convict the innocent one--when he was not my client. Do not look so
horrified, for the same motive was at the bottom of both. It was
because I saw so clearly that, with an exchange of
circumstances,--inherited traits, education, temptation, and so
forth,--there would also be an exchange of persons."
"In that case, it would seem that neither should be convicted."
"Exactly. But it was Society that needed to be convicted and punished.
There was a real satisfaction in reversing its unrighteous judgments."
Bergan felt that he was sinking in a kind of mental quicksand. "But,"
he objected, catching hold of the first twig of support that offered
itself, "you count the man's will for nothing."
"With most men, it does count for nothing. Where one man performs
either a good or a bad action deliberately, looking behind and before
him, nine hundred and ninety-nine do it because of the pressure of
outward circumstance."
"You think, then," said Bergan, after a moment's consideration, "that
when a man wilfully embarks on the current which tends toward the
Niagara cataract, it is his misfortune, and not his fault, if he
finally finds himself at a point where the pressure of outward
circumstance must needs carry him over the fall."
"In that case," said the doctor, "the responsibility shifts back to the
power that made the current and the fall, and put them in his way."
Bergan saw the wide labyrinth of controversy opening before him, and
tacitly declined to set foot in it. He was in no mood for polemics.
He merely asked,--
"And in what way--if the question is admissible--do you find medicine
more to your taste than the law?"
"In medicine, there is always a distinct and a legitimate foe to
combat--disease. When one engages in a hand-to-hand fight with a
fever, there are no side issues. Nor does it matter in the least,
whether battle is to be done over the body of an incarnate demon or an
angel unfledged,--in both cases, the treatment is identical, the
physician's duty the same."
"I think I understand you," said Bergan, after a pause, during which he
had been trying to reconcile these curious and half conflicting
statements with some underlying principles, and finding it, at last, in
his own heart, rather than in the doctor's words;--"a physician's
professional and abstract duty are never at variance, while a lawyer
must often be puzzled to decide if he is justified in using his legal
skill to save a criminal from merited punishment."
"It is a question that puzzles few of them," remarked the doctor,
dryly. "But in regard to this office, _in posse_, of yours;--I rent my
own from a very respectable widow lady, whose house is much too large
for the narrow income to which she found herself restricted, at her
husband's death. I think she has another room, that she would be glad
to let to an eligible tenant. Shall we go and see? It is quite in my
way; I must visit my office before I set out on my rounds."
The house won Bergan's liking, at a glance. It stood on a corner; it
was large and airy; double piazzas surrounded it on three sides; over
it a hale old live-oak and half-a-dozen gray, decrepit china-trees
flung their pleasant shade. In the rear, was a tempting thicket of a
garden, which Art had first planted, and then handed over to Nature, to
be taken care of at her leisure,--the result being an altogether
admirable and Eden-like wilderness of boughs and vines, and, in their
season, flowers and fruits, such as can be seen nowhere but at the
South. The interior of the dwelling wore a most attractive look of
neatness, comfort, and refinement, notwithstanding its extreme
plainness of finish and furniture. Crossing its threshold, he felt
that a true _home_ had received him into its beneficent shadow.
Nothing could be better for him, he thought, than to find an abiding
place therein.
Nor was there any difficulty in the way. The doctor's magical touch
arranged the preliminaries. Then, Mrs. Lyte,--a pale, sweet,
fragile-looking woman, with the gentle gravity of manner that comes of
sorrow at once incurable and resigned--yielded at once to the magnetism
of Bergan's address,--the involuntary softening of tone wherewith he
recognized the claim of her black garments upon his sympathies, the
manifest deference which he paid to her loneliness, her bereavement,
her sorrow. Since it was needful to sacrifice something of the home
seclusion and sacredness to the necessity of daily bread, she could not
hope for a more desirable tenant. The negotiations were quickly
concluded. Not only was an office secured, but a lodging-room in its
rear was also placed at his disposal; and he was to take his meals at
the hotel.
Returning thither, and finding that his baggage had duly arrived from
the Hall, Bergan's active temperament would not let him rest until he
had transported it to his new quarters, and gotten them in tolerable
order. In this business he consumed the greater part of the day. The
sun was low in the horizon, when, by way of a finishing touch, he
nailed a tin plate, bearing in gilt letters the words,--"BERGAN ARLING,
ATTORNEY AT LAW," to his office window.
With the act, came a thrill of strange enjoyment. It was like the
first breath of a new and invigorating atmosphere. That little sign
imparted an element of solidity to his plans and aims, hitherto
lacking. It marked an epoch in his life. Now, first, he flung
himself, with all his strength and energy, into the great struggle of
mankind.
To this pleasantly excited mood, motion was still desirable, weariness
unfelt. He decided to pay a visit to his second, and yet unknown,
uncle,--Godfrey Bergan. He quitted the village with the last, red
sunbeams.
PART SECOND.
THE FRUIT OF THE WAY.
I.
THROUGH A MIST.
Oakstead, the estate of Godfrey Bergan, was separated from the lands of
the Hall by the small river--or "creek," in local parlance--which has
before been mentioned. The pleasant dwelling of the owner stood not
far from a picturesque bend of the stream, commanding a view of its
tawny, slumberous current for a considerable distance up and down,--a
view made up of gentlest curves and softest coloring only, yet with
enough of quiet beauty to arrest Bergan's feet, for some moments, on
the oak-shadowed lawn.
The river's tide stole almost imperceptibly past, mirroring in its
still bosom the sunset-painted sky, and the graver tinted objects of
earth, with equal felicity,--like a gentle spirit, in whose
well-ordered life the things of either world find their appropriate
place and exquisite harmony. Just at that point of the upper stream
where an artist would have placed it for the best pictorial effect, was
the bridge of the main road, with rough abutments half-buried in wild
foliage, and railings overrun with vines; and at a remoter point down
its shining course, the slenderer span of a narrow footbridge, with a
single rustic railing, was also seen, idealized by distance into an
aerial passway fit for fairy feet. In the earlier days of Godfrey's
proprietorship, while the half-brothers were yet on friendly terms,
this latter structure had furnished the means of easy and frequent
communication between the two households. On the cessation of
intercourse, however, Major Bergan had threatened its destruction, and
had even begun an attack upon his own abutment; but his operations
being suddenly suspended, and no convenient opportunity occurring for
their resumption, he had finally left the work of demolition to be
finished by the wear and tear of the elements, and the slow tooth of
time. Though in a somewhat ruinous condition, and but insecurely
poised on the damaged abutment, the bridge was still passable, with due
caution; and, doubtless, it served for the nocturnal visits of such
negroes of the two estates as were not set at odds by the bitterness of
their masters' feud.
At a little distance below the footbridge, the river made another
graceful bend, and soon disappeared in the shadow of the pine
forest,--behind and above the dark, swaying fringe of which, the
posthumous glory of the sun was fading from the western sky. Against
this flitting splendor, the turret-like summits of the chimneys of
Bergan Hall were distinctly visible. A little saddened by the sight,
as forcing back on his mind thoughts and images which he had partially
succeeded in flinging off, Bergan turned and walked quickly up the path
to the house. Voices met him as he drew near. In one end of the broad
piazza, so shut in by interlacing vines as to constitute a kind of
leaf-tapestried parlor, two gentlemen were talking.
"I am afraid the identity is only too certain," said the smooth,
sarcastic voice of Doctor Remy. "But I doubt if the habit be a
confirmed one,--certainly, the physical indications are lacking. At
any rate, as I said before, he is evidently making an effort to
overcome it."
"I wish that no such effort were necessary,"--began a different voice;
but with the instinct of delicacy, Bergan set his foot upon the lower
step of the piazza in a way to be distinctly heard, and would have done
the same had he supposed that the conversation concerned him, which he
did not. The voice ceased abruptly, and a gentleman, whom he instantly
recognized as his uncle, advanced to meet him. Though he had enough of
the Bergan cast of feature to identify him at the first, casual glance,
as belonging to the race, it was lost, almost as soon as seen, amid
traits widely differing from the ancestral pattern. He was a much more
genuine outcome of American soil than the rest of Sir Harry's
descendants,--in whom a childhood fed upon old-world family traditions,
and a youth spent at Oxford or Cambridge, had availed to preserve the
English mould from all but the more unavoidable modifications. The
race had always been marked by a greater volume of muscle, a ruddier
complexion, and a sturdier texture of character, than was exactly
native to the soil. But, in Godfrey Bergan, these characteristics were
lacking. Though tall and well-formed, he was spare in figure and thin
in face. His complexion had the true American sallowness of tint. In
matters of bulk, weight, and coloring,--all the purely animal
characteristics,--he fell far below the standard of his half-brother.
By way of indemnity, his figure had more litheness and grace; and his
features were more clearly cut, and endowed with a keener vivacity of
expression,--apparently, they were informed by a quicker and finer
intellect, as well as a gentler spirit.
Altogether, it was a thoughtful, a refined, and a benevolent
countenance, that confronted Bergan; yet not without certain firm lines
about the mouth to indicate that its owner could be decided, if he
chose, and perhaps severe. While it invited liking, it commanded
respect.
It was with real pleasure that Bergan made his self-introduction to a
relative with so many apparent claims to affection and esteem. Yet,
even while he mentioned his name and relationship, and held out his
hand, as to a stranger,--albeit a friend,--he was beset by an uneasy
consciousness that he had met Mr. Bergan, or somebody very like him,
before. But where? Sending a swift, retrospective glance through his
life, he could find no clue to the perplexing feeling; and, having
scant time for investigation, he quickly dismissed it as the offspring
of some indefinite and elusive resemblance, perhaps to one of the
ancestral portraits, perhaps to a half-forgotten acquaintance.
It was the more easily disposed of, that its place was soon filled by
another shadowy vexation. His uncle's reception was both courteous and
kind; yet he could not help feeling intuitively that it was lacking in
some indefinable element of cordiality, even while he repudiated the
intuition as a baseless figment of his own imagination. Certainly,
there was no tangible coolness, not so much as a thin film of
indifference, upon which to lay a plausible finger-tip; nothing that
did not slip away from every attempt at analysis, and seem to resolve
itself into a sickly humor of his own. At worst, he told himself,
there was only some less definite expression of consanguineous
sympathy, in the pressure of his uncle's hand, and in the modulations
of his voice, than he had allowed himself to look for; and this was a
mere matter of mood and temperament, the absence of which formed no
good ground of complaint, whatever warmth and grace might have been
contributed by its presence. No doubt, it would come in good time.
Meanwhile Doctor Remy, sending forth his keen glance from the shadowy
end of the piazza, had recognized the new comer; and he now presented
himself, hat in hand.
"The first meeting of near relatives," said he, with his indescribable
mixture of seriousness and sarcasm, "is a scene upon which a third
person is bound to pronounce his blessing, and--turn his back! Nay, no
disclaimers; he is equally bound not to listen to them. Good evening,
Mr. Bergan,--allow me to remark that good influences may avail much in
the matter that we were talking of. Good evening, Mr. Arling,--it
gives me pleasure to leave you in such agreeable quarters; Oakstead has
manifold attractions, as you are in the way to discover."
And the doctor bowed, and descended the steps.
Mr. Bergan turned to his nephew. "I hope you left my sister well,"
said he.
"Quite well. I have a letter from her for you. I am ashamed that it
has not been delivered before, but--"
Bergan hesitated; a further explanation would take him upon delicate
ground.
"Never mind the sequence of the 'but,'" said his uncle, smiling, albeit
a little gravely;--"I am aware that the road from Bergan Hall to
Oakstead is not so smooth as could be wished. I"--there was a slight
hesitation, as if a colder phrase had been sought, and not found,--"I
am glad that you were able to surmount its difficulties so soon. A
letter from Eleanor!" he went on, with a sudden change of
subject,--"that will be a treat indeed! I take shame to myself that
our correspondence has fallen into such desuetude. But what one ever
did survive the lapse of forty-two years, without the reviving impulse
of an occasional meeting? I hardly dare venture a question about my
sister's family, lest I make some terrific blunder. I am not even sure
about the present number of her children."
"There are six of us left."
"'Left' implies 'taken,'" said Mr. Bergan, with a sigh.
"We have lost two of our number."
"So have we," replied Mr. Bergan. "But we have not six left--we have
only one. However, she is a host in herself,--at least, we think
so,"--he added, with a smile at his own enthusiasm. "But, will you
come in and see your aunt and cousin?"
He led the way to a small room, pleasantly furnished as a library; and
Bergan followed him, though not without a vague sense of a lurking
reluctance and lukewarmness in the invitation,--which he sternly
smothered, nevertheless, as unworthy of himself and unjust to his uncle.
Stepping to an open French window, Mr. Bergan slightly raised his voice
and called,--
"Carice!"
"Yes, father!" was the instant answer, in a voice of peculiar richness
and melody; and the next moment a young girl stood in the window, with
a light shawl wrapped round her slender figure, and her hands filled
with autumn flowers, just gathered. The light was too dim to show her
features clearly; but a certain indefinable freshness and sweetness
seemed to enter the room with her and diffuse itself through the
atmosphere not less perceptibly than the scent of the flowers. At
sight of a stranger, imperfectly seen in the twilight obscurity of the
room, she stopped abruptly.
"It is your cousin, Bergan Arling, the son of my sister Eleanor,"
briefly explained her father.
There was a little start of surprise and of pleasure; then Carice
dropped her flowers on the nearest table, and gave Bergan two cordial
hands. Not only was there a charming grace in the unstudied action,
but also the pleasant heart-warmth, the frank recognition of kinship
and its appropriate sympathies, which Bergan had so unaccountably
missed from his uncle's manner, even while trying to persuade himself,
either that it was there, or that its absence was no matter of surprise.
"Have I really a cousin, then!" said she, brightly. "I never believed
it till now. That story of cousins at the West always sounded like a
pleasant fiction to me,--I am glad to know that it is founded on fact."
"On six facts," said Bergan, smiling. "I am the fortunate
representative of five other claimants to your cousinly regard."
Carice laughingly shook her head. "I believe what I see," said
she,--"or rather what I should see, if it were not so dim here. By and
bye,--after I have ordered lights,--I may be able to reason from the
seen to the unseen." And she glided from the room, which seemed to
grow suddenly dark and chill behind her.
Very shortly she returned, preceded by a servant bearing lights, and
accompanied by her mother. Looking toward Bergan with a smile, she
gave a slight start; the coming words were arrested on her parted lips;
the color mounted to her brow; across her face went a swift ripple of
disappointment and pain. Quickly recovering herself, she presented him
to her mother; but the bright cordiality, the warm heart-glow, of her
earlier manner, had faded, and came no more. It was as if a gray
screen had suddenly been drawn before a cheery household fire.
Happily for Bergan, his aunt claimed his attention, before he had time
to feel the full dreariness of the change. She was a woman of rare
tact, and much kindliness of heart, despite a somewhat stately manner,
and a considerable degree of aristocratic chill for people not exactly
in her "set." She gave Bergan a warm welcome,--almost a motherly one;
there was something about him that brought a softening remembrance of
the two sons that slept in the family burial ground, and quietly opened
the way for him into her heart. Finding his entertainment left very
much in her hands, she cared for it kindly; though not without a secret
wonder at the inexplicable indifference of her husband and daughter.
But she did her best to make amends for it by her own friendliness, and
in part, succeeded.
Meanwhile, Bergan was beset by another tantalizing resemblance. Never,
he thought, had he seen anything quite so lovely as his cousin
Carice,--with her soft, brown hair, her clear rose-complexion, her
large, limpid, blue eyes, the lily-like droop of her exquisitely formed
head, the inexhaustible grace of her attitudes and movements,--but he
had certainly seen somebody a little like her. So strong, yet so
puzzling was this conviction, and so frequent the glances consequently
sent in her direction, that he felt a word of explanation might not be
amiss.
"Excuse me," said he, "if I seem to be looking at you almost
constantly; but there is something about you curiously familiar, though
it is impossible that we should have met before. I suppose I must have
seen somebody that resembled you; but I cannot tell when or where."
Carice looked down, and colored slightly. Her father came to her
relief.
"There is often no accounting for resemblances," said he. "When there
is any tie of blood, however remote, we understand them, of course; but
when the face of an utter stranger startles me in the street with the
very smile of my sister Eleanor, or the grave look of my dead father,
what am I to think?"
"One would like to know," remarked Bergan, "if there is a mental and
moral likeness, to match the physical one. When I fix the resemblance
that eludes me so persistently in you," he added, turning to Carice, "I
hope it will help me to answer the question."
"I doubt if it does," replied Carice, quietly, yet not without a
certain something in her tone that sounded almost like sarcasm. He
looked at her in considerable surprise, but her eyes were turned away,
and she said no more.
Feeling as if he were walking in a mist, which everywhere eluded his
grasp, while it blinded his eyes, and chilled his heart, he rose to go.
"Let me see," said his aunt, kindly, as she gave him her hand,
"to-morrow will be Sunday, will it not? Pray let us find you in our
pew at church in the morning; and come home with us to an early dinner,
before the evening service."
Bergan hesitated. He had no reasonable excuse; yet his uncle had not
seconded the invitation. As if suddenly cognizant of the omission, Mr.
Bergan now spoke.
"Come, by all means," said he, with more kindness than he had yet
shown,--for he could not bring himself to give a half-hearted
invitation to his sister's son,--"I have still a great deal to ask
about your mother."
"And I," said his aunt, laughing, "have still a great deal to ask about
yourself. Good night."
They stood on the piazza watching him, until he was out of sight. Then
Carice turned to her father.
"Did he say anything about--yesterday?" she asked, gravely.
"Not a word. I should have liked him better if he had offered some
explanation."
"Perhaps he did not recognize us," suggested Carice.
"How could he help it?"
"I don't know,--only--you were angry and I was frightened; probably our
faces did not wear their natural expression. Besides, he was doubtless
a little bewildered by his fall, and--"
"What or whom are you talking about?" here broke in the amazed Mrs.
Bergan.
"About my nephew, the mad cavalier who so nearly came into collision
with Carice yesterday," replied her husband.
Mrs. Bergan threw up her hands. "And you let me invite him to dinner!"
she exclaimed, in a tone of deep injury.
"How could I help it, my dear? Besides, he is my sister's son."
Meanwhile, Bergan found his way back to the village through the
darkness, wondering what had become of the lightness of heart and
cheerfulness of hope with which he had set out--he looked at his
watch--only two hours before!
II.
STRENGTHENED OUT OF ZION.
St. Paul's Church, Berganton, was a small, plain structure of brick and
stone, rather prettily situated on the bank of the aforesaid creek,
which flowed through the midst of the town. Its sole claim to exterior
beauty must have rested on the thick vines which covered its walls,
framed its windows, and climbed to the roof of its low, square tower;
doing their best to atone for its many architectural deficiencies, its
failure to present to the eye a certain material "beauty of holiness,"
in harmony with the spiritual loveliness of the unseen temple, of which
it was the faint type.
Toward this church, on the morning after his visit to Oakstead, Bergan
directed his steps. Meeting his uncle in the vestibule, he was soon
seated in the square family pew, and had a few moments to look about
him, before service.
In its small way, the church was almost as much a memorial of the House
of Bergan as the old Hall itself. Sir Harry had been a fair sample of
the average English Churchman of his day, with whom a certain amount of
religious observance was deemed necessary and becoming, both by way of
seemly garmenting for one's self, and good example for one's neighbors.
If it did not reach very deep into the heart, it at least imparted a
certain completeness and dignity to the outward life.
Moreover, family tradition was strongly in religion's favor. There had
always been relations of a highly friendly and decorous sort between
the house and the church; and to have turned his back disrespectfully
upon the one, would have been to show himself a degenerate scion of the
other. As a natural consequence, Sir Harry did not feel that he had
done his whole duty to himself, or his posterity, until he had provided
a fitting stage for the necessary family ceremonials of christening,
marriage, and burial; as well as an appropriate spot for his own
enjoyment of a respectable Sunday doze, under the soothing influence of
an orthodox sermon, after having duly taken his share in the responses
of the morning service. If this school of Churchmen had its faults, it
also had its virtues. If its standard of religion was a low one, with
a strong leaning toward human pride and selfish indulgence; it was
better than the open irreverence and infidelity, the unblushing
disregard of religious restraints and sanctions, of later generations.