
solicitude for her boy, and for the time her anxiety as to the effect
this news would have upon him was too great to allow her to reply. And
when she did speak, her words sounded hollow and unmeaning--so much so
that her visitor stared at her wonderingly. For Mrs. Eddy’s powers of
consolation and wisdom of counsel were matters of common knowledge over
a wide extent of country--she was looked up to as infallible. The look
in her visitor’s eyes recalled her to herself somewhat, and choking
down her feelings by a great effort, she said:
‘Wall, Hepziber, yewrs ’s surely a hard case, ’n’ I kain’t fur th’ life
of me see wut yew’re to do. Ef Pris is ’tarmined tu go her own way ’n’
wun’t listen to yew on the matter ’t all, ’n’ ef, ’s yew say, Jake’s
doin’ his best t’ encourage her, yew’re jest brought face to face with
th’ wall, ’s yew may say. My Rube w’d hev made her a good husband, an’
one ’bout whose record there couldn’t be any doubt; but I’ve seen fur a
long time that she wuz jest puttin’ up with him like--she didn’t love
him more ’n she did me, ’n’ you know she never took ter me, ner dad
eyther. Go home ’n’ pray about it, Hepziber; it’s all we kin do. As fur
myself, I’ve got ter wrassle with th’ Lord for my boy, fur how he’ll
b’ar this I kain’t begin ter think.’
And with this cold comfort (to her), Widow Fish had to depart for the
home she was beginning to feel a stranger in, after all these years,
leaving Mrs. Eddy with a heart overflowing with sorrowful love for her
only son. With a natural dread of the effect the news would have upon
him, she put in practice all the simple arts she knew to keep him in
ignorance of what was brewing, and finally succeeded, by the aid of her
husband, in despatching him to Boston on business without his calling
at the Fish place first. He was absent from home for a fortnight,
and when he returned, after an hour or two spent with his father and
mother, he rose and said, with a transparent attempt to conceal his
eagerness:
‘I guess I’ll jest stroll over an’ see Pris. I’d like to tell her ’bout
some o’ the Boston sights. ’N’ I’ve brought her a cunning little watch
for a birthday present.’
The mother looked appealingly at her husband, who, answering her gaze
with eyes full of fondness, rose, and laying his hand upon Rube’s
shoulder, said:
‘My son, yew’re a man in years an’ strength, ’n’ I’ve brung ye up to be
the _good_ man I b’lieve y’ are. Y’ haven’t hed enny big trouble yet,
but y’ know ther’ ain’t nothin’ in th’ world yew kin ’pend on till it’s
tested. Yew’re goin’ ter be tested now. Priscilla’s married.’
The watch dropped from the young man’s fingers on to the stone floor
and was broken. Except for that sound there was absolute silence: none
of the three seemed to breathe. Presently Rube spoke:
‘Thank ye, father, fur tellin’ me plain ’n’ prompt. Now I think I’ll go
upstairs ’n’ rest.’
And with heavy uncertain steps Rube left the kitchen, mounted to the
little room he had occupied since he was a child, and shut himself in.
It was true. With a haste that was explained by the Captain as
absolutely necessary on account of his ship being ordered to sea at
a very short notice, he had pressed his suit when once he found how
willing Priscilla was to take him at his own valuation. Mrs. Fish,
thoroughly bewildered by the whole hasty proceeding, wandered about the
house like an unquiet ghost, doing nothing either to help or hinder
the preparations. Jake was unwontedly lavish with the funds necessary,
and indefatigable in giving assistance, so that two days before Rube
returned from Boston the newly married pair had departed for New
Bedford with the intention of spending their honeymoon on board Captain
Da Silva’s ship as she journeyed southward on the commencement of her
long voyage. She was called the _Grampus_, and was one of the fine
fleet of South Sea whaleships then sailing from New Bedford, although
so ignorant were the farm-folk of Vermont of maritime matters that even
Jake, smart as he fancied himself, had but the dimmest, vaguest idea of
what the life was that his sister was going to be shut up to for the
next three or four years. Still less did he care. As for Priscilla, she
would have accepted unquestioningly any situation into which she might
be brought so long as she was by the side of the man she worshipped
with a fierce unreasoning intensity. Of Rube she never thought for more
than a minute at a time, and then it was only with a sense of relief
at the knowledge that he would trouble her no more. From her mother
she parted without regret: there seemed to be no room in her mind
for anything else but intense satisfaction in the prize she believed
herself to have won. Even the prospect of seeing the great world which
had once claimed all her desires was but a feeble unit now in the vast
sum of her delight in the possession of Ramon Da Silva. Nor was her joy
in the least damped by the masterful way in which he accepted all the
affection she lavished upon him. To do him justice, he was hardly to
blame for this. His career, from the time he had enlisted as a green
hand on board of an American whaler at Fayal, in his sixteenth year,
had been one long series of successes, due to the great force of his
character, his utter unscrupulousness, and entire absence of fear. Step
by step he had risen in his dangerous profession until he had become
master of a whaleship, while his name was a household word among the
fleet for smartness, courage, and--brutality.