Graham's Magazine, Vol. XLI, No. 6, December 1852

Mr. Cullen, laughing. “Oh yes, mother?”

Mrs. Hedelquiver. “Yes, I suppose you do. You and Frederic, and Monde think just alike about every thing, I see. Have some more chocolate, Alfred.”

Scene 2. The Hall

Mrs. Hedelquiver. “What do you want to say to me, dear?”

Monde. “I want to tell you – why, aunt, you see I want to write mornings, and then ride when I am tired of it – just as I have done all along. And I have been thinking that Mr. Cullen may feel that it belongs to him to – why, to see to me some, perhaps sometimes to ride with me. But it don’t, you know. I would rather attend to myself, and go alone, as I have done. So you wont let him think, will you, dear aunt, that it is necessary for him on any account, or at any time, to go with me any where.”

Mrs. Hedelquiver. “Why?”

Monde. “Because, if you do, aunt, it will put a disagreeable restraint upon him, and make me very unhappy. I have always been used, you know, to depending upon myself. I have never been a favorite of the gentlemen, or of anybody, except a few kind people who would see that there was something in me somewhere that deserved to be loved.”

Mrs. Hedelquiver. “And this has been a grief to you, dear, Monde? and is at this minute, as I know by the sound of your voice.”

Monde. “Sometimes it grieves me; and then again I am thankful. For it has made me self-reliant, and very loving toward Him who will always be near His child, and love her. Aunt, dear, you will promise not to hint it to him, in the remotest way, that he ought to ride with me, or wait on me at any time?”

Mrs. Hedelquiver, dreamily, and as if again hopes were flying. “Yes, I will promise. But I can’t see what objections you can have to his riding with you. There’s John almost always, you know, in the stable. There is nothing to hinder his going.”

Monde. “Nothing to hinder, if it is his own spontaneous will and wish; otherwise, every thing, in my way of thinking. Come, aunt, you are freezing.”

Scene 3. Outside the Gate

Judge Hedelquiver. “Ready, Monde?”

Monde. “Ready, uncle.”

Judge Hedelquiver. “Wait a moment. I want to tell you, Monde, that I overheard what you said to your aunt in the hall, this morning.”

Monde. “Did you, uncle?”

Judge Hedelquiver. “Yes; but never mind it: It was only a new proof that you are the most sensible girl in creation. It is just the way you ought to feel about it. What he will do of his own accord, let him do; but I will help you in this. I will take care that he don’t do any thing for you because he sees you in need of him.”

Monde. “You are the dearest, best uncle that any poor child ever had! Now, if you will help me.”

Judge Hedelquiver. “There you are! You mount as if you had some little wings up there among the plumes of your hat. I will bet you have.”

Mr. Cullen, appearing at the door with a book in his hand. “What, are you going to ride this morning, Miss Hedelquiver?”

Monde. “Yes, Mr. Cullen.”

Mr. Cullen. “And alone?”

Monde. “Yes, sir. Uncle, my stick, if you please.”

Mr. Cullen, springing forward to pick up the stick. “Now I protest against this! I have been thinking that I wanted to ride – and (laughing a little) that I wanted to ride with you. Let me help you off, now, for a few minutes. I will have John ready in – John is in the stable, isn’t he, judge?”

Judge Hedelquiver. “Yes, and at your service, if Monde will wait – if she wants you to go. You haven’t asked her.”

Mr. Cullen. “No! presuming blockhead that I am! Do you want me to go with you, Monde?”

Monde. “If you want to.”

Mr. Cullen. “As I most certainly do. Let me help you. Only I am sorry to give you so much trouble. I am sorry I didn’t know, in the first of it, that you were going. You will tell me next time, wont you?” (opening the gate for Monde to pass in.)

Monde. “I – I believe I sha’n’t promise you.”

Mr. Cullen. “Promise at any rate to let me know it, whenever you are willing to have me with you.”

Monde, with the door half shut between her and him. “I believe I sha’n’t promise that either.”

Mr. Cullen, on his way, with the Judge, to the stable. “Then I will always make you wait for me like this.”

Well, well! I see I might write all night, with my scenes first to twentieth, inclusive. But I sha’n’t. I shall go to bed, after I have told you that the morning ride was altogether delightful. I never knew such a splendid morning. I never had so agreeable a companion in ride, or ramble, or – I shall say it, Edith, for it is the truth – or any where. And I fancy that he found me – quite tolerable. One could not well be otherwise with him about.

We found company here when we returned – two of the professors from Woodstock, together with Judge Brentwood, and his wife and daughter, from Craftsburg. They all dined here; and things never went off so strongly. I sat by aunt, and helped her serve the guests. When I do this, and she can now and then look over the table into uncle’s always clear, calm face, and listen to his manly expression, she can know pretty well what she is doing, even if she does sometimes venture upon a little conversation.

While we were giving them our adieus at the door, two other sleighs came up with high-headed horses and loud-jingling bells, taking along fresh visitors to spend the rest of the day and the evening with us. They were wealthy farmers, who wanted to talk of horses and oxen, and different breeds of sheep, with uncle; and farmers’ wives, who talked with most interest with aunt, when it was upon butter and cheese, and preserves and bread-making. This, as you must see, left Mr. Cullen and me pretty much to ourselves. But we were at no loss. I can’t see how one can ever be at a loss with him; for his vigorous and fresh thought readily comprehends all the philosophy of nature, of morals, and of life; and he communicates himself, as it were, and all that is in him, so magically that —

But, see if I am going to write all night! A happy New Year, dearest. Extend the greetings of the season to all in your house.

Thy Loving Monde.—

CHAPTER V

MONDE TO EDITHDanville, Jan. 12, 1852.

Edith, dear, how often I write to you. But it relieves me to throw my story by, and gossip in this careless way. And, moreover, I must be telling somebody how happy I am; and how the days go, day after day, as if on the wings of the morning. I would not have believed that there was any thing like it on this earth; that I, or any one, could ever be so thoroughly comfortable. I suppose it is because uncle and Mr. Cullen talk so much of those excellent things that keep us close by Heaven. I don’t suppose it is any thing else. Only it is pleasant riding every day, sometimes twice a day; sometimes on Kate’s back, sometimes in a sleigh; oftenest, of late, in a sleigh. It is good seeing aunt so kind, so attentive to all our wishes, and so happy – and so facetious, too, in her way. Hear what a curious thing she said to-day, when uncle and Dr. Ponchard were discussing the medical systems. Uncle, by the by, is a homoeopathist. “Husband seems to think, as you see, Dr. Ponchard, that the practice of medicine must needs change with all other practices; that the great pills, for instance, as large as bullets, belong to the almost by-gone age of bullets. I don’t know, I am sure, but he believes that people will be so refined by the time the transition state is fairly over, that nothing but rarefied air will be thought of for remedies. And if he does, I shall think he is right, doctor.”

“Ha! no doubt whatever of that,” said the doctor, who is a sort of witty bear. “No doubt you will have implicit faith in the rarefied-air system, if the judge ever comes to preach it. You’ll be found with a tube in your mouth, breathing it whenever you have a little indigestion or headache.”

Aunt laughed, and filled the huge pockets of the doctor’s fur overcoat with apples for his wife and children.

Hear how diligent I am. I have been writing since five o’clock. I began an hour earlier than usual, because we are to have visitors from Barnet to spend the day, so that I must be hindered.

Mr. Cullen has been reading in the parlor since six; now it is almost seven. He yawns, he moves about; I fancy he is tired of his books. I do not allow him to come into the library in the morning, because then it disturbs me having him near. After they are stirring in all the rest of the rooms, I don’t mind it; and he sits here by the hour. He yawns again, says, “Heigho!” and sees to the fire. “Monde!” he says, as if there were something that he will no longer try to bear.

“What say, sir?”

“It is so hot and stupid here, a fellow can have no comfort.” (Shutting the stove door.) “I am coming into your cool room. May I?”

“Yes.”

“Shall I disturb you?” – coming.

“No, sir.”

“‘No, sir!’ so I see. You can write, and talk, and have me about – it isn’t so much as if Ponto had come into the room instead of me. I have a good mind to try whether there is a way of disturbing you a little. I shall sit here close by you, and keep scolding. Yes, I see. You only smile quietly at this, and go on writing. I am provoked! I want you to talk with me; want you to care more about me than about this old ‘commercial pen’ of yours. Will you?”

“I can’t,” laughing.

“Then I will steal your pen. I will hold your hand – thus – ”

Evening.

He stole my pen, and threw it to the other side of the table. He held my hand, and called me “an obstinate thing! but a dear good girl – a dear good girl, for all that.” He would keep my hand; and soon I ceased trying to regain it – for he was telling me, in the dearest voice, what he had been reading and thinking; so that I forgot every thing but that I was happy enough to go straight away to Heaven. And I wish at this moment, Edith, that I might die – for I cannot believe that such happiness as this can last; and I would rather die than have it broken.

I know what you will say. You will say that I love Mr. Cullen; and I expect that I do. I expect that I have loved him since the day that he came. And I shall never regret this, even if I find that it is only friendliness he feels for me, if I find that he loves and marries another – for my life is enriched and beautified by the new emotions, by the love of one so noble, so pure!

For the present, aunt looks smilingly on, takes Mr. Cullen’s part when he and uncle are both going to ride, and both lay claims to my company. She adjusts the matter by saying, “Frederic, let her go with Alfred! He isn’t going to stay long, you know. And, besides, I want to go with you myself. So just bring my hood and cloak in from the hall, while I am finding the rest of my things.”

“Yes, ‘finding the rest of your things!’ this takes a week; and this is why I like it best having Monde go with me.” But, notwithstanding uncle contends I can see that he likes best seeing me go and come with Mr. Cullen. Notwithstanding he and aunt send Mr. Cullen or me in every morning to see how it is with Paulina’s neuralgia, they are neither of them much sorry to be told that her face is still swelled out of all comeliness of shape with it, so that she will not see either of us. Her mother, by the way, says she took cold wearing such thin stockings over here the day that Mr. Cullen came. She would wear them, she says, because she wanted to pinch her feet up in her tight summer boots.

“A silly puss!” said uncle, when aunt told him about it. “I wonder how a woman can imagine that any person of sense cares a fig whether her foot is like an elephant or a mouse.”

We rode a long way to-day, for our visitors were old people, who cared more for talking with uncle and aunt about their fathers and grandfathers and great-uncles, than for all Mr. Cullen and I had to say to them. And the day and the scenery were magnificent. I wonder if you know, Edith, mine, that one never needs go to Italy because one is longing to look upon deep blue skies, sunsets, and moonlights splendid enough to bewitch one; and upon mountains, great and small, ranging off like troops of living monsters. One needs only come to New England; here, to this hilly town, Danville. And one should come, at least once in one’s life, in the winter of the year; for the so much bepraised summer glory must yield to the winter, if many mountains are in the scene, and such noble ones as Mount Washington and its kindred. Their snowy lights are softened by the distance, and their shades deepened, so that, at midday, it is as if they were all of pearl. They lie along the whole eastern horizon; and when the sun takes a golden setting, there can hardly be any thing much finer of its kind in all Italy, in all Switzerland, I imagine; for a reflected glory is upon the mountains as varied nearly, nearly as intense as that which immediately surrounds the sun.

We talked of Alice to-day as we rode; and Mr. Cullen had serious eyes and hushed tones, as if he had infinite tenderness for her memory.

“I think as your uncle and aunt do, that you are like Alice in many respects, dear Monde,” said he, leaning a little toward me, as if he felt tenderness for me, in that he felt it for the dead Alice. “Only,” he added, “as the judge says, you have much the superior character. You have, I see, the pliancy of the reed, when you need to bend, and the consistency of the oak, when you need to stand erect. I like the way you bear praise,” added he, after a little pause. “I suppose you would bear the same amount of fault-finding as quietly.”

“Try me, and see.”

“Yes; for instance, if I tell you that you have a certain obstinate self-reliance, piquant to see.”

“Well?”

“And then if I were to tell you that I like the little wickedness, like to close hands with it, and master it.”

“Then I would tell you that you are downright vicious! But you don’t master it; you never can!”

“Yes; you ride with me when you have just been saying that you certainly will stay at home. I throw away your pen and hold you fast, when you have just been saying that you will write, that you care less for me than for your old pen. Don’t you remember it?”

“Yes.”

“So do I. I like to remember it, because, for some reason, it is better mastering you once, than any other woman that I know ten times.”

I turned the conversation by showing him the beautiful little brook that went leaping and tinkling amongst the rocks, and icicles, and fairy-like frost-work close by the road. One finds such little brooks at every turn among the hills here at Danville. He looked at the brook, calling it “beautiful!” He took my hand into his, and kept it until we reached home.

He must go home in a few days; he has stayed already twice as long as he intended when he came. I wonder how I can get along without him. I foresee that I shall want him as a child wants its mother.

I will write again soon after he goes. Heigho! says

Your Loving Monde.—

CHAPTER VI

MONDE TO EDITHDanville, Jan. 20, 1852.

He went yesterday morning early; and since that time I go from one chair to another, or from one window to another, sighing, and with untold quantities of lead in my heart. I am disposed not to write, not to talk, or do any thing, but turn my eyes Boston-ward, and think of him.

But I shall not be so stupid! I shall put a little stiff barrier – my own flinty will, of course – between me and him, so that he shall be there at Boston, and I here, following diligently my duty. I shall lay this letter by, and finish my story for Mr. S – . Then I shall ask uncle to ride with me over to see Bessy’s feeble sister, Mrs. Thornton, who has a whole roomfull of little children to see to; and to whom an hour’s service, now and then, at making or mending, is a blessed godsend. Then I will take my sewing in, and sit a few hours with Paulina, whose neuralgia still afflicts her. I will stay and take supper with her; and if she is cross, as she is often of late, it shall not hurt me, since I will be good-natured.

In the long evening I will be here; I will snap corn, pass round apples; sit now at aunt’s feet, help her in her sewing-plans, and then at uncle’s, talking with him of Kossuth, Clay, Cass, and Webster.

When they go, if I am in wakeful mood, I will write here until I am in a drowsy one, and then go to my rest, humbly commending myself to God as his servant, his follower; not the servant, not the follower of any mortal idol whatever. Thus shall my soul be kept loyal unto itself and unto Him – and not the less loyal unto the good one who has chosen me.

Ten o’clock, evening.

Uncle set us and our great basket, full of good things, down at the door of the Thorntons, and himself rode on to Hardwick, where he had business that must keep him until after dinner, as he believed. The pale mother was “glad and thankful to see us,” but a little flurried to have us find her children in such disorderly array; and her house, too – it is a bit of a house to hold ten people, and made of logs. But we took the children to us, gave them apples and doughnuts, and soon had Mrs. Thornton’s great work-basket between us. We finished off three little garments that were on the way, and put on ten patches here and there; Alice, aunt’s bright-eyed namesake, counted them. We cut off the long hair of the girl’s, and made the short hair of the boys shorter; and then, when they had all been washed and combed, saw that there is nowhere a prettier, brighter family of children. Aunt, meantime, was like a bee, dipping into this and into that; dragging roll after roll of pieces from her basket, whenever a patch was needed; and helping Mrs. Thornton warm up the pudding and the pies we had brought, and fry the sausages and broil the steak.

Mr. Thornton and his eldest boy came in from the woods just at the right moment – just as all the steaming dishes were ready to go to the table. Uncle, too, came in the right time; in fact there was never so lucky a day; every thing happened at the right time, and in the right way. There was never so good a dinner; or, at any rate, this was what we all said, smacking our lips a little, and holding out our plates for more.

“This will do us all a great deal of good,” said Mrs. Thornton, when we were putting on our things.

“And us, too, Mrs. Thornton!” said aunt; in a hearty way. “I havn’t had a pleasanter time for many a day. And I don’t believe Monde has.”

“No, aunt, I havn’t.”

And it was the truth, Edith. Happy as I have been with Alfred Cullen, I was as happy without him – just thinking of him now and then, as I sat there putting on patches, and doing with right good will whatever came into my way to do.

Let me tell you a little story, dear Edith, and then I am done. Two or three days ago, at about this time of the evening, there sat on this spot, a gentleman of fine features, of easy, manly bearing, and a lady. The lady was not beautiful. The best that could be said of her on the score of beauty, her sincere friend, Edith Manners, had said to her one day; “You are not so homely as you think, Miss Monde. You have beautiful hair, beautiful teeth – and I think a great deal of one’s having pretty teeth. Your form is excellent; and your ways have an abundance of grace and ease in them.”

This was all Edith Manners could say to her friend; and more than many others would have said, who knew her less familiarly; for she had, in truth, grace and ease in her manners only when she had grace and quietness in her soul; that it was sometimes said of her by those she would gladly have pleased, “I don’t fancy her; she has a hard manner.”

Well, they sat here, those two, in their easy-chairs, and rocked and talked, with their eyes steadily on each other’s face. He held her hand in his, and kissed the fingers ever and anon as he talked and listened. At length he folded her close to his heart, and, with his lips on hers, called her – his “beloved!”

The next morning, when they met here, on the spot so sacred and dear to them both now, he took her to him once more, and said, “When will my Monde be all my own?”

She, “pliant as a reed,” and with her arms clinging to him, answered, “Any time, dear Alfred – any time!” because, you see, she felt then, Edith, that she could not well live without him a day.

But it seems to have been demonstrated that she can – for he left her the following morning, after it had been agreed that they will both write immediately to her parents; that, their replies being propitious, he will accompany her to them in one month, and, in six months more, he will receive her at their hands; that, after two or three weeks spent there, he will bring her to his own home, to pass the rest of her happy life by his side.

And here ends my story. Only I must tell you how good uncle and aunt are. Aunt wept for joy, as if she would suffocate, when Alfred, standing close before me, with my hand in his, told her and uncle our resolves. Uncle, also, had moist eyes. He stood one moment near us, the next he walked the floor. I presume he thought of the dear Alice. I did; and longed that the blessings of her glorified spirit might be upon our union.

“You shall be as a daughter to me in all respects, Monde,” said uncle, speaking with difficulty. “I have loved you as if you were my daughter, ever since you came. Whatever you need to have done, I shall attend to – if you will come to me always, as though I were your father. And you will, Monde?”

I answered the imploring voice, the imploring eyes, by catching the hand extended to me in both my own, and covering it with grateful tears and kisses.

I have had letters from home within a few days. And mother wrote – “You will feel quite lost when you come. We’ve moved into a large and beautiful tenement on B. street, close by the Haydens, and fitted the front parlor all up new, taking the old parlor furniture for the sitting-room. I hope you’ll like these changes better than poor Kit does. Your father brought her over here in a basket, covered, that she might not see the way and be running back. But we missed her, and your father went over to see if he could find her at the old rooms, and there the poor creature was, prowling about the open cellar window, as lean and hungry-looking as a wolf. Your father worries half of his time about her, when he is in the house. I really think he wishes he had stayed there too. Now that it is becoming an old thing, I see that he is often tired of so much to do. He gets the best of business, I mean business that pays the best; but his responsibilities wear him, and he has trouble with some of his clients. When he has been working day and night for them, they are as likely as any way to think that he hasn’t done enough.

“I have my troubles, too. I ought to be ashamed to complain, I suppose, now we are doing so well, but when you come you will see, as I do, that there are vexations for those who have enough of every thing, as well as for the poor. Perhaps you will think, as your father and I are sometimes inclined to, that it isn’t worth while to look for much real, lasting happiness in this world, or for any benefit that hasn’t its tax.”

Yes, one sees how it is with my poor parents; poor in their adversity, poor now in their prosperity. They look to the outward conditions of their lot for a great good that shall be final; for a life serene and well-satisfied that shall make its way into them, from without; from the new friends, the fast-filling purse, the freshly adorned home. Would that they and all the world could know that every good, every real enjoyment of life, is born of God in the soul. There Love, the Divine Life, the Artist-Life, the Blessed Life, whatever we call it, has its genial, its beloved home. Ah, Heaven! to have this love within us, so that we must burst forth into singing; to have it beaming thence upon our friends, our home, upon the earth, crowning them all with glory and light! – this is to know how good God is, in that He made and endowed us specially for this kind of life. Only we have sought out many inventions; have picked up one thing and another on our right hand and on our left, calling the laborious, unseemly patch-work we have in this way made up, Life. That we must pay a tax grievous to be borne on this, is one of the merciful dispensations, for it brings us to look for that to come, which will come without price, which will surely come, if we will accept nothing else, if we will wait for it, and receive it like little children.