How well appaid she was her bird to find.
Sidney.
Fleda counted the minutes till it wanted an hour of sundown; and then
avoiding Mrs. Pritchard made her escape out of the house. A long walk was
before her and the latter part of it through a region which she wished to
pass while the light was good. And she was utterly unable to travel at any
but a very gentle rate. So she gave herself plenty of time.
It was a very bright afternoon and all the world was astir. Fleda
shielded herself with a thick veil and went up one of the narrow
streets, not daring to venture into Broadway; and passing Waverly Place
which was almost as bright, turned down Eighth-street. A few blocks now
and she would be out of all danger of meeting any one that knew her. She
drew her veil close and hurried on. But the proverb saith "a miss is as
good as a mile," and with reason; for if fate wills the chances make
nothing. As Fleda set her foot down to cross Fifth Avenue she saw Mr.
Carleton on the other side coming up from Waverly Place. She went as
slowly as she dared, hoping that he would pass without looking her way,
or be unable to recognize her through her thick wrapper. In vain,--she
soon saw that she was known; he was waiting for her, and she must put up
her veil and speak to him.
"Why I thought you had left New York," said he;--"I was told so."
"I had left it--I have left it, sir," said Fleda;--"I have only come back
for a day or two--"
"Have you been ill?" he said with a sudden change of tone, the light in
his eye and smile giving place to a very marked gravity.
Fleda would have answered with a half smile, but such a sickness of heart
came over her that speech failed and she was very near bursting into
tears. Mr. Carleton looked at her earnestly a moment, and then put the
hand which Fleda had forgotten he still held, upon his arm and began to
walk forward gently with her. Something in the grave tenderness with which
this was done reminded Fleda irresistibly of the times when she had been
a child under his care; and somehow her thoughts went off on a tangent
back to the further days of her mother and father and grandfather, the
other friends from whom she had had the same gentle protection, which now
there was no one in the world to give her. And their images did never seem
more winning fair than just then,--when their place was left most
especially empty. Her uncle she had never looked up to in the same way,
and whatever stay he had been was cut down. Her aunt leaned upon _her_;
and Hugh had always been more of a younger than an elder brother. The
quick contrast of those old happy childish days was too strong; the glance
back at what she had had, made her feel the want. Fleda blamed herself,
reasoned and fought with herself;--but she was weak in mind and body, her
nerves were unsteady yet, her spirits unprepared for any encounter or
reminder of pleasure; and though vexed and ashamed she _could_ not hold
her head up, and she could not prevent tear after tear from falling as
they went along; she could only hope that nobody saw them.
Nobody spoke of them. But then nobody said anything; and the silence at
last frightened her into rousing herself She checked her tears and raised
her head; she ventured no more; she dared not turn her face towards her
companion. He looked at her once or twice, as if in doubt whether to
speak or not.
"Are you not going beyond your strength?" he said at length gently.
Fleda said no, although in a tone that half confessed his suspicion. He
was silent again, however, and she cast about in vain for something to
speak of; it seemed to her that all subjects of conversation in general
had been packed up for exportation, neither eye nor memory could light
upon a single one. Block after block was passed, the pace at which he
walked, and the manner of his care for her, alone shewing that he knew
what a very light hand was resting upon his arm.
"How pretty the curl of blue smoke is from that chimney," he said.
It was said with a tone so carelessly easy that Fleda's heart jumped for
one instant in the persuasion that he had seen and noticed nothing
peculiar about her.
"I know it," she said eagerly,--"I have often thought of it--especially
here in the city--"
"Why is it? what is it?--"
Fleda's eye gave one of its exploratory looks at his, such as he
remembered from years ago, before she spoke.
"Isn't it contrast?--or at least I think that helps the effect here."
"What do you make the contrast?" he said quietly.
"Isn't it," said Fleda with another glance, "the contrast of something
pure and free and upward-tending, with what is below it. I did not mean
the mere painter's contrast. In the country smoke is more picturesque, but
in the city I think it has more character."
"To how many people do you suppose it ever occurred that smoke had a
character?" said he smiling.
"You are laughing at me, Mr. Carleton? perhaps I deserve it."
"You do not think that," said he with a look that forbade her to think it.
"But I see you are of Lavater's mind, that everything has a physiognomy?"
"I think he was perfectly right," said Fleda. "Don't you, Mr. Carleton?"
"To some people, yes!--But the expression is so subtle that only very nice
sensibilities, with fine training, can hope to catch it; therefore to the
mass of the world Lavater would talk nonsense."
"That is a gentle hint to me. But if I talk nonsense I wish you would set
me right, Mr. Carleton;--I am very apt to amuse myself with tracing out
fancied analogies in almost everything, and I may carry it too far--too
far--to be spoken of wisely. I think it enlarges one's field of pleasure
very much. Where one eye is stopped, another is but invited on."
"So," said Mr. Carleton, "while that puff of smoke would lead one
person's imagination only down the chimney to the kitchen fire, it
would take another's----where did yours go?" said he suddenly turning
round upon her.
Fleda met his eye again, without speaking; but her look had perhaps more
than half revealed her thought, for she was answered with a smile so
intelligent and sympathetic that she was abashed.
"How very much religion heightens the enjoyments of life," Mr. Carleton
said after a while.
Fieda's heart throbbed an answer; she did not speak.
"Both in its direct and indirect action. The mind is set free from
influences that narrowed its range and dimmed its vision; and refined to a
keener sensibility, a juster perception, a higher power of appreciation,
by far, than it had before. And then, to say nothing of religion's own
peculiar sphere of enjoyment, technically religious,--what a field of
pleasure it opens to its possessor in the world of moral beauty, most
partially known to any other,--and the fine but exquisite analogies of
things material with things spiritual,--those _harmonies of Nature_, to
which, talk as they will, all other ears are deaf!"
"You know," said Fleda with full eyes that she dared not shew, "how Henry
Martyn said that he found he enjoyed painting and music so much more after
he became a Christian."
"I remember. It is the substituting a just medium for a false one--it is
putting nature within and nature without in tune with each other, so that
the chords are perfect now which were jarring before."
"And yet how far people would be from believing you, Mr. Carleton."
"Yes--they are possessed with the contrary notion. But in all the
creation nothing has a one-sided usefulness;--what a reflection it would
be upon the wisdom of its author if godliness alone were the
exception--if it were not 'profitable for the life that now is, as well
as for that which is to come'!"
"They make that work the other way, don't they?" said Fleda.--"Not being
able to see how thorough religion should be for anybody's happiness, they
make use of your argument to conclude that it is not what the Bible
requires. How I have heard that urged--that God intended his creatures to
be happy--as a reason why they should disobey him. They lay hold on the
wrong end of the argument and work backwards."
"Precisely.
"'God intended his creatures to be happy.
"'Strict obedience would make them unhappy.
"'Therefore, he does not intend them to obey.'"
"They never put it before them quite so clearly," said Fleda.
"They would startle at it a little. But so they would at the right stating
of the case."
"And how would that be, Mr. Carleton?"
"It might be somewhat after this fashion--
"'God requires nothing that is not for the happiness of his people--
"'He requires perfect obedience--
"'Therefore perfect obedience is for their happiness'
"But unbelief will not understand that. Did it ever strike you how much
there is in those words 'Come and see'?--All that argument can do, after
all, is but to persuade to that. Only faith will submit to terms and enter
the narrrow gate; and only obedience knows what the prospect is on the
other side."
"But isn't it true, Mr. Carleton, that the world have some cause for their
opinion?--judging as they do by the outside? The peculiar pleasures of
religion, as you say, are out of sight, and they do not always find in
religious people that enlargement and refinement of which you were
speaking."
"Because they make unequal comparisons. Recollect that, as God has
declared, the ranks of religion are not for the most part filled from the
wise and the great. In making your estimate you must measure things equal
in other respects. Compare the same man with himself before he was a
Christian or with his unchristianized fellows--and you will find
invariably the refining, dignifying, ennobling, influence of true
religion; the enlarged intelligence and the greater power of enjoyment."
"And besides those causes of pleasure-giving that you mentioned," said
Fleda,--"there is a mind at ease; and how much that is alone. If I may
judge others by myself,--the mere fact of being unpoised--unresting--
disables the mind from a thousand things that are joyfully relished by
one entirely at ease."
"Yes," said he,--"do you remember that word--'The stones of the field
shall be at peace with thee'?"
"I am afraid people would understand you as little as they would me, Mr.
Carleton," said Fleda laughing.
He smiled, rather a prolonged smile, the expression of which Fleda could
not make out; she felt that _she_ did not quite understand him.
"I have thought," said he after a pause, "that much of the beauty we find
in many things is owing to a hidden analogy--the harmony they make with
some unknown string of the mind's harp which they have set a vibrating.
But the music of that is so low and soft that one must listen very closely
to find out what it is."
"Why that is the very theory of which I gave you a smoky illustration a
little while ago," said Fleda. "I thought I was on safe ground, after what
you said about the characters of flowers, for that was a little--"
"Fanciful?" said he smiling.
"What you please," said Fleda colouring a little,--"I am sure it is true.
The theory, I mean. I have many a time felt it, though I never put it in
words. I shall think of that."
"Did you ever happen to see the very early dawn of a winter's
morning?" said he.
But he laughed the next instant at the comical expression of Fleda's face
as it was turned to him.
"Forgive me for supposing you as ignorant as myself. I have seen
it--once."
"Appreciated it, I hope, that time?" said Fleda.
"I shall never forget it."
"And it never wrought in you a desire to see it again?"
"I might see many a dawn," said he smiling, "without what I saw then. It
was very early--and a cloudy morning, so that night had still almost
undisturbed possession of earth and sky; but in the south-eastern quarter,
between two clouds, there was a space of fair white promise, hardly making
any impression upon the darkness but only set off by it. And upon this one
bright spot in earth or heaven, rode the planet of the morning--the sun's
forerunner--bright upon the brightness. All else was dusky--except where
overhead the clouds had parted again and shewed a faint old moon,
glimmering down upon the night it could no longer be said to 'rule'."
"Beautiful!" said Fleda. "There is hardly any time I like so well as the
dawn of a winter morning with an old moon in the sky. Summer weather has
no beauty like it--in some things."
"Once," continued Mr, Carleton, "I should have seen no more than I have
told you--the beauty that every cultivated eye must take in. But now,
methought I saw the dayspring that has come upon a longer night--and from
out of the midst of it there was the fair face of the morning star looking
at me with its sweet reminder and invitation--looking over the world with
its aspect of triumphant expectancy;--there was its calm assurance of the
coming day,--its promise that the star of hope which now there were only a
few watching eyes to see, should presently be followed by the full beams
of the Sun of righteousness making the kingdoms of the world his
own.--Your memory may bring to you the words that came to mine,--the
promise 'to him that overcometh', and the beauty of the lips that made
it--the encouragement to 'patient continuance in well-doing', 'till the
day break and the shadows flee away.'--And there on the other hand was the
substituted light of earth's wisdom and inventions, dominant yet, but
waning and soon to be put out for ever."
Fleda was crying again, and perhaps that was the reason why Mr. Carleton
was silent for some time. She was very sorry to shew herself so weak, but
she could not help it; part of his words had come too close. And when she
had recovered again she was absolutely silent too, for they were nearing
Sloman-street and she could not take him there with her. She did not know
what to say, nor what he would think; and she said not another word till
they came to the corner. There she must stop and speak.
"I am very much obliged to you, Mr. Carleton," she said drawing her hand
from his arm, "for taking care of me all this disagreeable way--I will not
give you any more trouble."
"You are not going to dismiss me?" said he looking at her with a
countenance of serious anxiety.
"I must," said Fleda ingenuously,--"I have business to attend to here--"
"But you will let me have the pleasure of waiting for you?"
"O no," said Fleda hesitating and flushing,--"thank you, Mr.
Carleton,--but pray do not--I don't know at all how long I may be
detained."
He bowed, she thought gravely, and turned away, and she entered the little
wretched street; with a strange feeling of pain that she could not
analyze. She did not know where it came from, but she thought if there
only had been a hiding-place for her she could have sat down and wept a
whole heartful. The feeling must be kept back now, and it was soon
forgotten in the throbbing of her heart at another thought which took
entire possession.
The sun was not down, there was time enough, but it was with a step and
eye of hurried anxiety that Fleda passed along the little street, for fear
of missing her quest or lest Dinah should have changed her domicil. Yet
would her uncle have named it for their meeting if he had not been sure
of it? It was very odd he should have appointed that place at all, and
Fleda was inclined to think he must have seen Dinah by some chance, or it
never would have come into his head. Still her eye passed unheeding over
all the varieties of dinginess and misery in her way, intent only upon
finding that particular dingy cellar-way which used to admit her to
Dinah's premises. It was found at last, and she went in.
The old woman, herself most unchanged, did not know the young lady, but
well remembered the little girl whom Fleda brought to her mind. And then
she was overjoyed to see her, and asked a multitude of questions, and told
a long story of her having met Mr. Rossitur in the street the other day
"in the last place where she'd have looked to see him;" and how old he had
grown, and how surprised she had been to see the grey hairs in his head.
Fleda at last gave her to understand that she expected him to meet her
there and would like to see him alone; and the good woman immediately took
her work into another apartment, made up the fire and set up the chairs,
and leaving her assured Fleda she would lock up the doors "and not let no
one come through."
It was sundown, and later, Fleda thought, and she felt as if every pulse
was doing double duty. No matter--if she were shattered and the work done.
But what work!--Oh the needlessness, the cruelty, the folly of it! And how
much of the ill consequences she might be unable after all to ward off.
She took off her hat, to relieve a nervous smothered feeling; and walked,
and sat down; and then sat still, from trembling inability to do anything
else. Dinah's poor little room, clean though it was, looked to her the
most dismal place in the world from its association with her errand; she
hid her face on her knees that she might have no disagreeableness to
contend with but that which could not be shut out.
It had lain there some time, till a sudden felling of terror at the
growing lateness made her raise it to look at the window. Mr. Rossitur was
standing still before her, he must have come in very softly,--and
looking,--oh Fleda had not imagined him looking so changed. All was
forgotten,--the wrong, and the needlessness, and the indignation with
which she had sometimes thought of it; Fleda remembered nothing but love
and pity, and threw herself upon his neck with such tears of tenderness
and sympathy, such kisses of forgiveness and comfort-speaking, as might
have broken a stouter heart than Mr. Rossitur's. He held her in his arms
for a few minutes, passively suffering her caresses, and then gently
unloosing her hold placed her on a seat; sat down a little way off,
covered his face and groaned aloud.
Fleda could not recover herself at once. Then shaking off her agitation
she came and knelt down by his side and putting one arm over his shoulder
laid her cheek against his forehead. Words were beyond reach, but his
forehead was wet with her tears; and kisses, of soft entreaty, of winning
assurance, said all she could say.
"What did you come here for, Fleda?" said Mr. Rossitur at length, without
changing his position.
"To bring you home, uncle Rolf."
"Home!" said he, with an accent between bitterness and despair.
"Yes, for it's all over, it's all forgotten--there is no more to be said
about it at all," said Fleda, getting her words out she didn't know how.
"What is forgotten?" said he harshly.
"All that you would wish, sir," replied Fleda softly and gently;--"there
is no more to be done about it; and I came to tell you if possible before
it was too late. Oh I'm so glad!--" and her arms and her cheek pressed
closer as fresh tears stopped her voice.
"How do you know, Fleda?" said Mr. Rossitur raising his head and bringing
hers to his shoulder, while his arms in turn enclosed her.
Fleda whispered, "He told me so himself."
"Who?"
"Mr. Thorn."
The words were but just spoken above her breath. Mr. Rossitur was silent
for some time.
"Are you sure you understood him?"
"Yes, sir; it could not have been spoken plainer."
"Are you quite sure he meant what he said, Fleda?"
"Perfectly sure, uncle Rolf! I know he did."
"What stipulation did he make beforehand?"
"He did it without any stipulation, sir."
"What was his inducement then? If I know him he is not a man to act
without any."
Fleda's cheek was dyed, but except that she gave no other answer.
"Why has it been left so long?" said her uncle presently.
"I don't know, sir--he said nothing about that. He promised that neither
we nor the world should hear anything more of it."
"The world?" said Mr. Rossitur.
"No sir, he said that only one or two persons had any notion of it and
that their secrecy he had the means of securing."
"Did he tell you anything more?"
"Only that he had the matter entirely under his control and that never a
whisper of it should be heard again, No promise could be given more fully
and absolutely."
Mr. Rossitur drew a long breath, speaking to Fleda's ear very great
relief, and was silent.
"And what reward is he to have for this, Fleda?" he said after some
musing.
"All that my hearty thanks and gratitude can give, as far as I am
concerned, sir."
"Is that what he expects, Fleda?"
"I cannot help what he expects," said Fleda, in some distress.
"What have you engaged yourself to, my child?"
"Nothing in the world, uncle Rolf!" said Fleda earnestly--"nothing in the
world. I haven't engaged myself to anything. The promise was made freely,
without any sort of stipulation."
Mr. Rossitur looked thoughtful and disquieted. Fleda's tears were
pouring again.
"I will not trust him," he said,--"I will not stay in the country!"
"But you will come home, uncle?" said Fleda, terrified.
"Yes my dear child--yes my dear child!" he said tenderly, putting his arms
round Fleda again and kissing, with an earnestness of acknowledgment that
went to her heart, her lips and brow,--"you shall do what you will with
me; and when I go, we will all go together."
From Queechy! From America!--But she had no time for that thought now.
"You said 'for Hugh's sake,'" Mr. Rossitur observed after a pause, and
with some apparent difficulty;--"what of him?"
"He is not well, uncle Rolf," said Fleda,--"and I think the best medicine
will be the sight of you again."
Mr. Rossitur looked pale and was silent a moment.
"And my wife?" he said.
His face, and the thought of those faces at home, were too much for Fleda;
she could not help it; "Oh, uncle Rolf," she said, hiding her face, "they
only want to see you again now!"
Mr. Rossitur leaned his head in his hands and groaned; and Fleda could but
cry; she felt there was nothing to say.
"It was for Marion," he said at length;--"it was when I was hard pressed
and I was fearful if it were known that it might ruin her prospects.--I
wanted that miserable sum--only four thousand dollars--that fellow
Schwiden asked to borrow it of me for a few days, and to refuse would have
been to confess all. I dared not try my credit, and I just madly took that
step that proved irretrievable--I counted at the moment upon funds that
were coming to me only the next week, sure, I thought, as possible,--but
the man cheated me, and our embarrassments thickened from that time; that
thing has been a weight--oh a weight of deadening power!--round my neck
ever since. I have died a living death these six years!--"
"I know it, dear uncle--I know it all!" said Fleda, bringing the
sympathizing touch of her cheek to his again.
"The good that it did has been unspeakably overbalanced by the evil--even
long ago I knew that."
"The good that it did"! It was no time _then_ to moralize, but he must
know that Marion was at home, or he might incautiously reveal to her what
happily there was no necessity for her ever knowing. And the story must
give him great and fresh pain----
"Dear uncle Rolf!" said Fleda pressing closer to him, "we may be happier
than we have been in a long time, if you will only take it so. The cloud
upon you has been a cloud upon us."
"I know it!" he exclaimed,--"a cloud that served to shew me that my jewels
were diamonds!"
"You have an accession to your jewels, uncle Rolf."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean," said Fleda trembling, "that there are two more at home."
He held her back to look at her.
"Can't you guess who?"
"No!" said he. "What do you mean?"
"I must tell you, because they know nothing, and needn't know, of all
this matter."
"What are you talking about?"
"Marion is there----"
"Marion!" exclaimed Mr. Rossitur, with quick changes of expression,--"
Marion!--At Queechy!--and her husband?"
"No sir,--a dear little child."
"Marion!--and her husband--where is he?"
Fleda hesitated.
"I don't know--I don't know whether she knows--"
"Is he dead?"
"No sir--"
Mr. Rossitur put her away and got up and walked, or strode, up and down,
up and down, the little apartment. Fleda dared not look at him, even by
the faint glimmer that came from the chimney.
But abroad it was perfectly dark--the stars were shining, the only lamps
that illumined the poor little street, and for a long time there had been
no light in the room but that of the tiny wood fire. Dinah never could be
persuaded of the superior cheapness of coal. Fleda came at last to her
uncle's side and putting her arm within his said,
"How soon will you set off for home, uncle Rolf?"
"To-morrow morning."
"You must take the boat to Bridgeport now--you know the river is fast."
"Yes I know----"
"Then I will meet you at the wharf, uncle Rolf,--at what o'clock?"
"My dear child," said he, stopping and passing his hand tenderly over her
cheek, "are you fit for it to-morrow? You had better stay where you are
quietly for a few days--you want rest."
"No, I will go home with you," said Fleda, "and rest there. But hadn't we
better let Dinah in and bid her good bye? for I ought to be somewhere else
to get ready."
Dinah was called, and a few kind words spoken, and with a more
substantial remembrance, or reward, from Fleda's hand, they left her.
Fleda had the support of her uncle's arm till they came within sight of
the house, and then he stood and watched her while she went the rest of
the way alone.
[Illustration: Then he stood and watched her.]
Anything more white and spirit-looking, and more spirit-like in its
purity and peacefulness, surely did not walk that night. There was music
in her ear, and abroad in the star-light, more ethereal than Ariel's,
but she knew where it came from; it was the chimes of her heart that
were ringing; and never a happier peal, nor never had the mental
atmosphere been more clear for their sounding. Thankfulness,--that was
the oftenest note,--swelling thankfulness for her success,--joy for
herself and for the dear ones at home,--generous delight at having been
the instrument of their relief,--the harmonies of pure affections,
without any grating now,--the hope well grounded she thought, of
improvement in her uncle and better times for them all,--a childlike
peace that was at rest with itself and the world,--these were mingling
and interchanging their music, and again and again in the midst of it
all, faith rang the last chime in heaven.