little church, when the service was over. Parting with his relatives
at the door, Bergan went his solitary way to his lodgings, through the
deepening twilight. He walked slowly, not that the road was so
pleasant, but because the end had so little attraction. The walls and
furniture of his room were still strangers to him;--no one corner would
allure him with a more familiar charm than another, no particular chair
would draw him irresistibly to its accustomed arms, no sweet, tangled
crop of associations would fling their mingled light and shadow across
the floor. It would all be dim, blank, lonely. And the foot falls but
heavily on the path, the termination of which neither habit nor excites
imagination!
Nevertheless, the slowest progress brings one quickly to the end, if
the journey be short; and Bergan's lingering steps brought him to Mrs.
Lyte's gate ere the dusk had deepened into total obscurity. Entering
the wide hall, which extended through the whole depth of the house, he
saw Mrs. Lyte seated at the farther end, in a doorway opening on the
garden. Her little daughter Cathie was sobbing at her side, in what
seemed an uncontrollable passion of grief and indignation. The child's
protector and playmate, a half-superannuated old mastiff, named Nix,
sat on his haunches at a little distance, watching the scene with
sympathetic, intelligent eyes.
Cathie was already Bergan's fast friend. During yesterday's work of
arrangement, she had at first hovered around him at a distance; then,
yielding to the unconscious fascination of the young man's look and
smile, as well as the irresistible attraction of the litter of books
and papers, she had drawn nearer; later on, she had eagerly favored him
with the somewhat questionable help of her small fingers, and the
amusing chatter of her tireless tongue; and she had ended by giving him
all her childish confidence, and a large share of her freakish
affections.
Freakish--because Cathie was a sort of elf-child;--or it might be truer
to say that, in her small compass, there were many elf-children;
manifesting their several individualities through her changeable moods,
and sending their various gleam through the almost weird splendor of
her dark eyes. She could be wild and tender, playful and passionate,
wise and simple, by turns; or in such quick and capricious succession
that she seemed to be all at once. She took as many shapes, in her
flittings about the house, as there were hours in the day;--now a
teasing sprite, now a dancing fairy,--at this moment, a tender human
child, melting into your arms with dewey kisses,--the next, a mocking
elf, slipping from your grasp like quicksilver, and leaving you with a
doubt if there could be anything human about her,--and anon, a fiery
little demon, with enough of concentrated rage in her small frame to
suffice for a giant.
It was in this latter phase that she was now exhibiting herself.
"I won't believe it!" she screamed, clenching her small fists, and
jumping up and down in a fury of excitement. "I won't believe it! It
isn't true! Miss Ferrars is a--"
"Hush!" said the mother, softly, hearing the sound of Bergan's step.
--"A mean, lying old maid!" went on Cathie, without an instant's
hesitation. "I wish I had told her so! I will, when I see her again!"
"Hush!" said the mother again, more decidedly; laying her hand over the
rebellious month, by way of enforcing the mandate.
But Cathie broke from her, and ran towards Bergan. At a few paces
distant, she stopped and underwent one of her sudden metamorphoses; the
convulsive fury left her features, and in its stead, there came a grave
sorrow and wistfulness, piteous to behold. Fixing her dark, bright
eyes full on Bergan's face, she solemnly asked,--
"Are you bad, Mr. Arling? Tell me, are you really a bad man?"
Whatever mistakes Bergan may have made, in his life, or may make
hereafter,--whatever sins he may commit, through ignorance, or in
sudden passion,--let it be remembered, to his credit, that he could
meet those clear, innocent, child-eyes, without a blush, and answer the
question as gravely and simply as it had been asked,--
"No, Cathie, I do not think that I am."
The truthful accents found their instant way to the child's heart. Her
confidence--which, in truth, had really never been lost--was restored
fourfold. She threw herself into his arms, and laid her young cheek
against his, in a loving attempt to atone for the wrong that had been
done him. Nix came also, and rubbed his great head against the young
man's knee, with an apparent understanding of the whole matter.
Nor was the child's mind the only one to which Bergan's words had
brought quick conviction. Hearing his low, grave tones of denial, Mrs.
Lyte felt a weight lifted from her spirits. She had just been
listening to the story of Bergan's intoxication, with adornments,
brought by a gossiping neighbor, and her heart had sunk with fear lest
trouble and discomfort had found their way under her roof, with the new
inmate. But seeing him thus acquitted by the child and the dog,--two
most unprejudiced judges, she thought,--she quietly dismissed her
fears. For, though so gentle and shrinking in manner as to give the
impression of having no character at all, Mrs. Lyte was yet quite
capable of forming an independent opinion, and of abiding by it.
So, when Bergan came toward her, leading Cathie by the hand, she did
not hesitate to point him to a seat.
"Your room must be lonely," said she, kindly. "Will you sit with us
for awhile?"
But Bergan did not heed, if he heard, the invitation. He merely looked
his hostess in the eyes, and said;--
"Mrs. Lyte, will you be so kind as to tell me what made Cathie ask me
that question just now?"
"Certainly, if you wish it. But, Mr. Arling, the subject was closed,
for me, with her question and your answer. Would it not be as well for
you to let it rest there, also?"
Bergan only shook his head. And after a moment's study of his grave
face, Mrs. Lyte, very quietly, as if it were a matter in which she had
no concern, mentioned the report that had been brought her. As
quietly, Bergan told her the whole story of his stay at the
Hall:--doing so the more readily, it needs not to be said to those
anywise skilled in the intricacies of the human mind, because he felt
that it was not required of him. For, though Mrs. Lyte listened with
the kindest interest and sympathy, she took care to show by her manner
that she did so more to satisfy him than herself. In matters like
this, she was accustomed to trust her instincts more implicitly than
her reason; and she was wise enough to know that trust is the short
road to truth, in all characters not radically bad.
And thus, with the singular inconsequence of human life, the
explanation was made where it was not needed, and left unspoken where
it would have availed much against future misunderstanding, trouble,
wrong, and sorrow!
IV.
PATIENT WAITING.
Five or six weeks now glided slowly by, without working any change in
either the circumstances or the relations of the characters with whom
this history has to do. Bergan still shivered in the chill remoteness
of position into which he had been flung, partly by his fault and
partly by his misfortune. Not only between him and his relatives, but
dividing him from the whole reputable outside world, there seemed to be
a gulf fixed, impassable save to formal courtesies and commonplace
usages. Anything warmer, more personal, more exacting, sought in vain
for an eligible crossing place; and, if it leaped the gray chasm, it
was only to lose itself among chill, elusive shapes of mist, on the
opposite side.
Thus excluded from the only society for which he cared, Bergan did not,
as a weaker character might have done, betake himself for consolation
to the lower circles of vice and dissipation that would have welcomed
him rapturously. He could better afford to stand alone, he thought,
than to throw himself into arms whose embrace would soil, and whose
seeming support was an insidious undermining. Besides, it was much
more in accordance with his character to regard the exclusion from
which he suffered as a challenge to be answered, an adversary to be
overcome, rather than a verdict to be acquiesced in. He would prove to
the world that it had been mistaken.
Day after day, therefore, he spent in his office,--as many a
new-fledged lawyer has done before him,--waiting with what patience he
might for the clients that never came, and reading hard, by way of
preparation for the cases that never presented themselves. It was dull
and lonely work; yet it did him good service, in giving him time for
thought and reflection, and in making him acquainted with his own
resources of will, courage, patience, and energy.
The only persons who came within the circle of loneliness that
surrounded him, were Mrs. Lyte, Cathie, and Dr. Remy. The first showed
him much gentle, unobtrusive kindness, chiefly manifesting itself in a
motherly oversight of his rooms and prevision of his wants. The second
fluttered in and out of his office, like a bird or a butterfly,
affording him much amusing, and often opportune, distraction from hard
study or sober-hued thought. But neither of these two, for obvious
reasons, could give him just the close, helpful friendship, of which he
stood in need.
Neither did he find it in Dr. Remy. Though he met the physician daily,
and often engaged with him in hour-long colloquies upon all sorts of
topics, he never felt that he really knew him any better than on the
first day of their acquaintance. The doctor's peculiar frankness,
which had seemed, at first sight, to promise such facility of intimacy,
proved to be really more of the nature of an elastic barrier, yielding
everywhere to the slightest pressure, but nowhere completely giving
way. Or, it might be still more fitly characterized as a deceitful
quagmire, wherein the curious explorer sank indefinitely, but never
touched solid bottom.
Not that the doctor was at all reticent in regard to the main facts of
his outward life. In a desultory way he had furnished Bergan with a
sufficiently distinct outline sketch of his somewhat eventful career,
up to the present moment,--a career which, for shifts and turns, outdid
that of Gil Blas. According to this, he was born in New Orleans, the
posthumous son of a French refugee, by an American wife. When he was
twelve years old, his mother had presented him with a stepfather. The
gift proved so little to his taste that, two years later, he ran away
from the pair, and flung himself into that El Dorado of boyish
imagination--life at sea. In one capacity or another, during the next
twelve years, he not only contrived to visit most of the countries of
Europe, but also by dint of natural aptitude for study, to pick up a
language or two, and to acquaint himself with the essential part of a
college curriculum. It now occurred to him to return to New Orleans,
and claim the modest patrimony awaiting him there, in the hands of his
father's executors. He found that his stepfather had been dead for
three or four years, and his mother, after having exhausted her own
scanty resources, was sinking, with her two children, into the dreary
depths of poverty. It cost her some effort to recognize the slender
stripling of her memory in the brown, bearded, broad-shouldered man,
who now presented himself before her as her son. However, his identity
was satisfactorily established, both by certain indisputable personal
marks, and by the presumptive evidence of his willingness to assume the
burden of her support.
His next step had been to place himself in a lawyer's office, where, in
virtue of close application, he made months do the work of years.
Admitted by-and-by to the Bar, he had practised his profession for a
brief space, but finding the legal life not wholly to his taste, he had
flung it aside; and with the ready facility which had characterized his
whole career, had betaken himself to the study and the practice of
medicine. Here, he averred, he had found his true vocation, the
rightful mistress of his intellect, and should undergo no more
transformations, and indulge in no more wanderings.
So far, Dr. Remy gave quite as frank an account of himself as could be
expected or desired. But when it came to his inner life of thought,
opinion, principle, his frankness was of the sort that obscures, rather
than explains. It put forth jest and earnest, reason and sophistry,
airy spirituality and dead materialism, with equal readiness, and with
as much show of interest in one as the other. If Bergan caught at what
seemed to be substance, it turned to shadow in his grasp. If he
grappled with apparent earnest, it quickly resolved itself into a
hollow helmet of sudden championship, or a thin mask of irony. He was
often startled with a doubt whether the doctor had any settled opinions
or principles. He pulled down, but he built not up; he attacked, but
he rarely defended,--or, if he defended a thing to-day, more likely
than not, he would assault it to-morrow. All Bergan's own opinions and
beliefs seemed to lose their consistency in the universal solvent of
the doctor's talk, and only took shape again after a protracted process
of precipitation, in his own mind and heart.
If the latter organ made any part of Doctor Remy's bodily system, it
never manifested itself to Bergan by any noticeable throb or sensible
warmth. The young man was often puzzled by the question whence came
the doctor's evident interest in himself, since it seemed so plain that
it did not spring from any warm personal liking. He felt himself to be
the object of his careful study, frequently; of his spontaneous
affection and sympathy, never. He could not but wonder at such an
amount and duration of a purely intellectual interest,--for such he
decided it to be,--when it promised so little result.
However, the doctor's was the only society, worthy of the name, that
was offered to him; his, too, the only friendship, or semblance
thereof, that came within his reach. He gratefully availed himself of
both, even while conscious that neither fully met his wants, or would
have been the object of his deliberate choice. Without this resource,
the flow of Bergan's life would have been characterized by a drearier
monotony, even, than at present.
The first slight break in its placid current, occurred one morning, on
his return from breakfasting at the hotel. To his surprise, Vic was
tied before Mrs. Lyte's gate, arching her neck, and twisting her ears
about, in her usual wild and nervous fashion. In most confiding
proximity to her restless heels, Brick lay fast asleep on the sunshiny
sward.
Roused by the sound of approaching footsteps, the latter sprang to his
feet, and donned the palm-leaf debris that he termed his hat, in time
to doff it in deferential acknowledgment of Bergan's surprised greeting.
"Why, Brick! how do you do? Is anything the matter at the Hall?"
"No, massa Harry, nothing 't all. Only, ole massa, he say we's gittin
lazy,--Vic an' me;--an' he tought you'd better be gettin' some good out
ob us, dan to leab us in de stable--no, I mean, in the cabin, no, one
in de stable and turrer in de cabin--a-eatin' our heads off;--dat's
jes' what he said, massa. So he clared us off in a hurry, an' tole us
to gib you his lub, and tell you dat he 'sposed you'd kinder forgotten
'bout us."
There could be no question but that the overture was kindly meant, on
the Major's part, but it was one that Bergan could not possibly accept.
Judging from present indications, it would be long before his
professional income would suffice for his own support, to say nothing
of the additional expense of a servant and horse. Besides, he had
never regarded either Brick or the filly as actual gifts, but only
convenient loans, for his use while at the Hall. Any other view of the
matter would, by no means, have suited his independent character. And,
if this had been the case before the rupture with his uncle, it was
doubly so, now. Major Bergan must not be suffered to think that his
resentment had given way, or that his good will had been restored, by
the aid of any gifts, however valuable, or kindly bestowed.
Yet he would be glad to send his uncle a friendly message, to show that
he was really grateful for his kindness, and ready to accept any
overture which would not burden him with too heavy a sense of
obligation. To ensure its safe delivery, without the risk of hopeless
travesty, at Brick's hands, he went to his desk, and wrote:
"DEAR UNCLE: Thank you for sending me your love; _that_ is a thing
which I am glad to get and keep. But I cannot keep either Brick or
Vic,--I have no present use for them, and no means of providing for
them, if I had. Besides, I never regarded either as mine, except while
I remained at the Hall. Many thanks, all the same, for your kind
intentions.
"Your affectionate nephew,
'HARRY.'"
The signature was written only after considerable hesitation. His note
would be sure to fail of the desired conciliatory effect, if it wholly
ignored the name upon which his uncle had so strenuously insisted. Yet
he could not bring himself to incorporate it with his lawful
sign-manual. He was forced to compromise matters by thus using it as a
sort of _sobriquet_.
Giving the note to Brick, he bade him take it straightway to his
master. The negro's face instantly fell; then, it brightened again
with the light of a plausible explanation.
"I 'spec I'se to come back, arter I'se 'livered it?" he asked,
anxiously.
"No, Brick," Bergan gravely answered. "I cannot afford to keep you; it
is as much as I can do, just now, to keep myself."
"But, massa Harry," remonstrated Brick, "don't you know I 'longs to
you? I'se your nigger, sure as deff; ole massa gib me to you, an' tole
me to wait on you, don' you 'member? An' how's I a goin' to wait on
you, I'd jes' like to know, wid tree good miles atween us? 'Sides, I'd
feel so mortify to go right back dar, like a dog dat don' own no massa,
arter I done tole 'em all I's coming to lib wid you."
It was not without difficulty that Brick was convinced of the
inevitableness of his return to Major Bergan. Not only did his heart
yearn to be in the service of his young master, but he was fully
persuaded that he could help, rather than hinder, his fortunes. He
forcibly expressed his willingness to work his fingers off in the
cause, and gravely proposed to put himself on a course of
semi-starvation, in the matter of "keep." All this being of no avail,
he was finally forced to mount Vic, and turn homeward, a picture of the
blackest despair.
On the way, his mind was illumined with a gleam of hope. Like all the
negroes of the plantation, he had large faith in the occult power of
old Rue. His present journey, he well knew, was mainly owing to her
influence. If she could be made to see the propriety of his immediate
return to Bergan's service, as he did, no doubt she could find a way to
bring it to pass. And her conversion to his views could be effected,
he shrewdly thought, by a skilful use of Bergan's confession of
straitened circumstances, as well as a certain suggestive increase of
gravity that he had observed in the young man's manner. His smile had
not come quite so readily and brightly to his lips as in the old days
at Bergan Hall. No doubt he was poor, lonely, and troubled. He needed
some one to take care of him, and watch over him. And who so eligible
to this position as himself? For Brick had inherited his grandmother's
devotion to the Bergan blood, and believed that the chief end of his
being was to live and die loyally in its service. Moreover, his young
master had not only taken tenacious hold of his affections, but also of
that still stronger faculty of the negro mind--his imagination. Though
he might be a distressed knight, just at present, Brick's faith was
firm that his time of triumph was not far off; and then, he wanted to
be "there to see!"
He lost no time, therefore, in presenting himself before Rue, on his
arrival at Bergan Hall. And so dexterously did he work upon her love
and pride, by the deplorable picture that he drew of Bergan's sadness
and poverty, that the faithful old nurse straightway betook herself to
her master, and never left him till she had persuaded him to mount his
horse, and set forth, at a brisk trot, toward Berganton.
In truth, the Major was only too glad to be so persuaded. His anger
towards his nephew had quickly burned out, by reason of its own fury;
and in thinking the matter over, he had come to be more tickled by the
young man's prowess than he had, at first, been displeased by his
flight.
"You should have seen him knocking those fellows around, like so many
ninepins!" he exclaimed, exultingly, to Rue. "I couldn't have done it
more neatly myself, in my best days. I tell you, he is a true Bergan
at bottom, if he has got a few crinks and cranks at top. What a pity
he could not make up his mind to stay quietly on the old place, where
he belongs; and which he might have done what he pleased with, if he
had only taken me on the right tack! But he'll come back--he'll come
back! Estates like Bergan Hall don't grow on every bush. It won't
take him long to find out that he can't raise one from the law. And
then, he'll be glad to come back to me; and I'll receive him as the
father did the prodigal son!"
But, as time rolled on, and Bergan did not appear to claim this
welcome, the Major began to feel a chagrin that would quickly have been
intensified into anger, but for the happy suggestion that the young man
delayed merely because he was dubious as to his reception. This view
of the matter was an excellent salve to whatever of bitter or wounded
feeling the Major still retained. Bergan longing, yet fearing, to
return to him, was a vision that gently soothed his pride, while it
appealed powerfully to his sympathies.
Matters having reached this point, he yielded easily to Rue's
suggestion that Bergan's horse and servant should be sent to him, as a
hint that hostilities had ceased. And though their prompt return was,
at first, new matter of wrath, Bergan's note, Brick's report, and Rue's
representations and entreaties, availed to smother the half-kindled
flame, and send him forth toward Berganton in a most forgiving and
patronizing frame of mind. He was ready to make any concessions to his
nephew's principles and habits. If Bergan would but return to the
Hall, he might dictate his own terms, and order his life in his own
way. The Major had missed him more than he would have been willing to
allow. The old place had not seemed the same without him. Its present
had lost a strong element of cheer and energy, and its future had faded
into dimness.
Arriving, in due time, at Mrs. Lyte's gate, the Major dismounted, and
was about to enter, when his eyes fell on the little tin plate, in
Bergan's office window, which has before been mentioned. If it had
been the head of Medusa, with all its supernatural powers intact, it
could scarcely have wrought a more complete change in the expression of
his face. First, he glared at it in incredulous wonder; then, he
nearly choked with inarticulate rage; finally, words came to his
relief. To the consternation of Mrs. Lyte, and the intense
gratification of the crowd of boys and negroes which quickly gathered
at a safe distance, he proceeded to pour forth a volley of the
bitterest curses that he could frame upon the author of what he chose
to consider an insult to himself, and a disgrace to his lineage.
"That I should live to see the name of Bergan on a snip of a tin sign,
like that!" he growled, shaking his fist at the offending plate, and
trembling with rage;--"what right had the scoundrel to put it there, I
should like to know? 'Attorney at Law,' indeed!--he shall have law
enough, since he likes it so well! I'll sue him for trespass, libel,
forgery,--I'll horsewhip him, and then have him indicted for assault
and battery,--I'll--." But here his indignation choked him, for a
moment.
Recovering his voice, his anger took a new direction. "'Bergan
Arling,' indeed!" he muttered,--"I suppose he was ashamed of the
'Harry,' though he could put it at the end of his note,--smooth-faced
hypocrite that he is! Where is he?" he went on, lifting his voice.
"Why don't he come out, and face me, like a man? Must I go in and drag
him out, by the nape of the neck,--the mean, sneaking, insulting puppy!"
"Mr. Arling is out, I regret to say," said Dr. Remy, appearing in the
doorway, and confronting the furious Major with his cool, cynical
smile. "He went out for a walk some fifteen or twenty minutes ago. If
he were here, no doubt it would give him great pleasure to meet you."