Infelice Part 11

"How long will he stay with us?"

"He could not say positively when his last letter was written, but I hope to keep him several months. You know it is possible he may be forced to go to England, in order to complete some of his studies before--oh, Regina! could we bear to have two oceans swelling between our Bishop and us?"

"Why, then, will you let him go?"

"Can I help it?"

"You are his mother, and he would never disobey you."

"But he is a man, and I cannot tie him to my ap.r.o.n strings as I do my bunch of keys. I must not stand in the way, and prevent him from doing his duty."

"I suppose I don't yet know everything about such matters, but I should think it was his duty first to please you. How devoted he is to 'duty'? It must be horrible to leave all one loves, and go out to India among the heathens."

"Pray, what do you know about the heathens?" said a manly voice, and instantly two strong arms gathered the pair in a cordial embrace.

"My son! You stole a march upon me! Oh, Dougla.s.s, I never was half so glad to see you as now!"

"If you do not stop crying, I shall feel tempted to doubt you. Tears are so unusual in your eyes that I shall be disposed to regard your welcome as equivocal."

He kissed her on cheek and lips, and added:

"Regina, can't you contrive to say you are a little glad to see me?"

There was no reply, and, turning to look for her, he found she had vanished.

"Queer little thing, she has gone without a word, though she insisted on dressing her silver cup with those flowers, which she thought would suggest to you her grat.i.tude for your numerous little acts of kindness. Have you seen your uncle?"

"Yes, mother, I stopped a few moments at the church, where he is engaged with one of the committee. Uncle Peyton is not looking well.

Has he been sick?"

"He has suffered a good deal with his throat since you left us, and now and then I notice he coughs. He is overworked, and now that you can fill his pulpit he will have an opportunity to rest. Oh, my son!

in every respect your visit is a blessing."

Leaning her head on his breast, she looked up with proud and almost adoring tenderness, and, drawing his face down to hers, held it close, kissing him with that intense clinging fervour which only mother-love kindles.

"Does my little mother know that she is spoiling her boy by inches; making a nursery darling, instead of a hardy soldier of him? You are weaving silken bonds to fasten me more securely here, when you ought rather to aid me in snapping the fetters of affection, habit, and a.s.sociation. Come, be so good as to brush the dust out of my hair, while you tell me everything about everybody, which you have failed to write during these long months of absence."

For some time they talked of family matters, of occurrences in V----, of some invidious and unkind remarks, some caustic personal criticisms upon the pastor's household affairs, which had emanated from Mrs. Prudence Potter, a widowed member of the congregation, who had once rashly dreamed of presiding over the clerical hearth as Mrs.

Peyton Hargrove, and having failed to possess her kingdom had become a merciless spy upon all that happened in the forbidden realm.

"Poor Mrs. Prue! what a warfare exists between her name and her character. She should pet.i.tion the legislature to allow her to be called--Mrs. Echidna! My son, I think modern civilization will remain incomplete, will not perform its mission, until it relieves society from the depredations of these scorpions, by colonizing them where they will expend their poison without dangerous results. If sting they must, let it be among themselves. If I were lunatic enough to desire to vote, I should spend my franchise in favour of a 'Gossip Reservation'--somewhere close to the Great Western Desert, to which the disappointed widows, spiteful old maids, and snarling dyspeptic bachelors of this much-suffering generation should be relegated for domiciliation and reform. Freedom serves America much as aesop's stork did the frogs: we are appallingly free to be devoured by envy, stabbed by calumny, strangled by slander. I believe if I were a painter, and desired to portray Cleopatra's death, I would a.s.suredly give to the asp the baleful features and sneering smirk of Mrs.

Prudence. Every Sunday when she twists those two curls on her forehead till they lift themselves like horns, puts up her eye-gla.s.ses and pays her respects to our pew, I catch myself whispering '_Cerastes!_' and wishing that I were only the _camera_ of a photographer."

"Take care, mother! would you accept a homestead in your contemplated 'Reservation'?"

She pinched his ear.

"Don't presume, sir, to preach to me. Really, I often wonder how Peyton can force himself to smile and parry the vinegar cruets that woman throws at him in the shape of observations upon the 'rapid decline of evangelical piety,' and the 'sadly backslidden nature' of the clergy."

"Because he is the very best man in the world, and faithfully practises what he preaches--Christian charity. What is Mrs. Pru's latest grievance?"

"That Peyton does not admit her to his confidence, and supply her with all the particulars of Regina's history and family, which he withholds even from you and me, and about which we should never dream of catechizing him. In a better cause, her bold effrontery would be sublime. Fortunately she was absent in Vermont for some months after the child came, and curiosity had subsided into indifference until she returned,--when lo! a geyser of righteous anxiety and suspicion boiled up in the congregation, and wellnigh scalded us. What do you suppose she blandly asked me one day, in the child's presence? 'Were not Mr. Hargrove's friends mistaken in believing he had never married?' Now I contend that the law of the land should indict for just such cruel and wicked innuendoes, because these social crimes that the statutes do not reach work almost as much mischief and misery as those offences against public peace which the laws declare penal. I confess Mrs. Potter is my _bete-noire_, and I feel as no doubt Paul did when he wrote to Timothy: 'Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil; the Lord reward him according to his works.'"

"Mother, what reply did you make to her? I can imagine you towering like Mrs. Siddons."

"You may be sure I unmasked a battery. I looked straight into her little faded grey eyes, which straggle away from each other as if ashamed of their mutual ferret experiences,--for you know one looks out so, and one turns always up,--and I answered, that my brother had been exceedingly fortunate, as, notwithstanding the numerous matrimonial nets adroitly spread for him, he had escaped, like the Psalmist, 'as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers,' and fled for safety unto the mountain of celibacy. Bishop, if the new school of science lack the link that binds us to the ophidian type, I can furnish a thoroughly 'developed' specimen of an 'evolved' Melusina; for Mrs. Pru's ancestors must have been not very remotely, cobra-capellos. Such a chronic blister as she is keeps up more inflammation in a church than all the theology at Andover can cool.

As for general society here in V----, she damages it more than all the three hundred foxes of Samson did the corn-fields, vineyards, and olives of the Philistines. What are you laughing at?"

"The ludicrous dismay that will seize you when the constablery of your progressive civilization notify you that you must emigrate to the Gossip and Slander Reservation. Poor Mrs. Prudence Potter! from my earliest recollection she has been practising archery upon the target of her neighbours' characters, and she seeks social martyrdom as diligently as Sir Galahad hunted the Sangreal. In the form of ostracism, I think she is certainly reaping her reward. Mother, let her rest."

"With all my heart! ''tis a consummation devoutly to be wished;' but that is just the last thing she proposes, until the muscles of her tongue and eyes are paralyzed. Rest indeed! Did you ever see a hyena caged in a menagerie? Did you ever know it to rest for an instant from its snarling, snapping, grinning round? My son, I would not for my right hand malign or injure her, but how can I sincerely indulge charitable reflections concerning a person who has so persistently persecuted your uncle?"

"Then, dear little mother, do not think of her at all. Be a.s.sured her ill-natured shafts will fall as blunt and harmless upon the n.o.ble well-tried armour of my uncle's Christian character, as a bombardment of cambric needles against the fortress of Cronstadt. How rapidly Regina has grown, since she came among us? Her complexion is perfect.

Is she the same straightforward, guileless child I left her?"

"Unchanged except in the rapid expansion of her mind, which develops surprisingly. She is the most mature child I have ever met, and I presume it is attributable to the fact that she has never been thrown with children, and having always a.s.sociated with older persons, has insensibly imbibed their staid thoughts, and adopted their quiet ways. I should not be more astonished to see my prim puritanical grandmother yonder step down from the frame, and turn a somersault on the carpet, or indulge in leap-frog, than to find Regina guilty of any boisterous hoidenish behaviour, or unrefined, undignified language. If she had been born on the _Mayflower_, raised on Plymouth Rock, and fed three times a day on the 'Blue Laws' of Connecticut, she could not possibly have proved a more eminently 'proper' child.

Even Hannah, who you may recollect was so surly, harsh, and suspicious when she first came here, and who really has as little cordiality or enthusiasm in her nature as a gridiron or a rolling-pin, seems now to be completely devoted to her; as nearly infatuated as one of her flinty temperament can be,--and who conquers old Hannah's heart--you will admit--must be wellnigh perfect."

"Does my uncle continue to teach her?"

"Yes, and I think it is one of his greatest pleasures. She is ambitious and studious, and Peyton is never too weary to explain whatever puzzles her. She is exceedingly fond of him, and he said last week that she was his 'Jabez;' he had received her so reluctantly, and she proved such a comfort and blessing?"

"I presume her mother writes to her occasionally?"

"Regularly every fortnight she receives a letter. Sometimes for days after Regina looks perplexed and sorrowful, but she never divulges the contents. Once, about two months ago, I found her lying on the rug in her own room, with her face in her hands, and her mother's last letter beside her. I asked if she had received any bad news, for I knew she was crying in her quiet way, and she looked up, and said in a tone that was really piteous: 'There is nothing new. It is always the same old thing!--she does not know yet when she can come, and I must be good and patient. Oh, Mrs. Lindsay! I am so hungry to see my mother! When I look at her picture, I feel as if I would be willing to die if I could only kiss her, and hear her say once more, "My baby! My darling!" Last night I dreamed she took me in her arms and hugged me tight, and looked at me as she used to do when she came to the convent, and said, "Papa's own baby! Papa's poor stray lamb!"

Mrs. Lindsay, when I waked I had the pillow in my arms, and was kissing it.' Now, Dougla.s.s, it is a great mystery how a mother could voluntarily separate herself from such a child as Regina. I asked her to show me the picture, and she cried a good deal, and said: 'I have often wished to show it to you, but she says I must let no one see it. Oh! she is so beautiful! Lovelier than the Madonnas in the Chapels; only she always has tears in her eyes. I never saw her when she did not weep. Mrs. Lindsay, help me to be good, teach me to be smart in everything, that I may be some comfort to my mother.' The saddest feature in the whole affair is, that Regina begins to suspect there is some discreditable mystery about her mother and herself; but Peyton says it is marvellous how delicately she treats the subject.

She came home one day from Sunday school and told him that Mrs.

Prudence asked her in the presence, of her cla.s.s how her mother could afford to dress her in such costly clothes; and whether she had ever seen her father? Peyton wished to know what reply she made, and she said her answer was: 'Mrs. Potter, if I were you and you were Regina Orme, I think I would have my tongue cut out, before it should ask you such questions.' Then Peyton told me she looked at him as if she were reading his secret soul, and added; 'It is hard not to understand everything, but I will be patient, for mother writes that some day I shall know all; and no matter what people say--no matter how strange things may seem--I will believe in my mother, as I believe in G.o.d!' Most girls of her age would be curious to discover what is concealed from her, but although your uncle thinks she is uncertain whether her father be living or dead, she carefully shuns all reference to the subject. There is the doorbell! Hannah will let somebody in before I can fly down and tell her to excuse me. How stupid of people not to know that my Bishop has come! Oh dear! it is Mrs. Cartney, and she has come for the ap.r.o.ns I promised to make for the Asylum children, and they have not been touched! Yes, Hannah, I am coming. Why didn't you say I was engaged with my son?"

She disappeared, and after awhile Dougla.s.s Lindsay went down to the library, and thence through the door opening upon two steps that led into the garden.

It was one of those rare golden-aired days that sometimes break over the bleak brows of brawling March in sunny prophecy of yet distant summer; windless days, when rime and haze are equally unknown, and tender fingers of the timid spring, lifting the shrouding sod, advance tendril and leaf and bud as heralds of the annual resurrection. Double daffodils stood erect and conspicuous like commissioned officers along the line of yellow jonquils that bordered the walks, and snowy narcissus and purple and rose hyacinths made a fragrant mosaic over which the brown bees swung, and hummed their ceaseless hymn--_laborare est orare_. Following the winding path that led to the palings which shut out the poultry realm, the young minister leaned against the gate, overshadowed by a tall lilac, and looked across at the feathered folk, of which from boyhood he had been particularly fond.

In the centre of the enclosure was a handsome pigeon-house, circular in form, and easily accessible by a flight of steps, while upon the top of a cupola that sprung from the roof was built a small but prettily painted martin's home, in the quaint shape of the ark as we find it in Scriptural ill.u.s.trations. Throughout the length and breadth of the Continent, probably no other mere _amateur_ fowl fancier possessed such a collection as Mr. Hargrove had patiently and gradually gathered from various sources. The peculiarity consisted in the whiteness of the fowls;--turkeys, guineas, geese, ducks, English Pile, Leghorn, Brahma chickens all spotlessly pure, while the pigeons resembling drifting snow-flakes,--and the pheasants gleamed like silver.

Upon one of the steps of the columbary sat Regina, with a basket of mixed grain by her side, and in her lap a pair of white rabbits which she was feeding with celery and cabbage leaves. At her feet stood two beautiful Chinese geese, whose golden bills now and then approached the edge of the basket, or encroached upon the rabbits' evening meal.

The girl was bareheaded, and the fading sunshine lingered lovingly upon the glossy hair and delicate lovely face which had lost naught of the purity that characterized it eighteen months before, while during that time she had grown much taller, and gave promise of attaining unusual height and symmetry.

The dress of Marie-Louise blue merino was relieved at the throat by a neatly crimped ruffle, and, as in days of yore, she wore the white ap.r.o.n with pretty pockets, and ruffled bands pa.s.sing over her shoulders and down to the belt behind, where broad strings of linen were looped into a bow. Her abundant hair was plaited in two long thick braids, and pa.s.sed twice around her head, forming a jet coronal, and imparting a peculiarly cla.s.sic contour.

There was in this quiet fowlyard scene something so innocent, so peaceful, that it was inexpressibly soothing and attractive to the man who stood beneath the lilac boughs, jaded with unremitting study, and laden with wearying schemes of future labour. Dougla.s.s Lindsay was only twenty-five, but the education and habits of a theological student had stamped a degree of gravity on his handsome face, which was doubtless enhanced by a slight yet undeniable baldness.

Closely resembling his mother, except in the brownness of his fine eyes, his countenance lacked the magnetic warmth and merry shifting lights that rendered hers so pleasant, yet none who looked earnestly upon it could doubt for an instant that he would prove a stanch, faithful, worthy ensign of that Banner of Peace, which Jesus unfurled among the olive-girdled hills of holy Judea.

With no leprous taint of bigotry to sully his soul, blur his vision, or cramp his sphere of action, the broad stream of Christian charity flowed from his n.o.ble, generous heart, sweeping away obstacles that would have impeded the usefulness of a minister less catholic in sympathy, more hampered by creed ligaments and denominational fetters. To an almost womanly tenderness and susceptibility regarding the sufferings of his fellow-creatures, he united an inflexible adherence to the dictates of justice and the rigorous promptings of conscience; and while devoutly yielding allegiance solely to the Triune G.o.d, to whose service he had reverently dedicated his young life, there were times when in almost ascetic self-abnegation he unconsciously bowed down to that stem-lipped, stony Teraph who, under the name of "Duty," sat a cowled and shrouded idol in the secret oratory of his unselfish heart. Are there not seasons when even the most orthodox wonder whether the _Dii Involuti_ pa.s.sed away for ever, with the _paterae_ and _fibulae_ that once rendered service in the cla.s.sic shades of Chusium and Monte-pulciana?

Scholarly in tastes, neither Mr. Lindsay's habits nor inclination led him often into the flowery mazes of fashionable society, but, standing upon the verge of Vanity Fair, he had looked curiously down at the feverish whirl, the gilded shams, the maddening, murderous conflict for place,--the empty mocking pageantry of the victorious, the sickening despair and savage irony of the legions of the defeated; and after the roar and shout and moan of the social maelstrom, as presented in the great city where his studies had been pursued, it was pleasant this afternoon to watch the fluttering white creatures that surrounded that calm beautiful child, and to listen to the soft cooing of the innocent lovers in the dovecote above her.

Opening the latticed gate he walked toward the group, and lifting the basket, sat down on the steps.