descendants, not only a vast estate, a splendid home, and an
illustrious name, but, by a still stronger law of heirship, certain
marked traits of character hereditary in himself,--indomitable energy,
dogged independence, strong family pride, and an occasional lunacy of
rage, familiarly known as the "Black Bergan temper," to which the race
had been subject from time immemorial. These characteristics were to
be traced, more or less distinctly through all the portraits of his
successors; but in none did they seem to be so perfectly reproduced as
in his present representative. In truth, Major Bergan might be
regarded as the original Sir Harry over again; his harsh features and
stern expression being shown in the old, time-darkened picture with a
degree of prophetical accuracy little short of actual portraiture.
Other pictured faces there were, however, which time, still faithful to
its work of bringing out the essential truth, had only touched into
softer beauty. Such was the face of Eleanor, wife of Sir Harry; a
woman of fair and noble presence, in the rich prime of her life, with a
wise, strong, beautiful soul, shining out through her deep, soft eyes.
Before this picture Bergan lingered long. Even in babyhood, his mother
had resembled it strongly enough to make it seem most fitting that she
should receive its name; and the likeness had so strengthened with
years, that now, it might easily have passed for her portrait, painted
from life.
Seeing how perfectly these twain of their ancestors were reflected in
his mother and uncle, not only in features, but also in character,
Bergan was suddenly seized with a nightmare of doubt and questioning.
Was a man's good or evil, then, a mere matter of inheritance, an
inevitable heirloom, handed down to him from a remote ancestry, by a
more effectual law of transmission than has ever been established, in
respect to more tangible property? If so,--if the defects and
weaknesses, the depraved tastes and ungovernable passions, which
characterized the father were inevitably passed on to the son, and the
son's son,--if the moral disease under which this man groaned, as well
as the sweet temper which made that woman a household sunbeam, were to
be surely traced back to their ancestor of a hundred years ago; what
became of individual worth, individual shame, and individual
accountability?
Bergan shrank from the apparently inevitable conclusion. He felt, with
an unutterable horror, its snaky coils tightening around him, squeezing
the breath out of every noble aim and aspiration. He could only escape
from it by an appeal from his reason to his consciousness.
"If," he asked himself, "I should now take that grim picture from the
wall, and thrust it into the fire, in revenge for the pain which it has
given me, should I not know, despite all reasoning to the contrary,
that I--I alone, and not that bearded Sir Harry, was responsible for
the foolish act? Certainly, I should; for whatever else he may have
sent down to me, he did not give me either my will or my conscience.
These are my own, and never Bergan of them all had them before me!"
And he drew a long breath of relief.
His attention was now directed to the portrait of a young girl, at the
end of the second row, nearest the window. It had an odd, illusive
resemblance to some one that he had known,--a singular likeness in
unlikeness, which puzzled while it attracted him. All at once,
capturing the fleeting, familiar expression, as it were, by a swift
side-glance, he recognized it as that portrait of his mother in her
youth, of which Major Bergan had spoken. He stood gazing upon it long
and earnestly, yet with a strange, undefinable feeling of sadness, too.
For this bright, young being, with the smooth brow, the arch, dimpled
face, and the unwakened soul dreaming at the depths of the soft eyes,
was, after all, a stranger to him,--a being that he had never known,
and never could know, any more than if she had been laid years ago
under the sod, and her sweet substance gradually transformed into
violets and daisies. He went back to the picture of Lady Eleanor, and
felt, with a thrill of gladness, that he had found again the mother
that he seemed, for a brief space, to have lost.
He now turned from the pictures to the book-cases, and found them to
contain a heterogeneous collection of ancient and modern volumes,
carelessly ranged upon the shelves, without reference either to age or
theme. Latin and English classics stood shoulder to shoulder; law and
poetry were harmoniously cheek by jowl; divinity and science amiably
helped each other to stand upright; history, philosophy, morality, and
controversy, met on the same plane, and sunk their differences under
one uniform coat of dust. Geography that read like fiction, geology
that had no interest except to the antiquarian, and infidelity that had
not a peg left to stand upon, were huddled together in one corner, and
(no doubt to their utter amazement) helped, in these latter days, to
point the same moral.
Growing oppressed, at last, with the sight of so much hopelessly
shelved thought, so many pages bearing the prints of a long succession
of fingers now crumbled into dust, Bergan turned back to the hall,
mounted the staircase, and glanced into two or three of the chambers.
He found in all faded carpets, ancient bureaus, high-post bedsteads,
shadow-haunted hangings, a thick coating of dust, and a heavy,
breathless scent which, it seemed to him, death must needs have left
there, in his oldtime visits. Indeed, he could almost have believed
that the last occupant of each dusky cavern of a bed had stiffened into
clay therein, and been left to choke the air, and coat the furniture,
with his own mouldering substance. No lighter dust, he thought, could
have made the atmosphere so thick, or caused him to draw his breath so
heavily.
Opening the last door in the gallery, Bergan was startled to find a
room with every appearance of recent occupancy. Not a speck of dust
dimmed the carpet or the furniture; the curtains and the bed-drapery
stirred lightly with the breeze from a half-open window; the soft
pillows seemed waiting for the head that had dreamed upon them last
night; a chair, with a shawl thrown carelessly over the back, stood
where it must needs have been left a moment ago; an open workbox showed
a suggestive confusion of spools of silk and bits of ribbon and
worsted; a vase of flowers adorned the mantel; and a little white glove
lay on the toilet-table, among brushes and scent-bottles, and was
reflected in a small, bright mirror. Bergan hastily drew back, feeling
intuitively that he had intruded upon a maiden's bed-chamber, keeping
still the perfume of her sweet breath and happy thoughts.
Yet--the bed-linen, how strangely yellow!--the shawl, how dim and
faded!--the flowers, how withered! He advanced again; he began to
understand that the maiden who had dreamed on that pillow, whose hand
had left its dainty mould in that glove, the sweetness of whose virgin
breath still lingered in the room with the scent of the withered
rosebuds, went out from it years ago,--a bride,--to be known
thenceforth as wife and mother,--his mother! His eyes grew moist; one
by one he touched the little possessions left behind with her girlhood,
striving thus to come a little closer to the fair, shy image, that
moved him with such unutterable tenderness, yet seemed so far beyond
his ken. Reverently, at last, he closed the door, as upon a still,
white, smiling corpse, at once ineffably beautiful and ineffably sad.
But who had cared for this one room so tenderly, while all the rest of
the house had been left to go to ruin? The answer was plain. Old Rue,
whose love for her young mistress was half a worship, had taken a
sorrowful pleasure in keeping the room (with such help as she could
easily command) in the exact state in which it had been left.
Bergan was in no mood for further exploration. He made his way back to
the entrance-hall, and sat down in one of the antique chairs. He was
not quite ready for the instant transition into the outward sunshine.
His heart was too heavy. The ancestral home was only an ancestral
tomb. Surrounded by memorials of the old state and splendor of Bergan
Hall, he felt all the more keenly its present desolation and decay.
Remembering the noble Bergan lineage, he was humiliated to the dust by
the thought of its present representative.
And here, first, his uncle's offer rose before him in the dazzling
garments of temptation. Was it, after all, an ignoble ambition to lift
the family name out of the dust, to restore the family home, fill it
again with social life and warmth, and make it the centre of purer,
more refining, and more elevating influences than ever before? Was it
not better than any mere personal ambition? Might it not be just the
place which he was meant to fill, and which, if he declined to take it,
would be left empty? From questions he went on to answers; and his
thoughts shaped out a tempting vision of Bergan Hall restored,
revivified. Light steps and rustling garments went up and down the
broad staircase,--his mother sat smiling in her old room,--voices of
children echoed through the large, sunshiny parlors,--guests came and
went,--he himself sat in the library, crowned with honors as with
years, and--
He was recalled to the present and the actual by a low rumble of
thunder. The sunshine had faded from the sky; clouds were rolling up
from the west; he hastened back to the cottage through the first drops
of the rain.
The evening passed much like its predecessor. When, at last, he went
up to his room, leaving his uncle to the dear companionship of his
bottle and glass, he found it half-flooded with water from a newly
sprung leak in the roof. Hastily declining the Major's hesitating
offer of a share in his own apartment, he begged permission to quarter
himself in the old Hall.
Major Bergan set down his glass, and looked at him with a mixture of
wonder and admiration. "Certainly, Harry, if you are in earnest about
it," said he. "But I must say that you are a brave fellow to choose to
sleep alone in an old ruin like that,--haunted, too, the negroes say.
But are you sure that you can find a room there any less leaky than
your present one?"
"Quite sure. I noticed two or three, on the south side, which seemed
to be in excellent condition."
"Very well; take your choice, and make yourself as comfortable as you
can. Brick is under your orders, of course; and Maumer Rue will send
you out one of the women, with what linen is needed. Good night."
The Major remained standing at the door, till he saw, first, a
wandering gleam of light through the crevices of the old house, and
then the steady beam of a candle, shining from an upper window.
"A light in Eleanor's room!--I never expected to see that again!" he
murmured, and went back to his bottle, to drink all the deeper for some
unwontedly sad and remorseful thoughts.
Meanwhile, Bergan had not once dreamed of appropriating that maiden
sanctuary. He had merely chosen the room next to it; and the door
between being transiently opened for better ventilation, Major Bergan
had seen his light through the designated window.
It was not an easy task to make his dusty, mouldy room even tolerably
habitable, but it was finally achieved; and, dismissing Brick, Bergan
laid his head on his pillow, with a real satisfaction in being, at
last, domiciled under his ancestral roof.
VI.
THE DAY OF TEMPTATION.
Two days of drizzling rain followed, and did their best to make the
black roof and mouldy walls of Bergan Hall look more cheerless than
ever. But a counteracting influence was busy within. An energetic
young spirit was rapidly organizing a home for itself in one corner;
turning the shadows out of nooks where they had lain so long as almost
to have established a pre-emption right, and making short work with
dust, mould, and dead air. And, in some inexplicable way, the whole
house seemed to catch the pleasant infection, and to be faintly astir
with life. A passer-by of delicate instincts would have seen at once
that the long lease of silence and emptiness had expired. And in
truth, it would have been strange if a dwelling, so old--so long
familiar with human affairs and interests, the very timbers of which
must have been oozy with the exhalations of a long succession of joys
and sorrows--had not shown itself ready to sympathize with every
passing phase of life, and especially to welcome back to its empty old
bosom a fresh, young, beating heart.
That it did so, Bergan felt intuitively. In return, he did what he
could to vivify with his single personality its whole wide indoor
world. Having received unlimited discretionary powers from his uncle,
in regard to choice of rooms and furniture, as well as the most
unrestrained privilege of exploration, he went from room to room,
ransacking and arranging, here picking up a quaintly carved chair, and
there an absurdly contorted little table, and setting wide open doors
and windows wherever he could find a reasonable excuse for doing so.
He even mounted to the garret, a great twilight-hall, stored with the
lumber of many vanished generations, and dived into nooks of dingiest
obscurity, with the eager zeal of a discoverer; coming forth covered
with dust and cobwebs, and laden with spoils. File upon file of yellow
papers, having a possible interest as family annals, a curiously
gnarled and twisted genealogical tree, a dust-choked flute, several
Spanish songs in manuscript, a discolored sketch-book, and a quaint old
secretary, from the innumerable pigeon-holes of which sprang a whole
colony of alarmed mice,--these were among the treasures that he
unearthed, and transferred to his own room for examination or use.
Every hour, the home-feeling grew upon him. Despite the gray and
dripping sky, and the disconsolate, water-soaked earth, these days had
their own peculiar illumination and charm. Oldness and newness
combined to produce one rich--albeit, a little heavy--atmosphere of
enjoyment.
Occasionally, his uncle came to watch his progress, and favor him with
half-serious, half-jocular commentary. He was both interested and
amused to observe how readily the new inmate fitted himself into his
surroundings, and what talent he displayed in organizing various crude
and chaotic elements into one harmonious whole. By turns he adapted,
invented, or altered, until his room presented an aspect of
pleasantness, as well as an array of conveniences, in striking contrast
with the rude accommodations of the cottage, and even with the oldtime
appliances that had served former occupants. His uncle wondered and
admired even while he shook his head over the un-Bergan-like trait, and
questioned if, after all, it were not a sign of degeneracy. This doubt
wellnigh culminated in conviction when, on the afternoon of the second
day, in a lull of the storm, he discovered his nephew calmly seated
astride the high ridge-pole, with a bundle of shingles and a pocketful
of nails, stopping the leaks with which the long rain and his visits to
the garret had made him acquainted; and accompanying his work with a
very sweet and deftly executed whistle.
"That settles the question, Harry," he shouted to the amateur
carpenter, a smile and a frown struggling for supremacy on his upturned
face. "There never was a Bergan, from first to last, who could have
done that!"
"Do not speak so disrespectfully of our common ancestors, uncle! As if
they had not the use of their hands!"
"Humph! It's plain that you have the use of yours, and of your head,
too! How in the world did you reach that dizzy altitude?"
Bergan laughed. "'Where there's a will there's a way.' What should
you say to the chimney?"
"Nonsense! How _did_ you get up there?"
"I really cannot answer that question as it stands. There is a mistake
in the terms."
"You rascal! what do you mean?'"
"I did not 'get up;' I came down." And Bergan glanced at a great
oak-bough, swinging full ten feet above his head.
The Major uttered a cry of admiration. "You are a Bergan, and no
mistake!" he cried, emphasizing the statement with an oath. "You've
got the real, old, brave Bergan stuff in you, Harry, and I'm proud of
you, in spite of your tinkering. But that bough is now out of your
reach; you cannot come down by that route."
"A new one will be more interesting. And the chimney has a most
capacious throat; the builders must have contemplated the passage of
other things than smoke."
"Harry! you'll break your neck! Don't you dare to come down till I
send you a ladder! At the same time, I'll order the carpenter to
finish up that job, if it must be done."
"He will be too late, uncle; I am just laying the last shingle."
"Speak lower, you scamp! lest the old portraits under your feet should
hear you and blush."
"Their thanks would be much more to the point--especially Sir Harry's,"
coolly replied Bergan. "Two hours ago, the water from this very leak
was pouring in a stream down his long ancestral nose; you would have
said the picture had an influenza."
The Major emitted a sound between a laugh and a growl, and vanished.
Poor Brick was even more scandalized by his young master's plebeian
readiness with his hands. The very ease with which Bergan performed
his self-imposed, and, for the most part, unaccustomed tasks, misled
the dusky spectator. To be sure, Brick was a little comforted to
observe that those agile hands knew the trick of the ivory piano-keys
full well, and could evolve soulful melody from the flute, that they
were not ignorant of the mysteries of sketching, and betrayed a
scholarly familiarity with books and papers, pen and ink; yet he
doubted if even these gracious accomplishments could wash from them the
stain of that dreadful manual labor in which they were erewhile
engaged,--the only redeeming feature of which was that it was not done
for bread.
Nevertheless, Brick loved his young master with all his heart. He had
succumbed at once to the rare charm of Bergan's manner,--so grave and
thoughtful for his years, yet so richly illuminated, at times, with
soft gleams of humor, and always so genuinely kind. He followed him
like his shadow; he could scarcely be happy out of his presence; and
notwithstanding his own inward struggles with doubt and mortification,
he continually held him up to the admiration of the quarter in the
strongest language of encomium that he could command, as a "bery
high-tone gemman, and jes' de bes' massa dat ebber stepped foot on de
old place."
The appearance of this "high-toned gentleman" on the roof, in the
humble _rôle_ of carpenter, was, therefore, a rude shock to Brick's
finer sensibilities. He watched him from the ground below, groaning
simultaneously over probable fractures to his limbs, and certain damage
to his reputation. It gave him some consolation to find that the Major
was inclined to treat the matter in a jocular rather than a serious
light; and he was profoundly impressed with his hearty admiration of
the gymnastic feat with which the questionable performance had opened.
That, at least, his own dusky friends of the quarter could understand
and approve.
Brick was still further reassured by Maumer Rue, to whom he stood in
the relation of grandson. On being consulted, she had replied,
loftily,--
"A Bergan can do what he pleases, child. He is not obliged to walk by
rule and measure, like people whose pedigree stops with their
grandfathers. If a king chooses to make a box, a barrel, or a piece of
furniture, for his own use, it is not a meanness, but an eccentricity."
And the long word not only floored Brick's last remaining doubt, but
furnished him with the means of silencing other critics. In view of
carpentry and tinkering, dignified with the sonorous title of
"exkingtricities," nothing was left to the quarter but to roll its eyes
and shut its mouth in mute amazement.
On the morning of the third day, the sky pushed aside its gray veil of
clouds, and smiled once more upon the wet and melancholy earth.
Thereupon the latter quickly dried up some of its tears, and made what
shift for joy it could with the remainder. Every pool reflected a bit
of the sky's wide smile, or the pleasant stir of overhanging foliage.
The grand old evergreen oaks around Bergan Hall shook from their
far-reaching boughs broken sunlight and dancing shadows, fresh breeze
and shining raindrops, in nearly equal measure. The whisper of the
pine-woods became a song rather than a sigh;--or, if it were a sigh, it
was of that pleasant kind which struggles up unconsciously from a heart
a little overfull of pleasure. Even the long streamers of gray moss
decked themselves with prismatic jewels, and forgot to be mournful.
"If you do not mind a little mud," said the Major, at the dinner-table,
"we will order our horses, and ride over to Berganton this afternoon.
You must be tired of being cooped up in the house, by this time, in
spite of your ready knack at finding occupation and amusement where
most people would gape their heads off with ennui. Besides, it is high
time that you should see something of the neighborhood, outside our own
plantation,--as well as the village which your ancestors founded. To
be sure, there is precious little to see,--Berganton is not what it was
once,--but I shall be glad to show you that little, and also, to
introduce you to some of my old acquaintances."
As the two gentlemen were riding through the mutilated avenue, Bergan
could not help asking if the trees which had formerly arched and shaded
it had been felled on account of decay.
"No," replied the Major, a little gruffly, as if he suspected a latent
rebuke in the question; "but they spoiled twenty or thirty acres of the
best corn-land on the plantation, and were very valuable for timber,
besides. And, about that time, I was bent on lifting a certain old
mortgage off from the place, and getting generally forehanded with the
world, at any sacrifice, short of selling land. However," he
continued, his face clearing again, "if you will stay here, Harry, you
shall replant the avenue, just as soon as you like, if that is your
pleasure. The trees will not grow large enough to do much damage, in
my time;--besides, I can afford the land now,--and almost anything else
that you may happen to fancy. I have not saved and slaved all these
years for nothing;--you may be certain of that. And, as I've said
before, I don't believe in half-way work. If you stay here, it will be
as my adopted son; and I mean to show myself an indulgent father."
A kindlier smile than was often seen on the Major's rugged features,
lit up his face as he concluded. Then, suddenly turning to Bergan, and
holding out his hand, he asked, in the husky tone of emotion, and with
a look of entreaty,--
"Shall we shake hands upon it?"
Bergan was taken by surprise. In grateful recognition of his uncle's
manifest kindness of intention, as well as of his unwonted softness of
manner, he impulsively clasped the outstretched hand. At once he
became aware that, in so doing, he had appeared to yield an unqualified
assent to his uncle's wishes. Hurriedly casting about for inoffensive
phraseology wherein to disavow any such intent, it was singularly hard
to find. To increase the difficulty, Major Bergan was pouring forth
his gratification that the matter was finally settled, in terms of
unusual warmth and animation. It was evident, not only that the plan
lay nearer to his heart than had hitherto appeared, but that he himself
had taken stronger hold of his uncle's affections than he had imagined.
In fact, Bergan had come to the Major just at the auspicious moment
when, having measurably accomplished the object which had absorbed all
his thoughts and energies for many years, he was looking around him for
something to fill its place in his life, and beginning vaguely to
discern that his heart was empty, and his future aimless. The old
family home was not the only thing that he had left to go drearily to
ruin, while pursuing his own selfish ends in his own unscrupulous way.