It was in October when Mrs. Montgomery, after a residence of three years
in the Allen House, went from among us. Old “Aunty,” and another
colored servant who had lived with Mrs. Allen, remained in charge of the
mansion. There was, of course, no removal of furniture, as that belonged
to the estate. Mrs. Montgomery had brought with her three servants from
England, a coachman, footman, and maid. The footman was sent back after
he had been a year in the country; but the coachman and maid still lived
with her, and accompanied her to Boston.
The large schemes of men ambitious for gain, will not suffer them to
linger by the way. Ralph Dewey had set his mind on getting possession,
jointly with others, of the valuable Allen property; and as the Court
had granted a decree of sale, he urged upon his father-in-law and uncle
an early day for its consummation. They were in heart, honorable men,
but they had embarked in grand enterprises with at least one dishonest
compeer, and were carried forward by an impulse which they had not the
courage or force of character to resist. They thought that spring would
be the best time to offer the property for sale; but Dewey urged the
fall as more consonant with their views, and so the sale was fixed for
the first day of November. Notice was given in the country papers,
and Dewey engaged to see that the proposed sale was duly advertised in
Boston and New York. He managed, however, to omit that part of his duty.
On the day of sale, quite a company of curious people assembled at the
Allen House, but when the property was offered, only a single bid was
offered. That came from Dewey, as the representative of Floyd, Lawson,
Lee & Co., and it was awarded to them for the sum of thirty-five
thousand dollars, a little more than half its real value.
From that time until spring opened, all remained quiet. Then began the
busy hum of preparation, and great things for our town foreshadowed
themselves. A hundred men went to work on the site chosen for a new
mill, digging, blasting, and hauling; while carpenters and masons
were busy in and around the old mansion, with a view to its thorough
renovation, as the future residence of Mr. Ralph Dewey. That gentleman
was on the ground, moving about with a self-sufficient air, and giving
his orders in a tone of authority that most of the work people felt to
be offensive.
The antiquated furniture in the Allen House, rich though it was in style
and finish, would not suit our prospective millionaire, and it was all
sent to auction. From the auctioneers, it was scattered among the town's
people, who obtained some rare bargains. An old French secretary came
into my possession, at the cost of ten dollars--the original owner could
not have paid less than a hundred. It was curiously inlaid with satin
wood, and rich in quaint carvings. There seemed to be no end to the
discoveries I was continually making among its intricate series of
drawers, pigeon holes, slides, and hidden receptacles. But some one
had preceded me in the examination, and had removed all the papers and
documents it contained. It flashed across my mind, as I explored the
mazes of this old piece of furniture, that it might contain, in some
secret drawer, another will. This thought caused the blood to leap along
my veins, my cheeks to burn, and my hands to tremble. I renewed the
examination, at first hurriedly; then with order and deliberation,
taking out each drawer, and feeling carefully all around the cavity
left by its removal, in the hope of touching some hidden spring. But the
search was fruitless. One drawer perplexed me considerably. I could not
pull it clear out, nor get access above or below to see how closely
the various partitions and compartments came up to its sides, top, and
bottom. After working with it for some time, I gave up the search, and
my enthusiasm in this direction soon died out. I smiled to myself
many times afterwards, in thinking of the idle fancy which for a time
possessed me.
In May, the furnishing of the renovated house began. This took nearly
a month. Every thing was brought from New York. Car loads of enormous
boxes, bales, and articles not made up into packages, were constantly
arriving at the depot, and being conveyed to the Allen House--the
designation which the property retains even to this day. The furniture
was of the richest kind--the carpets, curtains, and mirrors, princely in
elegance. When all was ready for the proud owners to come in and enjoy
their splendid home, it was thrown open for examination and admiration.
All S----went to see the show, and wander in dreamy amazement through
parlors, halls, and chambers. I went with the rest. The change seemed
like the work of magic. I could with difficulty make out the old
landmarks. The spacious rooms, newly painted and decked out in
rich, modern furniture, looked still more spacious. In place of the
whitewashed ceilings and dingy papered walls, graceful frescoes
spread their light figures, entrancing the eyes with their marvelous
semblances. The great hall received you with a statelier formality than
before; for it, too, had received also its gift of painting, and its
golden broideries. As you passed from room to room, you said--“This is
the palace of a prince--not the abode of a citizen.”
The grounds around the mansion had been subject to as thorough a
renovation as the mansion itself. The old gate had given place to one of
larger proportions, and more imposing design. A new carriage-road swept
away in a grander curve from the gate to the dwelling. Substantial
stone-stabling had been torn down in order to erect a fanciful
carriage-house, built in imitation of a Swiss cottage; which, from its
singular want of harmony with the principal buildings, stood forth a
perpetual commentary upon the false taste of the upstart owner.
I hardly think that either Mr. Dewey or his wife would have been much
flattered by the general tone of remark that ran through the curious
crowds that lingered in the elegant rooms, or inspected the improvements
outside. Nobody liked him; and as for his wife, fashionable associations
had so spoiled her, that not a single old friend retained either
affection or respect. It was sad to think that three years of a false
life could so entirely obliterate the good qualities that once blossomed
in her soul with such a sweet promise of golden fruitage.
Early in June, the family of Mr. Dewey took possession of their new
home, and the occasion was celebrated by a splendid entertainment,
the cost of which, common rumor said, was over two thousand dollars.
We--Constance and I--were among the invited guests. It was a festive
scene, brilliant and extravagant beyond anything we had ever witnessed,
and quite bewildering to minds like ours. Mrs. Dewey was dressed like a
queen, and radiant in pearls and diamonds. I questioned her good taste
in this, as hostess; and think she knew better--but the temptation to
astonish the good people of S----was too strong to be resisted.
After the curtain fell on this brilliant spectacle, Mrs. Dewey assumed a
stately air, showing, on all occasions, a conscious superiority that
was offensive to our really best people. There are in all communities
a class who toady to the rich; and we had a few of these in S----.
They flattered the Deweys, and basked in the sunshine of their inflated
grandeur.
I was not one towards whom Mrs. Dewey put on superior airs. My
profession brought me into a kind of relation to her that set aside
all pretence. Very soon after her removal to S----, my services were
required in the family, one of her two children having been attacked
with measles. On the occasion of my first call, I referred, naturally,
to the fact of her removal from New York, and asked how she liked the
change.
“I don't like it all, Doctor,” she replied, in a dissatisfied tone.
“Could heart desire more of elegance and comfort than you possess?” I
glanced around the richly decorated apartment in which we were seated.
“Gilded misery, Doctor!” She emphasized her words.
I looked at her without speaking. She understood my expression of
surprise.
“I need not tell you, Doctor, that a fine house and fine furniture are
not everything in this world.”
I thought her waking up to a better state of mind, through the
irrepressible yearnings of a soul that could find no sustenance amid the
husks of this outer life.
“They go but a little way towards making up the aggregate of human
happiness,” said I.
“All well enough in their place. But, to my thinking, sadly out of place
here. We must have society, Doctor.”
“True.” My voice was a little rough. I had mistaken her.
“But there is no society here!” And she tossed her head a little
contemptuously.
“Not much fashionable society I will grant you, Delia.”
She pursed up her lips and looked disagreeable.
“I shall die of ennui before six months. What am I to do with myself?”
“Act like a true woman,” said I, firmly.
She lifted her eyes suddenly to my face as if I had presumed.
“Do your duty as a wife and mother,” I added, “and there will be no
danger of your dying with ennui.”
“You speak as if I were derelict in this matter.”
She drew herself up with some dignity of manner.
“I merely prescribed a remedy for a disease from which you are
suffering,” said I, calmly. “Thousands of women scattered all over the
land are martyrs to this disease; and there is only one remedy--that
which I offer to you, Delia.”
I think she saw, from my manner, that it would be useless to quarrel
with me. I was so much in earnest that truth came to my lips in any
attempt at utterance.
“What would you have me do, Doctor?” There was a petty fretfulness in
her voice. “Turn cook or nursery-maid?”
“Yes, rather than sit idle, and let your restless mind fret itself for
want of useful employment into unhappiness.”
“I cannot take your prescription in that crude form,” she replied, with
more seriousness than I had expected.
“It is not requisite to a cure,” said I. “Only let your thought and
purpose fall into the sphere of home. Think of your husband as one to be
made happier by your personal control of such household matters as touch
his comfort; of your babes as tender, precious things, blessed by your
sleepless care, or hurt by your neglect; of your domestics, as requiring
orderly supervision, lest they bring discord into your home, or waste
your substance. Every household, Delia, is a little government, and the
governor must be as watchful over all its concerns as the governor of a
state. Take, then, the reins of office firmly into your hands, dispose
of everything according to the best of your judgment, and require
orderly obedience from every subject. But act wisely and kindly. Do
this, my young friend, and you will not be troubled with the fashionable
complaint--ennui.”
“That is, sink down into a mere housekeeper,” she remarked; “weigh out
the flour, count the eggs, fill the sugar bowls, and grow learned in
cookery-books. I think I see myself wandering about from cellar to
garret, jingling a great bunch of keys, prying into rubbish-corners, and
scolding lazy cooks and idle chambermaids!”
She laughed a short, artificial laugh, and then added--
“Is that the picture of what you mean, Doctor?”
“It is the picture of a happier woman than you are, Delia,” said I,
seriously.
The suggestion seemed to startle her.
“You speak very confidently, Doctor.”
“With the confidence of one who makes diseases and their cure his study.
I know something of the human soul as well as the human body, and of the
maladies to which both are subjected. A cure is hopeless in either case,
unless the patient will accept the remedy. Pain of body is the indicator
of disease, and gives warning that an enemy to life has found a
lodgment; pain of mind is the same phenomenon, only showing itself in a
higher sphere, and for the same purpose. If you are unhappy, surrounded
by all this elegance, and with the means of gratifying every orderly
wish, it shows that an enemy to your soul has entered through some
unguarded gateway. You cannot get rid of this enemy by any change
of place, or by any new associations. Society will not help you. The
excitement of shows; gauds, glitter, pageants; the brief triumphs gained
in fashionable tournaments, will not expel this foe of your higher and
nobler life, but only veil, for brief seasons, his presence from your
consciousness. When these are past, and you retire into yourself, then
comes back the pain, the languor, the excessive weariness. Is it not so,
Delia? Is not this your sad experience?”
I paused. Her eyes had fallen to the floor. She sat very still, like one
who was thinking deeply.
“The plodding housekeeper, whose picture you drew just now--humble,
even mean in your regard though she be--sinks to peaceful sleep when her
tasks are done, and rises refreshed at coming dawn. If she is happier
than your fine lady, whose dainty hands cannot bear the soil of these
common things, why? Ponder this subject, Delia. It concerns you deeply.
It is the happiest state in life that we all strive to gain; but you may
lay it up in your heart as immutable truth, that happiness never comes
to any one, except through a useful employment of all the powers which
God has given to us. The idle are the most miserable--and none are more
miserable in their ever-recurring ennuied hours, than your fashionable
idlers. We see them only in their holiday attire, tricked out for show,
and radiant in reflected smiles. Alas! If we could go back with them to
their homes, and sit beside them, unseen, in their lonely hours, would
not pity fill our hearts? My dear young friend! Turn your feet aside
from this way--it is the path that leads to unutterable wretchedness.”
The earnestness of my manner added force to what I said, and constrained
at least a momentary conviction.
“You speak strongly, Doctor,” she said, with the air of one who could
not look aside from an unpleasant truth.
“Not too strongly, Delia. Is it not as I have said? Are not your mere
society-ladies too often miserable at home?”
She sighed heavily, as if unpleasant images were forcing themselves upon
her mind. I felt that I might follow up the impression I had made, and
resumed:
“There was a time, Delia--and it lies only three or four short years
backward on your path of life--when I read in your opening mind a
promise of higher things than have yet been attained--you must pardon
the freedom of an old but true friend. A time when thought, taste,
feeling were all building for themselves a habitation, the stones
whereof were truths, and the decorations within and without pure and
good affections. All this”--I glanced at the rich furniture, mirrors,
and curtains--“is poor and mean to that dwelling place of the soul, the
foundations for which you once commenced laying. Are you happier now
than then? Have the half bewildering experiences through which you have
passed satisfied you that you are in the right way? That life's highest
blessings are to be found in these pageantries? Think, think, my dear
young friend! Look inwards. Search into your heart, and try the quality
of its motives. Examine the foundation upon which you are building, and
if it is sand, in heaven's name stop, and look for solid earth on which
to place the corner stone of your temple of happiness.”
“You bewilder me, Doctor,” she said, in reply to this. “I can't think,
I can't look inwards. If I am building on a sandy foundation, God help
me!--for I cannot turn back to search for the solid earth of which you
speak.”
“But--”
She raised her hand and said,
“Spare me, Doctor. I know you are truthful and sincere--a friend who
may be trusted--but you cannot see as I see, nor know as I know. I have
chosen my way, and must walk in it, even to the end, let it terminate as
it will. I had once a dream of other things--a sweet, entrancing dream
while it lasted--but to me it can never be more than a dream. There
are quiet, secluded, peaceful ways in life, and happy are they who are
content to walk in them. But they are not for my feet, and I do not envy
those who hide themselves in tranquil valleys, or linger on the distant
hill-slopes. The crowd, the hum, the shock of social life for me!”
“But this you cannot have in S----. And is it not the part of a wise
woman--”
“Again, Doctor, let me beg of you to spare me.” she said, lifting her
hands, and turning her face partly away. “I only half comprehend you,
and am hurt and disturbed by your well-meant suggestions. I am not a
wise woman, in your sense of the word, and cannot take your admonitions
to heart. Let us talk of something else.”
And she changed the subject, as well as her whole manner and expression
of countenance, with a promptness that surprised me; showing the
existence of will and self-control that in a right direction would have
given her large power for good.
It was the first and last time I ventured to speak with her so freely.
Always afterwards, when we met, there was an impression of uneasiness
on her part, as if she had an unpleasant remembrance, or feared that I
would venture upon some disagreeable theme.