The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866

But while we ask now for immediate relief by clubs and rental establishments, the great practical and artistic problem of America still remains in learning to manage its civilization; in acquiring a forecaste, a system, that meets individual wants; in adjusting resource to requirement. Then we shall not be driven into association. It is jocosely said, that in the West, whose rivers are shallow and uncertain, the steamers are built to run on a heavy dew. Allowing for the joke, this is not more nice than wise. To be dexterous, fine-fingered, facile! How perfect is the response in all the petty personalities of politics! In this America, where all men aspire, and more men get office than one would think there were offices to get, what miracles of adroitness! It is one perpetual, Turn, turn again, Lord Mayor! If but half the genius were diverted from office-getting to house-building, what towering results! But since it is the misery of a republic that politics is supreme, and that a people who govern themselves can have little leisure for anything else, I have sometimes feared that the only way to get these woman questions through is by tacking them on to politics. If, then, any of our masculine friends now go to Congress on an amelioration of labor, Heaven speed the day when they can only go on an amelioration of lodgings.

But on this side of the question we as yet hold close to the leeward. For to make it political, women must have political power, the power of the ballot; and this claim she chooses to defer to the more oppressed race,—chooses first to secure justice to all men, before entering the long campaign of justice to women.

Meanwhile, we young housekeepers, who are neither capitalists to build what we need, nor politicians to procure it builded, can only live on these real-unreal lives as we may. But sometimes, when the city lamps are agleam in the early evening, we go out for a walk of romance upon the brilliant avenue near by, gazing eagerly into those superb drawing-rooms where the curtains are kindly lifted a little, and tempted to ring at the door on a false errand where they are not,—simply to get a peep at the captivating comfort inside. And thus we too possess houses and homes; with all these to enjoy and none of them to care for, why may not one easily remain the wealthiest person in the universe? Ah, no one knows what riches we have in our thoughts, and how little bliss there is in the world that we have not!

DOCTOR JOHNS

LIII

Reuben, meantime, is leading a dashing life in the city. The Brindlock family have taken him to their arms again as freely and heartily as if he had never entered the fold over which the good Doctor exercised pastoral care, and as if he had never strayed from it again.

"I told you 't would be all right, Mabel," said Mr. Brindlock to his wife; and neither of them ever rallied him upon his bootless experience in that direction.

But the kindly aunt had not forborne (how could she?) certain pertinent inquiries in regard to the pretty Miss Maverick, under which Reuben had shown considerable disposition to flinch; although he vainly fancied that he stood the interrogation with a high hand. Mrs. Brindlock drew her own conclusions, but was not greatly disturbed by them. Why should she be, indeed? Reuben, with his present most promising establishment in business, and with a face and air that insured him a cordial welcome in that circle of wealthy acquaintances which Mrs. Brindlock especially cultivated, was counted a bon parti, independent of his position as presumptive heir to a large share of the Brindlock estate.

Once or twice since his leave of Ashfield he has astonished the good people there by a dashing visit. Perhaps he has enjoyed (such things are sometimes enjoyed) setting forth before the quiet parishioners of his father his new consequence as a man of the world and of large moneyed prospects. It is even possible that he may have entertained agreeably the fancy of dazing the eyes of both Rose and Adèle with the glitter of his city distinctions. But their admiration, if they felt any, was not flatteringly expressed. Adèle, indeed, was always graciously kind, and, seeing his confirmed godlessness, tortured herself secretly with the thought that, but for her rebuff, he might have made a better fight against the bedevilments of the world, and lived a truer and purer life. All that, however, was irrevocably past. As for Rose, if there crept into her little prayers a touch of sentiment as she pleaded for the backslidden son of the minister, her prayers were none the worse for it. Such trace of sentimental color—like the blush upon her fair cheek—gave a completed beauty to her appeals.

Reuben saw that Phil was terribly in earnest in his love, and he fancied, with some twinges, that he saw indications on the part of Adèle of its being not wholly unacceptable. Rose, too, seemed not disinclined to receive the assiduous attentions of the young minister, who had become a frequent visitor in the Elderkin household, and who preached with an unction and an earnestness that touched her heart, and that made her sigh despondingly over the outcast son of the old pastor. Watching these things with a look studiedly careless and indifferent, Reuben felt himself cut off more than ever from such charms or virtues as might possibly have belonged to continued association with the companions of his boyhood, and nerved himself for a new and firmer grip upon those pleasures of the outer world which had not yet proved an illusion. There were moments—mostly drifting over him in silent night-hours, within his old chamber at the parsonage—when it seemed to him that he had made a losing game of it. The sparkling eyes of Adèle, suffused with tears,—as in that memorable interview of the garden,—beam upon him, promising, as then, other guidance; they gain new brilliance, and wear stronger entreaty, as they shine lovingly upon him from the distance—growing greater and greater—which now lies between them. Her beauty, her grace, her tenderness, now that they are utterly beyond reach, are tenfold enticing; and in that other sphere to which, in his night revery, they seem translated, the joyous face of Rose, like that of an attendant angel, looks down regretfully, full of a capacity for love to which he must be a stranger.

He is wakened by the bells next morning,—a Sunday morning, may be. There they go,—he sees them from the window,—the two comely damsels, picking their way through the light, fresh-fallen snow of March. Going possibly to teach the catechism; he sneers at this thought, for he is awake now. Has the world no richer gift in store for him? That Sophie Bowrigg is a great fortune, a superb dancer, a gorgeous armful of a woman. What if they were to join their fortunes and come back some day to dazzle these quiet townsfolk with the splendor of their life? His visits in Ashfield grow shorter and more rare. There is nothing particularly alluring. We shall not meet him there again until we meet him for the last time.

Mr. Catesby is an "acceptable preacher." He unfolds the orthodox doctrines with more grace than had belonged to the manner of the Doctor, and illustrates them from time to time with a certain youthful glow, and touches of passionate exhortation, which for many years the Ashfield pulpit had not known. The old ladies befriend him and pet him in their kindly way; and if at times his speculative humor (which he is not wholly without) leads him beyond the bounds of the accepted doctrines, he compounds the matter by strong assertion of those sturdy generalities which lie at the bottom of the orthodox creed.

But his self-control is not so apparent in his social intercourse; and before he has been three months in Ashfield, he has given tongue to gossip, and all the old ladies comment upon his enslavement to the pretty Rose Elderkin. And they talk by the book; he is desperately enamored. Young clergymen have this way of falling, at sight, into the toils, which is vastly refreshing to middle-aged observers. But we have no occasion to detail his experience. An incident only of his recreative pursuits in this direction belongs to our narrative.

Upon one of the botanical excursions of later spring which he had inaugurated, and to which the maidenly modesty of Rose had suggested that Adèle should make a party, the young Catesby (who was a native of Eastern Massachusetts) had asked in his naïve manner after her family connections. An uncle of his had known a Mr. Maverick, who had long been a resident of Europe.

"It may possibly be some relation of yours, Miss Maverick," said the young minister.

"Do you recall the first name?" said Rose.

Mr. Catesby hesitated in that interesting way in which lovers are wont to hesitate. No, he did not remember; but he was a jovial, generous-hearted man, (he had heard his uncle often describe him,) who must be now some fifty or sixty years old.—"Frank Maverick, to be sure; I have the name."

"Why, it is my father," said Adèle with a swift, happy rush of color to her face.

"O no, Miss Maverick," said the young Catesby with a smile, "that is quite impossible. The gentleman of whom I speak, and my uncle visited him only three years ago, is a confirmed bachelor, and he had rallied him, I remember, upon never having married."

The color left the cheeks of Adèle.

"Frank, did you say?" persisted Rose.

"Frank was the name," said the innocent young clergyman; "and he was a merchant, if I remember rightly, somewhere upon the Mediterranean."

"It's very strange," said Rose, turning to Adèle.

And Adèle, all her color gone, had the fortitude to pat Rose lovingly upon the shoulder, and to say, with a forced smile, "Life is very strange, Rose."

But from this time till they reached home,—fortunately not far away,—Adèle said nothing more. Rose remarked an unwonted pallor in her cheeks.

"You are tired, Adèle," said she; "you are so pale!"

"Child," said Adèle, tapping her again, in a womanly way that was strange to her companion, "you have color for us both."

At this, her reserve of dignity and fortitude being now wellnigh spent, she rushed away to her chamber. What wonder if she sought the little crucifix, sole memento of the unknown mother, and glued it to her lips, as she fell upon her knees by the bedside, and uttered such a prayer for help and strength as had never uttered before?

"It is true! it is true! I see it now. The child of shame! The child of shame! O my father, my father! what wrong have you done me!" And again she prays for help and strength.

There is not a doubt in her mind where the truth lies. In a moment her thought has flashed over the whole chain of evidence. The father's studied silence; her alienation from any home of her own; the mysterious hints of the Doctor; and the strange communication of Reuben,—all come up in stately array and confound her with the bitter truth. There is a little miniature of her father which she has kept among her choicest treasures. She seeks it now. Is it to throw it away in scorn? No, no, no. Our affections are after all not submissible to strict moral regimen. It is with set teeth and a hard look in her eye that she regards it at first; then her eyes suffuse with tears while she looks, and she kisses it passionately again and again.

"Can there be some horrible mistake in all this?" she asks herself. At the thought she slips on hat and shawl and glides noiselessly down the stairs, (not for the world would she have been interrupted!) and walks swiftly away to her old home at the parsonage.

Dame Tourtelot meets her and says, "Good evening, Miss Adeel."

And Adèle, in a voice so firm that it does not seem her own, says, "Good evening, Miss Tourtelot." She wonders greatly at her own calmness.

LIV

The Doctor is alone in his study when Adèle comes in upon him, and she has reached his chair and dropped upon her knees beside him before he has time to rise.

"New Papa, you have been so kind to me! I know the truth now,—the mystery, the shame";—and she dropped her head upon his knees.

"Adaly, Adaly, my dear child!" said the old man with a great tremor in his voice, "what does this mean?"

She was sobbing, sobbing.

"Adaly, my child, what can I do for you?"

"Pray for me, New Papa!" and she lifted her eyes upon him with a tender, appealing look.

"Always, always, Adaly!"

"Tell me, New Papa,—tell me honestly,—is it not true that I can call no one mother,—that I never could?"

The Doctor trembled: he would have given ten years of his life to have been able to challenge her story, to disabuse her mind of the belief which he saw was fastened past all recall. "Adaly," said he, "Christ befriended the Magdalen,—how much more you, then, if so be you are the unoffending child of–"

"I knew it! I knew it!" and she fell to sobbing again upon the knee of the old gentleman, in a wild, passionate way.

In such supreme moments the mind reaches its decisions with electrical rapidity. Even as she leaned there, her thought flashed upon that poor Madame Arles who had so befriended her,—against whom they had cautioned her, who had shown such intense emotion at their first meeting, who had summoned her at the last, and who had died with that wailing cry, "Ma fille!" upon her lip. Yes, yes, her mother indeed, who died in her arms! (she can never forget that death-clasp.)

She hints as much to the Doctor, who, in view of his recent communication from Maverick, will not gainsay her.

When she moved away at last, as if for a leave-taking, silent and humiliated, the old man said to her, "My child, are you not still my Adaly? God is no respecter of persons; his ministers should be like him."

Whereupon Adèle came and kissed him with a warmth that reminded him of days long past.

She rejoiced in not having encountered the gray, keen eyes of the spinster. She knew they would read unfailingly the whole extent of the revelation that had dawned upon her. That the spinster herself knew the truth, and had long known it, she was sure; and she recalled with a shudder the look of those uncanny eyes upon the evening of their little frolic at the Elderkins. She dreaded the thought of ever meeting them again, and still more the thought of listening to the stiff, cold words of consolation which she knew she would count it her duty to administer.

It was dusk when she left the Doctor's door; he would have attended, but she begged to be alone. It was an April evening, the chilliness of the earth just yielding to the coming summer; the frogs clamorous in all the near pools, and filling the air with the harsh uproar of their voices; the delicate grass-blades were just thrusting their tips through the brown web of the old year's growth, and in sunny, close-trodden spots showing a mat of green, while the fleecy brown blossoms of the elm were tufting all the spray of the embowering trees. Here and there a village loiterer greeted her kindly. They all knew Miss Adèle. "They will all know it to-morrow," she thought, "and then—then—"

With a swift but unsteady step she makes her way to the little graveyard; she had gone there often, and there were those who said wantonly that she went to say her prayers before the little cross upon the tombstone she had placed over the grave of Madame Arles. Now she threw herself prone upon the little hillock, with a low, sharp cry of distress, like that of a wounded bird,—"My mother! my mother!"

Every word, every look of tenderness which the dead woman had lavished, she recalls now with a terrible distinctness. Those loud, vague appeals of her delirium come to her recollection with a meaning in them that is only too plain; and then the tight, passionate clasp, when, strained to her bosom, relief came at last. Adèle lies there unconscious of the time, until the night dews warn her away; she staggers through the gate. Where next? She fancies they must know it all at the Elderkins',—that she has no right there. Is she not an estray upon the world? Shall she not—as well first as last—wander forth, homeless as she is, into the night? And true to these despairing thoughts, she hurries away farther and farther from the town. The frogs croak monotonously in all the marshes, as if in mockery of her grief. On some near tree an owl is hooting, with a voice that is strangely and pitifully human. Presently an outlying farm-house shows its cheery, hospitable light through the window-panes, and she is tempted to shorten her steps and steal a look into the room where the family sits grouped around the firelight. No such sanctuary for her ever was or ever can be. Even the lowing of a cow in the yard, and the answering bleat of a calf within the barn, seem to mock the outcast.

On she passes, scarce knowing whither her hurrying steps are bearing her, until at last she spies a low building in the fields away upon her right, which she knows. It is the home of that outlawed woman where Madame Arles had died. Here at least she will be met with sympathy, even if the truth were wholly known; and yet perhaps last of all places would she have it known there. She taps at the door; she has wandered out of her way, and asks for a moment's rest. The little boy of the house, when he has made out the visitor by a few furtive peeps from behind the mother's chair, comes to her fawningly and familiarly; and as Adèle looks into his bright, fearless eyes, a new courage seems to possess her. God's children, all of us; and He careth even for the sparrows. She will conquer her despairing weakness; she will accept her cross and bear it resolutely. By slow degrees she is won over by the frolicsome humor of the curly-pated boy, who never once quits her side, into cheerful prattle with him. And when at last, fairly rested, she would set off on her return, the lone woman says she will see her safely as far as the village street; the boy, too, insists doggedly upon attending them; and so, with her hand tightly clasped in the hand of the lad, Adèle makes her way back into the town. Along the street she passes, even under the windows of the parsonage, with her hand still locked in that of the outlawed boy; and she wonders if in broad day the same courage would be meted to her? They only part when within sight of the broad glow of light from the Elderkin windows; and here Adèle, taking out her purse, counts out the half of her money and places it in the hands of the boy.

"We will share and share alike, Willie," said she, "But never tell who gave you this."

"But, Miss Maverick, it's too much," said the woman.

"No, it's not," said the boy, clutching it eagerly.

With a parting good-night, Adèle darted within the gate, and opened softly the door, determined to meet courageously whatever rebuffs might be in store for her.

LV

Rose has detailed the story of the occurrence, with the innocent curiosity of girlhood, to the Squire and Mrs. Elderkin (Phil being just now away). The Squire, as he hears it, has passed a significant look across to Mrs. Elderkin.

"It's very queer, isn't it?" asked Rose.

"Very," said the Squire, who had for some time cherished suspicions of certain awkward relations existing between Maverick and the mother of Adèle, but never so decided as this story would seem to warrant. "And what said Adèle?" continued he.

"It disturbed her, I think, papa; she didn't seem at all herself."

"Rose, my dear," said the kindly old gentleman, "there is some unlucky family difference between Mr. and Mrs. Maverick, and I dare say the talk was unpleasant to Adèle; if I were you, I wouldn't allude to it again; don't mention it, please, Rose."

If it could be possible, good Mrs. Elderkin greeted Adèle as she came in more warmly than ever. "You must be careful, my dear, of these first spring days of ours; you are late to-night."

"Yes," says Adèle, "I was gone longer than I thought. I rambled off to the churchyard, and I have been at the Doctor's."

Again the old people exchanged glances.

Why does she find herself watching their looks so curiously? Yet there is nothing but kindness in them. She is glad Phil is not there.

The next morning the Squire stepped over at an early hour to the parsonage, and by an adroit question or two, which the good Doctor had neither the art nor the disposition to evade, unriddled the whole truth with respect to the parentage of Adèle. The Doctor also advised him of the delusion of the poor girl with respect to Madame Arles, and how he had considered it unwise to attempt any explanation until he should hear further from Mr. Maverick, whose recent letter he counted it his duty to lay before Mr. Elderkin.

"It's a sad business," said he.

And the Doctor, "The way of the wicked is as darkness; they know not at what they stumble."

The Squire walks home in a brown study. Like all the rest, he has been charmed with the liveliness and grace of Adèle; over and over he has said to his boy, "How fares it, Phil? Why, at your age, my boy, I should have had her in the toils long ago."

Since her domestication under his own roof, the old gentleman's liking for her had grown tenfold strong; he had familiarized himself with the idea of counting her one of his own flock. But, the child of a French–

"Well, well, we will see what the old lady may say," reflected he. And he took the first private occasion to lay the matter before Mrs. Elderkin.

"Well, mother, the suspicions of last night are all true,—true as a book."

"God help the poor child, then!" said Madam, holding up her hands.

"Of course He'll do that, wife. But what say you to Phil's marriage now? Does it look as tempting as it did?"

The old lady reflected a moment, lifting her hand to smooth the hair upon her temple, as if in aid of her thought, then said,—"Giles, you know the world better than I; you know best what may be well for the boy. I love Adèle very much; I do not believe that I should love her any less if she were the wife of Phil. But you know best, Giles; you must decide."

"There's a good woman!" said the Squire; and he stayed his pace up and down the room to lay his hand approvingly upon the head of the old lady, touching as tenderly those gray locks as ever he had done in earlier years the ripples of golden brown.

In a few days Phil returns,—blithe, hopeful, winsome as ever. He is puzzled, however, by the grave manner of the Squire, when he takes him aside, after the first hearty greetings, and says, "Phil, my lad, how fares it with the love matter? Have things come to a crisis, eh?"

"What do you mean, father?" and Phil blushes like a boy of ten.

"I mean to ask, Philip," said the old gentleman, measuredly, "if you have made any positive declaration to Miss Maverick."

"Not yet," said Phil, with a modest frankness.

"Very good, my son, very good. And now, Phil, I would wait a little,—take time for reflection; don't do anything rashly. It's an important step to take."

"But, father," says Phil, puzzled by the old gentleman's manner, "what does this mean?"

"Philip," said the Squire, with a seriousness that seemed almost comical by its excess, "would you really marry Adèle?"

"To-morrow, if I could," said Phil.

"Tut, tut, Phil! It's the old hot blood in him!" (He says this, as if to himself.) "Philip, I wouldn't do so, my boy."

And thereupon he gives him in his way a story of the revelations of the last few days.

At the first, Phil is disposed to an indignant denial, as if by no possibility any indignity could attach to the name or associations of Adèle. But in the whirl of his feeling he remembered that interview with Reuben, and his boast that Phil could not affront the conventionalities of the world. It confirmed the truth to him in a moment. Reuben then had known the whole, and had been disinterestedly generous. Should he be any less so?

"Well, father," said Phil, after a minute or two of silence, "I don't think the story changes my mind one whit. I would marry her to-morrow, if I could," and he looked the Squire fairly and squarely in the face.

"Gad, boy," said the old gentleman, "you must love her as I loved your mother!"

"I hope I do," said Phil,—"that is if I win her. I don't think she's to be had for the asking."

"Aha! the pinch lies there, eh?" said the Squire, and he said it in better humor than he would have said it ten days before. "What's the trouble, Philip?"

"Well, sir, I think she always had a tenderness for Reuben; I think she loves him now in her heart."