higher law, as because he had broken his own law unto himself. With
the Bergan temper, he had also inherited a fair share of the Bergan
pride, and the Bergan strength of will. But, softened and guided by
home influences at once wise and genial, the one had hitherto shown
itself mainly in a lofty, almost an ideal, purity of character, and the
other had expended its force chiefly upon himself. The two, therefore,
had served him little less effectually, in keeping him free from
current vices, than higher motives might have done. He had taken a
stern, proud pleasure in knowing that he wore no yoke but such as it
pleased him deliberately to assume. He would have scorned to say, what
he often heard from the lips of his fellows,--"I _cannot_ quit
drinking, I cannot live without smoking, I _cannot_ resist the
fascinations of gambling," et cætera;--he would have felt it a woful
slur upon his manhood to avow himself so abject a slave to his animal
nature. So strong was this pride of character, that no sooner did he
feel any habit, any appetite, any pleasure, however innocent in itself,
taking firm hold of him, than he was immediately impelled to give it
up, to refuse it indulgence,--for a time, at least,--just to satisfy
one part of himself that its control over the other and baser part was
still perfect. At whatever price, he was determined to be his own
master.
It may be imagined, then, with what sharp sting of pride, what
miserable sense of weakness and failure, he writhed, as Memory now
flung open the doors of her silent gallery, and showed him sombre
picture after picture, representing his own figure in divers
humiliating positions. It shrank from the utterance of its strong
convictions of right; it gave way to the assaults of a poor ambition;
it drifted with circumstance; it was driven to and fro like a
shuttlecock between outward temptation and inward passion; it was
successively a fighting rowdy, a blind lunatic, an insensate drunkard.
Not that these representations were all true in tone, unexaggerated in
color, and correct in sentiment. Often, there is nothing more
difficult than to fix upon the exact point where the plain boundary
line between right and wrong was crossed; and neither pride nor remorse
is apt to do it correctly. Some steps may have been taken upon a kind
of debatable ground; had the march been arrested at any one of these,
its tendency would have been different. In reviewing his conduct,
Bergan failed to do justice either to his uncle's undeniable claims to
his respectful consideration, up to the point where he had been
required to follow him into a low bar-room, or to the real beauty and
worth of some of his own feelings and motives. Looking back, he
saw--or seemed to see--only a pitiable career of irresolution and moral
cowardice, ending in disgrace. Covering his face with his hands, as if
to shut out the unwelcome sight, he groaned aloud.
To his surprise, the groan was distinctly prolonged and repeated. Was
it the responsive wail of the ancestral spirits, mourning over their
degenerate scion, or only the sympathizing echo of the ancestral walls?
Springing to his feet, he beheld a tall, erect figure standing on the
hearth, showing strangely weird and unearthly by the flickering blaze
of a few dying embers. Not till it turned and came toward him did he
recognize the dusky features and age-whitened hair of Maumer Rue.
"I hope that it is not on my account that you are up at this time of
night," said he, gravely.
"You forget that night and day are both alike to me," she quietly
answered. "Are you better?"
"Much better, thank you." And he added after a moment,--"How came I
here?"
"Brick found you in the avenue. By my direction, you were brought in.
At first, it was thought that you had been thrown from your horse,
but--"
Rue paused.
"I understand," said Bergan, bitterly. "I was drunk."
Rue did not immediately answer. It was only after some moments that
she said, earnestly;--
"Master Bergan, I am an old woman. I have seen four generations of
your house,--I have nursed two,--and I have spent my life in its
service. If it had been my own, I could not have loved it better, nor
felt its welfare nearer my heart. If these things give me any right to
say a word of warning to you, let me say it now!"
"Say whatever seems good to you," replied Bergan, gloomily, as he flung
himself into a chair. "I doubt if you can say anything so hard to bear
as what I have already said to myself."
"Is that so?" asked Rue, in a tone of relief--"is that really so? Then
I need not say anything. It is a higher voice than mine that speaks
within you; and my poor words would only weaken its effect. Only
listen to it, Master Bergan, pray listen to it!" she went on, with
tears streaming from her blind eyes. "If you stifle it now, it may
never speak so clearly again!"
"Make yourself easy, maumer," answered Bergan, much affected, yet doing
his best to speak cheerfully,--"I have not the least intention of
stifling it. Moreover, I assure you that I am in no danger of
repeating last night's miserable experience; drunkenness is not my
besetting sin. I only wish I were as certain that I should never again
give way to my temper."
"It has run in the blood a great while," remarked Rue, not without a
certain respect for its length of pedigree; "it will be hard to get it
out."
"It _shall_ be gotten out, though," responded Bergan, knitting his
brows and setting his teeth with true hereditary doggedness.
"Very likely it may," replied Rue, quietly, "if you take _that_ tone.
No doubt the Lord meant the Bergan will to conquer the Bergan
temper--with His help. But I will not trouble you any longer,
sir;--thank you for setting my mind at rest. And don't be offended if
I recommend you not to come in your uncle's way this morning; give him
a little time to get into a better mood. I will send your breakfast
out to you."
Bergan's brow darkened. "I do not intend to come in his way," he
answered a little shortly, "neither this morning, nor at any other
time. My visit here is at an end. I leave this house directly."
"Oh, Master Bergan, I beg you will not do that!" exclaimed Rue. "Your
uncle really loves you in his heart; he will soon forget all about his
anger."
"It is not because I dread his anger that I go," replied Bergan,
gravely; "it is because he has lowered me in my own eyes, and disgraced
me in the eyes of others, in a way that _I_ cannot forget. At least,
not until I have proved to myself that I am neither a moral coward nor
a miserable parasite, and to the world that drinking and fighting are
not the essential conditions of my existence. I cannot well do either
without leaving Bergan Hall. And I certainly shall not put myself in
my uncle's way again, until he sees fit to apologize for what he did
yesterday."
"Is the world turned upside down, then," asked Rue, with a kind of slow
wonder, "that an old uncle must apologize to a young nephew?"
Bergan colored, and the unwonted bitterness and irritation of his
manner gave way before the force of the implied rebuke.
"Thank you," said he, almost in his natural tone, "I see that I am--or,
at least, that I was,--a little beside myself. Still, I must leave
Bergan Hall. I cannot think it right or expedient to remain here
longer. But when I have put myself in the way of living independently,
and cleared up my reputation, I will do what I can, without loss of
self-respect, to establish friendly relations with my uncle. Indeed, I
do not mean to be foolishly resentful, nor unbecomingly exacting."
"May I ask what you are going to do?" inquired Rue, after a few moments
of thought.
"Certainly. I am going to carry out my original plan, and my mother's
express wish, by opening a law-office in Berganton, and doing my best
to win fame and fortune in the place which my ancestors founded; and in
which," he added, with a smile, "their shades may reasonably be
expected to watch my career with especial interest, and also to do me a
good turn, whenever they have it in their power."
"Well," said Rue, after a long pause, "perhaps you are right. I think
I begin to see that it may be quite as well for you to go away, for a
time. You shall not lose anything by it; I will take care of that. I
have more influence with your uncle than you would think. And I
promise you,--remember, I promise you," she repeated, with marked
emphasis,--"whatever comes, you shall have Bergan Hall."
The young man shook his head. "I think not," said he. "Indeed, I have
ceased to wish for it; I do not see any place for it in the life which
I now contemplate. It was but a pleasant day-dream, at best; and it is
over."
"It may be over for you," rejoined Rue, quietly, "but it is not over
for me. And my dreams are apt to come true. I may not live to see
it,--indeed, it is borne in upon me that I shall not,--but the Hall
will surely be yours, one day."
Bergan again shook his head. Without making any pretensions to the
prophetic gift, he thought he could foretell, better than old Rue, the
effect of the course which he had marked out for himself, upon his
uncle. But the blind woman could not see the gesture; and he forebore
to put his doubt into words,--unless its subtle prompting was to be
detected in his next apparently irrelevant sentence:--
"I shall think it one of my first duties to go and see my uncle
Godfrey."
"I am glad to hear it," replied Rue, placidly. "He is a wise, just
man; and no doubt he will give you good advice about setting up your
profession. I have been hoping that, through you, this long family
breach would be healed."
And here the conversation strayed off amid thick-growing family topics,
where it is unnecessary to follow it.
Gray dawn was in the east when, after a long, lingering look at the
ancestral portraits, Bergan went out from the old Hall. He could
scarcely believe that it was less than a week since he first entered
it. He had passed there one of those crises of life which do the work
of years. His short occupancy had left its indelible impress upon his
character, for good or evil.
Rue attended him to the door, and detained him for a moment on the
threshold.
"If ever you are in need of a quiet place where you can feel perfectly
at home," said she, "come here. Your room shall always be ready for
you; and you might stay here for weeks together, and no one be the
wiser,--rarely does any one but me come inside the door. And if ever
you should be in any trouble, or in any want, come and see what the
old, blind woman can do for you; she may be better able to help you
than you think. And now, good-bye, and God bless you, my dear young
master--the future master of Bergan Hall!"
She raised her withered hands and sightless eyes to heaven, as she
ended; and when Bergan looked back from the farther verge of the lawn,
she was standing there still, in the dim dawn-light, a gray, venerable,
ghostly figure, framed in his ancestral doorway, calling down blessings
on his head.
IX.
THE BLOT CLEAVES.
Youthful spirits have a natural buoyancy that floats them easily over
the first wave of trouble, however severe. It is the long succession
of wearing disappointments and corroding griefs, of anxious days and
restless nights, of abortive aims and hopes deferred, which finally
overcomes their lightsomeness, and sinks them fathoms deep under a
smooth-flowing surface of gentle cheerfulness, a teasing ebb and flow
of worriment, or an icy plane of despair.
But of this grievous iteration, and its depressing effect, Bergan, as
yet, had no experience. His heart involuntarily grew lighter as he
went down the long avenue. The old Hall, with its dust-clogged and
tradition-darkened atmosphere, its dusky delights and duskier
temptations, seemed to fade back again into the unsubstantiality of his
childhood's visions. His sojourn there was, at best, but a brief,
casual episode in an otherwise coherent life. He now recurred to the
main argument. Not that he could foresee precisely how it was to be
wrought out. But the very uncertainty before him was not without its
own special and potent charm. It gave such unlimited scope to hope and
imagination; there was in it so much room for sturdy endeavor and noble
achievement, for an iron age of progress, and a golden era of fame!
It was still early when he reached the Berganton Hotel. The landlord
was in the office; he was also in the midst of a prolonged matutinal
stretch and yawn, when Bergan surprised him with a pleasant;--
"Good morning. Have you a vacant room for me?"
"Yes, sir,--that is, I will see," was the somewhat inconclusive reply;
its first clause being due to the favorable impression made by Bergan's
face and manner, and its last to prudential considerations arising from
the quickly recognized facts that this prepossessing young man was on
foot, and without baggage. "Do you want it long?"
"I can hardly tell,--some days, perhaps; possibly longer. I wish to
see if it be worth my while to locate myself permanently here. My name
is Bergan Arling. My baggage is to be sent over from Bergan Hall."
"Ah, I see," said the landlord, in a tone which implied that he had
suddenly been lifted to a point of observation at once wide and
unpromising. And almost immediately he added,--"On the whole, I
believe I haven't got an eligible room to offer you. The one that I
thought of at first is partially engaged; I cannot let it go till I
know the gentleman's decision."
Bergan was gifted with perceptions too quick and fine not to notice the
unfavorable effect produced by his frank explanation of himself. Nor
was he slow to divine the cause. No doubt his name had been bruited
abroad in connection with the disgraceful scenes of yesterday; and, as
a natural consequence, in the very place where it would otherwise have
been an advantage to him, it would now stand in his way. His heart
sank a little to find that he had not left yesterday's acts so
completely behind him as he had allowed himself to believe. He had
still to endure his inevitable term of bondage to their evil
consequences.
Yet herein, he remembered, was his strongest motive for perseverance in
the path upon which he had entered. He could not leave a tarnished
reputation behind him in the place founded by his ancestors,--the very
dust of which, blowing about the streets, doubtless held many particles
closely akin to his own earthly substance, and dimly capable of pride
or shame on his account. At whatever cost of present pain or ulterior
loss, he must stay in Berganton long enough to set himself right in the
public eyes.
And loss, it was plain, there might be. Berganton was no longer the
busy and prosperous town of his mother's reminiscences. All these
years, it had been going backwards. Looking up and down its long,
tame, principal street, with its scant and sluggish flow of human life,
he could discover little field for energy, little scope for ambition.
Were it not for the cords of obligation woven around him by yesterday's
events, he would scarcely have stayed for a second look. But those
cords held him firmly to his purpose.
"Do you know of any respectable family where I should be likely to
obtain board, or, at least, lodgings?" was his next inquiry.
"I do not. I think they might take you in at the Gregg House, down at
the lower end of the street."
The words were spoken carelessly enough, yet Bergan could scarcely fail
to detect in them a covert insinuation, or to imagine one. His cheek
crimsoned, and his eye flashed. Ere he could speak, however, a
gentleman whom he had observed sitting near him, with a newspaper
before his face, dropped the printed screen, and came forward.
"Mr. Arling can breakfast here, at any rate," said he, in the tone of a
man accustomed to overcome all obstacles; "it will give me pleasure to
have him for my _vis-à-vis_ at the early breakfast that I have bespoken
this morning, in order to gain time for a visit to a far-away patient.
And you can at least give him the room of which you speak until it is
called for; by that time, we will hope, he may be provided with one
even more to his mind."
"Certainly, doctor," returned the landlord, looking a little
crestfallen. "If I had known the gentleman was a friend of yours--"
"Hardly that yet," interposed the doctor, smiling, "though I trust he
may be, in good time. I know your uncle very well," he continued,
addressing Bergan, as the landlord moved away,--"indeed, I may say,
your two uncles,--if that be any ground of acquaintance. But I have
the advantage of you, in that I heard your name just now;--mine is
Remy--Felix Remy--very much at your service. Not that this
announcement places us on an equal footing; for, while your name puts
me at once in possession of your antecedents, to a certain extent, mine
tells you nothing about me except that I am of French descent. Are you
willing to take the rest on trust, until a fitting time for a fuller
explanation?" And the doctor held out his hand.
"Until the end of time," replied Bergan, grasping it warmly. "It would
be strange if kindness were not its own sufficient explanation."
Doctor Remy shrugged his shoulders with a frank cynicism. "Perhaps
so," said he. "Yet I make bold to confess that my own practice is to
look kindness a little more closely in the face than its opposite. The
latter generally wears its reasons openly on its forehead; but for the
complicated motives at the bottom of the former, one needs to look long
and deep."
"Do they pay for the trouble?" asked Bergan, smiling.
"Not unless you love knowledge for its own sake. As society is
constituted, you cannot well act upon it. To apparent kindness, one
has to return apparent gratitude."
"I trust I succeed in making mine 'apparent,'" said Bergan, falling
into the doctor's humor.
"Perfectly. It could not be told from the genuine article."
"The same thing might be said of your kindness."
"Doubtless. But here comes Cato, to show you to your room. I think
breakfast will be ready as soon as you are."
A very few moments sufficed for Bergan to remove the traces of his
early morning walk, and rejoin his new acquaintance in the
breakfast-room. The two gentlemen at once seated themselves on
opposite sides of the table. An opportunity was thus afforded them to
observe each other at their leisure, of which Bergan was first to avail
himself. His interest had been awakened by the doctor's peculiar style
of conversation.
He saw before him a man of medium height and compactly built figure.
His locks had been touched by thought or care to a premature grayness,
for he had scarcely yet entered upon middle age. His features were
regular, and would have been handsome had they been less keenly and
coldly intellectual,--the physical mould was forgotten in the mental
one that made itself so much more manifest. Their expression was one
of active intelligence and calm force, embittered, at the mouth, by a
touch of scorn. Yet the face did not absolutely repel; for many minds,
it would possess an inscrutable fascination. It provoked study; it
challenged the imagination and the understanding.
The doctor's conversation was marked by a curious frankness, and an
equally curious reserve. He made no scruple whatever of opening to the
light of day shadowy recesses of motive and aim that most men would
studiously close, nor of putting himself at odds with the world on
various points of social or moral ethics, nor of boldly questioning and
criticising much that mankind consents to hold in reverence. Yet, at
the end of an hour's conversation, though he had talked readily and
fluently on many subjects, and said something true, or profound, or
brilliant, or suggestive, about each, his interested, amused, startled,
and bewildered hearer could find almost no _residuum_ of his real
opinions about any of them. It was impossible to decide where he had
been in jest, and where in earnest; through his most serious argument
had run a vein of mockery, from under his profoundest thought had
peeped forth a hidden sarcasm. His creed, social, moral, and
political, continually slipped through the seeker's fingers in subtle,
witty, or scornful negations and controversions.
Not that Bergan was conscious of this, at the moment,--nor, indeed,
until after many days of familiar intercourse. He recognized in the
doctor an intellectual cultivation of no ordinary depth and scope; he
was interested and well-nigh dazzled by his originality of thought, the
boldness of his attacks, and the freedom of his speculations; but the
dubious aspect of his own affairs continually rose before him to harass
his mind and distract his attention;--he was himself incapable of close
observation or continuous thought. After a time, his glance sank upon
his plate, or wandered aimlessly out of the window: though he forgot no
requirement of courtesy, he was often in a state of semi-abstraction.
Then, in his turn, Doctor Remy fixed his eyes upon his companion. It
was evident that to subjected him to a far more careful and penetrating
scrutiny than he had sustained himself. He noted his looks, he weighed
his words, he analyzed his turns of thought, in a way to indicate that
exceeding "love of knowledge for its own sake," of which he had spoken,
or some deeper motive than even his hardy frankness would care to
divulge. Whether or no he liked what he saw, no mortal could have
told. The doctor's face was a sort of mechanical mask, absolutely
under his control; it expressed anything or nothing, according to his
will.
One thing only would have been plain to the observer, that he was
puzzled by something which he found, or did not find. After one of his
deeply penetrating glances, he suddenly called for a bottle of wine,
and, first filling his own glass, passed it across the table.
"I am fortifying myself for a harder day's work than usual," said he,
as if by way of apology, if apology were needed. "Will you try it? I
think I can assure you that it is tolerably good."
"Thank you; I never take wine at breakfast."
"Anything else that you would prefer--" began the doctor, courteously.
"Nothing whatever, thank you," replied Bergan, with a most conclusive
wave of the hand.
"Then you do not hold the theory that a little good wine, or other
spirits, after a meal, clears the brain, and aids the digestion?"
"Do I look as if I stood in need of either good office?" asked Bergan,
smiling.
The doctor gave him a quick, critical glance.
"No, I cannot see that you do," he answered. "I should say that, in
your case, Nature might safely be left to perform her own functions;--I
do not think I ever saw human mechanism in a sounder condition, or
animated by a richer vitality. Still, there can be no great harm in
drinking in moderation. Of course, if one cannot do that, it is best
to avoid it altogether."
Bergan looked up quickly,--almost angrily,--but there was nothing in
the doctor's face or manner to indicate that his general remark was
weighted with any ulterior meaning. He was holding his wine up to the
light with the air of a connoisseur, and having sufficiently enjoyed
its color and _bouquet_, he tossed it off with apparent relish. Yet
Bergan could scarcely have failed to notice, had he been less
preoccupied, that he then quietly pushed both glass and bottle aside,
and seemed to forget their existence.
"Can I do anything for you, before I set off on my daily treadmill?" he
asked, when the meal was ended.
"Nothing, thank you,--unless you can tell me where I shall be most
likely to find lodgings and an office."
"An office, did you say? Do I behold in you a brother of the order of
the Asclepiadæ?"
"No, I have not that honor. I am enrolled in the ranks of the Law."
"How many pegs shall I take myself down, in your estimation, if I
proclaim myself a deserter therefrom?"
Bergan could not help looking the astonishment that he did not express.
"It is true," said the doctor, answering the look. "I studied law, and
practised it for about two years. But it did not suit me."
"Would it be impertinent to ask why?"
"Not at all. It gave too much scope, or too little, to my natural
antagonism of mind;--too little for mental satisfaction, too much for
material advantage. For instance, I was always possessed with an
insane desire to clear the guilty man, whether he were my client, or
no."
"Yet you deny to yourself the credit of generous impulses!"