Infelice Part 19

CHAPTER IX.

The long sultry August day was drawing to a close, and those who had found the intense heat almost unendurable watched with delight the slow hands of the clock, whose lagging fingers finally pointed to five. The sky seemed bra.s.s, the atmosphere a blast from Tophet; and the sun, still standing at some distance above the horizon, glared mercilessly down over the panting parched: earth, as if a recent and unusually copious shower of "meteoric cosmical matter" had fallen into the solar furnace, and prompted it by increased incandescence to hotly deny the truth of Helmholtz's a.s.sertion: "The inexorable laws of mechanics show that the store of heat in the sun must be finally exhausted." Certainly to those who had fanned themselves through the tedious torture long remembered as the "hot Sunday," the science-predicted period of returning glaciers and polar snows where palms and lemons now hold sway, seemed even more distant than the epoch suggested by the speculative. In proportion to the elevation of the mercurial vein which mounted to and poisoned itself at 100 degrees, the religious, the devotional, pulse sank lower, almost to zero; consequently, although circ.u.mstances of unusual interest attracted the congregation to the church, where Mr. Lindsay intended to preach his farewell sermon, only a limited number had braved the heat to shake hands with the young minister, who ere another sunrise would have started on his long journey to the pagan East.

At the parsonage it had been a sad day, sad despite the grave serenity of Mr. Hargrove, the quiet fort.i.tude of Mr. Lindsay, and the desperate attempts of the mother to drive back tears, compose fluttering lips, and steady the tones of her usually cheerful voice.

For several days previous, Mr. Hargrove had been quite indisposed, and as his nephew would leave home at eleven p.m., the customary Sunday night service had been omitted.

As the afternoon wore away, the family trio a.s.sembled on the shaded end of the north verandah, and with intuitive delicacy, Regina shrank from intruding on the final interview which appeared so sacred.

Followed by Hero, she went through the shrubbery, and down a walk bordered with ancient cedars, which led to a small gate that opened into the adjoining churchyard.

In accordance with a custom long since fallen hopelessly into desuetude, but prevailing when the venerable church was erected, it had been placed in the centre of a s.p.a.cious square, every yard of which had subsequently become hallowed as the last resting-place of families who had pa.s.sed away, since the lofty spire rose like a huge golden finger pointing heavenward. An avenue of n.o.ble elms led from the iron gate to the broad stone steps; and on either side and behind the church swelled the lines of mounds, some white with marble, some green with turf, now and then a heap of mossy sh.e.l.ls--not a few gay with flowers--all scrupulously free from weeds, and those most melancholy symptoms of neglect, which even in public cemeteries too often impress the beholder with gloomy premonitions of his own inevitable future, and recall the solemn admonition of the Talmud: "Life is a pa.s.sing shadow. Is it the shadow of a tower, or of a tree? A shadow that prevails for a while? No, it is the shadow of a bird in his flight,--away flies the bird, and there remains neither bird nor shadow."

Has the profoundly religious sentiment of reverence for the domains of death lost or gained by the modern practice of munic.i.p.al monopoly of the right of sepulture? Who, amid the pomp and splendour of Greedwood or Mount Auburn, where human vanity builds its own proud monument in the mausoleums of the dead,--who, in hurrying along the broad and beautiful avenues thronged with noisy groups of chattering pedestrians, and with gay equipages that render the name "City of silence" a misnomer, converting it into a _quasi_ Festa ground, a scene for subdued Sunday _Fete Champetre_,--who, pa.s.sing from these magnificent city cemeteries, into some primitive old-fashioned churchyard, such as that of V----, has not suddenly been almost overpowered by the contrast presented: the deep brooding solemnity, the holy hush, the pervading indwelling atmosphere of true sanct.i.ty that distinguishes the latter?

Could any other than the simple ancient churchyard of bygone days have suggested that sweetest, purest, n.o.blest elegy in our mother tongue? Do not our hearts yearn with an intense and tender longing toward that church, at whose font we were baptized, at whose communion-table we reverently bowed, before whose altar we breathed the marriage vows, from whose silent chancel we shall one day be softly and slowly borne away to our last, long sleep? Why not lay us down to rest, where the organ that pealed at our wedding and sobbed its requiem over our senseless clay may still breathe its loving dirges across our graves in winter's leaden storms, or in fragrant amber-aired summer days? Would worldly vampires, such as political or financial schemes, track a man's footsteps down the aisle, and flap their fatal numbing pinions over his soul so securely even in the Sanctuary of the Lord, if from his family pew his eyes wandered now and then to the marble slab that lay like a benediction over the silver head of an honoured father or mother, or the silent form of a beloved wife, sister, or brother?

Is there a woman so callous, so steeped in folly, that the tinsel of Vanity Fair, the paraphernalia of fashion, or all the thousand small fiends that beleaguer the female soul, could successfully lure her imagination from holy themes, when sitting in front of the pulpit, she yet sees through the open windows where b.u.t.terflies like happy souls flutter in and out the motionless chiselled cenotaph that rests like a sentinel above the pulseless heart that once enshrined her image, called her wife, and beat in changeless devotion against her own; or the little gra.s.sy billow sown thick with violets that speak to her of the blue eyes beneath them, where in dreamless slumber that needs no mother's cradling arms, no maternal lullaby, reposes the waxen form, the darling golden head of her long-lost baby? What spot so peculiarly suited for "G.o.d's acre" as that surrounding G.o.d's temple?

A residence of dearly four years' duration at the parsonage had rendered this quiet churchyard a favourite retreat with Regina, and, divesting the graves of all superst.i.tious terrors, had awakened in her nature only a most profound and loving reverence for the precincts of the dead.

To-day, longing for some secluded spot in which to indulge the melancholy feelings that oppressed her, she instinctively sought the church, yielding unconscious homage to its hallowed and soothing influence. Pa.s.sing slowly and carefully among the head-stones, she went into the church, to which she had access at all times by a key, which enabled her to enter at will and practise on the small organ that was generally used in Sabbath-school music.

Fancying that it might be cooler in the gallery, she ascended to the organ loft, and while Hero stretched himself at her feet, she sat down on one of the benches close to the open window that looked toward the ma.s.s of trees which so completely embowered the parsonage, that only one ivy-crowned chimney was visible. Low in the sky, and just opposite the tall arched window behind the pulpit, the sun burned like a baleful Cyclopean eye, striking through a ma.s.s of ruby tinted gla.s.s that had been designed to represent a lion, and other symbols of the Redeemer, who soared away above them.

Are there certain subtle electrical currents sheathed in human flesh that link us sometimes with the agitated reservoirs of electricity trembling in the bosom of yet distant clouds? Do not our own highly charged nervous batteries occasionally give the first premonition of coming thunderstorms? Long before the low angry growl that came suddenly from some lightning lair in the far south, below the sky-line, Regina antic.i.p.ated the approaching war of elements, and settled herself to wait for it.

Not until to-day had she realized how much of the pleasure of her life at the parsonage was derived from the sunny presence and sympathizing companionship which she was now about to lose, certainly for many years, probably for ever.

Although Mr. Lindsay's age doubled her own, he had entered so fully into her fancies, humoured so patiently her girlish caprices, with such tireless interest aided her in her studies, that she seemed to forget his seniority, and treated him with the quiet affectionate freedom which she would have indulged toward a young brother. Next to the memory of her mother, she probably gave him the warmest place in her heart, but she was a remarkably reserved, composed, and undemonstrative child, by no means addicted to caresses, and only in moments of deep feeling betrayed into an impulsive pa.s.sionate gesture, or a burst of emotion.

Sincerely attached to the entire household, who had won not merely her earnest grat.i.tude, but profound respect and admiration, she was conscious of a peculiar clinging tenderness for Mr. Lindsay, which rendered the prospect of his departure the keenest trial that had hitherto overtaken her; and when she thought of the immense distance that must soon divide them, the laborious nature of the engagement that would detain him perhaps a lifetime in the far East, her own dim uncertain future looked dark and dreary. The blazing sun went down at last, the fiery radiance of the pulpit window faded, and the birds that frequented the quiet sheltered enclosure sought their perches in the thickest foliage where they were wont to sleep. But there was no abatement of the heat. The air was sulphurous, and its inspiration was about as refreshing as a draught from Phlegethon; while the distant occasional growl had grown into a frequent thunderous muttering that deepened with every repet.i.tion, and already began to shake the windows in its reverberations. Two ladies in deep mourning, who had been hovering like black spectres around a granite sarcophagus, where they deposited and arranged the customary Sabbath arkja of white flowers, concluded their loving tribute to the sleeper, and left the churchyard; and save the continual challenge of the thunder drawing nearer, the perfect stillness ominous and dread, which always precedes a violent storm, seemed brooding in fearful augury above the home of the dead.

With one foot resting on Hero's neck, Regina sat leaning against the window facing, very pale, but bravely fighting this her first great battle with sorrow. Her face was eloquent with mute suffering, and her eyes were full of shadows that left no room for tears.

"Going away to India, perhaps for ever!" was the burden of this woe that blanched even her lovely coral lips until their curves were lost in the pallor of her rounded cheek and dimpled chin. "Going away to India;" like some fateful rune presaging dire disaster, it seemed traced in characters of flame across the glowing sky, and over the stony monuments that studded the necropolis.

Suddenly Hero lifted his head, sniffed the air, and rose, and almost simultaneously Regina heard the sound of footsteps on the gravel outside, and the low utterances of a voice which she recognized as Hannah's.

"I never told you before, because I was afraid that in the end you would cheat me out of my share of the profit. But I have watched and waited, and bided my time as long as I intend to, and I am too old to work as I have done."

"It seems to me a queer thing you have hid it so long, so many years, when you might have turned it into gold. The old General ought to pay well for the paper. Let's see it."

The response was in a man's voice, harsh and discordant, and, leaning slightly forward, Regina saw the old servant from the parsonage standing immediately beneath the window, fanning herself with her white ap.r.o.n, and earnestly conversing in subdued tones with a middle-aged man, whose flushed and rather bloated face still retained traces of having once been, though in a coa.r.s.e style, handsome. In length of limb, and compact muscular development he appeared an athlete, a very son of Anak; but habitual dissipation had set its brutalizing stamp upon his countenance, and the expression of the inflamed eyes and sensuous mouth was sinister and forbidding, as if a career of vice had left the stain of irremediable ruin on his swarthy face.

As he concluded his remark and stretched out his hand, Hannah laughed scornfully.

"Do you take me for a fool? Who else would travel around with a match and a loaded fuse in the same pocket? I haven't it with me; it is too valuable to be carried about. The care of that sc.r.a.p of paper has tormented me all these years, worse than the tomb devils did the swine that ran down into the sea to cool off; and if I have changed its hiding-place once, I have twenty times. If the old General doesn't pay well for it, I shall gnaw off my fingers, on account of the sin it has cost me. I was an honest woman and could have faced the world until that night--so many years ago; and since then I have carried a load on my soul that makes me--even Hannah Hinton, who never flinched before man or woman or beast--a coward, a quaking coward! Sin stabs courage, lets it ooze out, as a knife does blood.

Don't bully me, Peleg! I won't bear it. Jeer me if you dare."

"Never fear, Aunt Hannah. I have no mind to do theatre on a small scale, and show you Satan reproving sin. After all, what is your bit of _pet.i.t larceny_, your thin slice of theft, in comparison with my black work? But really I don't in the least begrudge my sins, if only I might have my revenge,--if I could only get Minnie in my power."

"Bah! don't sicken me with any more of the Minnie dose! I hate the name as I do small-pox or cholera. A pretty life you have led, dancing after her, as an outright fool might after the pewter-bells on a baby's rattle!"

"You women can't understand how a man feels when his love changes to hate; and yet you ought to know all about it, for when you do turn upon one another you never let go. Aunt Hannah, I loved her better than everything else upon the broad earth; I would have kissed the dust where she walked; I always loved her, and she was fond of me, until that college dandy came between us, and made a fool of her, a villain of me. When she forsook me, and followed him off, I swore I would be revenged. There is tiger blood in me, and when I am thoroughly stirred up I never cool. It is a long, long time since I lost her trail--soon after the child was born, and eight years ago I almost gave up and went to Cuba; but if I can only find the track, I will follow it till I hunt her down. I never received your letters, or I would have hurried back. Where is Minnie now?"

"That is more than I know, but I think somewhere in Europe. The letters are always sent to a lawyer in New York, who directs them to her. I have tried in every way to find out, but they are all too smart for me."

"Why don't you pump the child?"

"Haven't I? And gained about as much as if I had put a handle on the side of a lump of cast iron, and pumped. She is closer than sealing wax, and shrewder than a serpent. If you pumped her till the stars fell, you would not get an air-bubble, She can neither be scared nor coaxed."

"Where is the paper?"

"Safely buried here, among the dead."

"What folly! Don't you know the dampness will destroy it? Pshaw! you have ruined everything."

"See here, Peleg, all the brains of the family did not lodge in your skull; and I guess I was wiser at your age than you will be at mine.

The paper was safe and sound when I looked at it a month ago, and it is wrapped up in oil-silk, then in cotton, and kept in a thick tin box."

"When can I see it? Suppose you get it now?"

"In daylight? You may depend on my steering clear of detection, no matter what comes. I would take it up to-night, but there is going to be an awful storm. Do you hear how the thunder keeps bellowing down yonder, under that dark line crossing the south? There will be wild work pretty soon; it has been simmering all day, and when it begins it won't be child's play. Even the marble slabs on the graves are hot, and the ground scorched my feet, as if Satan and his fires had burnt through all but a thin crust. I never was afraid of the devil until my sin brought me close to him. I want to finish this business, and before day to-morrow I will come over here and dig up my box.

There will be dim moonlight by three o'clock, and if it should be cloudy, I can shut my eyes and find the place. I tell you, Peleg, I am sick and tired of this dirty work; and sometimes I think I am no better than a hyena prowling among dead men's bones. Come around to the cowshed in the morning, about seven o'clock, when the family will be in the library holding prayers; and when I go to milk, I will bring you the paper. Only to look at, to read over, mind you! It doesn't leave my hands, until the old General's gold jingles in my pocket. Then he is welcome to it, and Minnie may suffer the consequences; and you and I will divide the profits. I want to go away and rest with my sister Penelope the remainder of my life, and though the family here beg me to stay, I have already given notice that I intend to stop work next month."

"Very well, don't fail me; I am as anxious to close up the job as you possibly can be. I should like to see the child, Minnie's child; but I might spoil everything if she looks like her mother. Good-bye till to-morrow."

The two walked away, one pa.s.sing down the avenue of elms out into the street. The other sauntered in the direction of the parsonage, but ere she reached the small gate, Hannah turned aside to a low iron railing that enclosed two monuments; a marble angel with expanded wings standing above a child's grave, and a broken column wreathed with sculptured ivy, placed on a mound covered with gra.s.s. Just behind the former and close to the railing, rose a n.o.ble Lombardy poplar that towered even above the elms, and at its base a ma.s.s of periwinkle and ground ivy ran hither and thither in luxuriant confusion, clasping a few ambitious tendrils even about the ancient trunk.

Over the railing leaned Hannah, peering down for several moments, at the lush green creepers, then she walked on to the parsonage gate, and disappeared.

Watching her movements, Regina readily surmised that somewhere near that tree the paper was secreted; and she was painfully puzzled to unravel the thread that evidently linked her with the mystery.

"I am the child she spoke of, and she has tried again and again to 'pump' me, as she called it. 'Minnie' must mean my mother; but that is not her name. Odilie Orphia Orme never could be twisted into 'Minnie;' and that coa.r.s.e, common, low, wicked man never could have dared to love my own dear beautiful proud mother! There must be some dreadful mistake. Somebody is wrong; but not mother,--no, no--never my mother! Once she wrote that she was forced to keep some things secret, because she had bitter enemies; and this man must be one of them, for he said he would hunt her down. But he shall not! Was it Providence that brought them here to talk over their wicked schemes where I could hear them? Oh if I only knew all! Mother--mother! you might trust your child! I can't believe that I am ignorant even of my mother's name. Surely she never was that red-faced man's 'Minnie'!"

Covering her face with her hands, she shuddered at the familiar mention by profane lips of one so hallowed in her estimation, and this vague threatening of danger to her mother sufficed for a time to divert her thoughts from the sorrow that for some days past had engrossed her mind.

Knowing the affection and confidence with which Hannah had always been treated by the members of the family, and the great length of time she had so faithfully served in the parsonage household, Regina was shocked at the discovery of her complicity in a scheme which she admitted had made her dishonest. Only two days before she had heard Mrs. Lindsay lamenting that misfortunes never came single, for as if Dougla.s.s's departure were not disaster enough for one year, Hannah must even imagine that she felt symptoms of dropsy and desired to go away somewhere in Iowa or Minnesota, where she could rest, and be nursed by her relatives.

This announcement heightened the gloom that already impended, and various attempts had been made by Mr. Hargrove and his sister to induce Hannah to reconsider her resolution. But she obstinately maintained that she was "a worn-out old horse, who ought to be turned out to pasture in peace the rest of her days;" yet, notwithstanding her persistency, she evinced much distress at her approaching separation from the family, and never alluded to it without a flood of tears.

What would the members of the household think when they discovered how mistaken all had been in her real character? But had she a right to betray Hannah to her employer? Perhaps the paper had no connection with the parsonage, and no matter whom else she might have wronged, Hannah had faithfully served the pastor, and repaid his kindness by devotion to his domestic interests. Regina's nature was generous as well as just, and she felt grateful to Hannah for many small favours bestowed on herself, for a uniform willingness to oblige or a.s.sist her, as only servants have it in their power to do.

Sweetening reminiscences of caramels and crullers, of parenthetic patty-pancakes not ordered or expected on the parsonage bill of fare, pleaded pathetically for Hannah, and were ably supported by recollections of torn dresses deftly darned, of unseasonably and unreasonably soiled white ap.r.o.ns, which the same skilful hands had surrept.i.tiously washed and fluted before the regular day for commencing the laundry work, all of which now made clamorous and desperate demands on the girl's grat.i.tude and leniency. So complete had been her trust in Hannah that her reticence concerning her mother sprang solely from Mr. Hargrove's earnest injunction that she would permit no one to question her upon the subject; consequently she had very tenderly intimated to the old woman that she was not at liberty to discuss that matter with any one.

"She is going away very soon, bearing a good character. Would it be right for me to disgrace her in her old age, by telling Mr. Hargrove what I accidentally overheard? If I only knew 'Minnie' meant mother, I could be sure this paper did not refer to Mr. Hargrove, and then I should see my way clearly; for they both said 'old General,' and no one calls Mr. or Dr. Hargrove 'General.' I only want to do what is right."

As she lifted her face from her hands she was surprised at the sudden gloom that since she last looked out had settled like a pall over the sky, darkening the church, rendering even the monuments indistinct.