XIV Phoebe's Good-Bye
HOLGRAVE, plunging into his tale with the energy and absorption naturalto a young author, had given a good deal of action to the parts capableof being developed and exemplified in that manner. He now observedthat a certain remarkable drowsiness (wholly unlike that with which thereader possibly feels himself affected) had been flung over the sensesof his auditress. It was the effect, unquestionably, of the mysticgesticulations by which he had sought to bring bodily before Phoebe'sperception the figure of the mesmerizing carpenter. With the lidsdrooping over her eyes,--now lifted for an instant, and drawn downagain as with leaden weights,--she leaned slightly towards him, andseemed almost to regulate her breath by his. Holgrave gazed at her, ashe rolled up his manuscript, and recognized an incipient stage of thatcurious psychological condition which, as he had himself told Phoebe,he possessed more than an ordinary faculty of producing. A veil wasbeginning to be muffled about her, in which she could behold only him,and live only in his thoughts and emotions. His glance, as he fastenedit on the young girl, grew involuntarily more concentrated; in hisattitude there was the consciousness of power, investing his hardlymature figure with a dignity that did not belong to its physicalmanifestation. It was evident, that, with but one wave of his hand anda corresponding effort of his will, he could complete his mastery overPhoebe's yet free and virgin spirit: he could establish an influenceover this good, pure, and simple child, as dangerous, and perhaps asdisastrous, as that which the carpenter of his legend had acquired andexercised over the ill-fated Alice.
To a disposition like Holgrave's, at once speculative and active, thereis no temptation so great as the opportunity of acquiring empire overthe human spirit; nor any idea more seductive to a young man than tobecome the arbiter of a young girl's destiny. Let us,therefore,--whatever his defects of nature and education, and in spiteof his scorn for creeds and institutions,--concede to thedaguerreotypist the rare and high quality of reverence for another'sindividuality. Let us allow him integrity, also, forever after to beconfided in; since he forbade himself to twine that one link more whichmight have rendered his spell over Phoebe indissoluble.
He made a slight gesture upward with his hand.
"You really mortify me, my dear Miss Phoebe!" he exclaimed, smilinghalf-sarcastically at her. "My poor story, it is but too evident, willnever do for Godey or Graham! Only think of your falling asleep at whatI hoped the newspaper critics would pronounce a most brilliant,powerful, imaginative, pathetic, and original winding up! Well, themanuscript must serve to light lamps with;--if, indeed, being so imbuedwith my gentle dulness, it is any longer capable of flame!"
"Me asleep! How can you say so?" answered Phoebe, as unconscious of thecrisis through which she had passed as an infant of the precipice tothe verge of which it has rolled. "No, no! I consider myself as havingbeen very attentive; and, though I don't remember the incidents quitedistinctly, yet I have an impression of a vast deal of trouble andcalamity,--so, no doubt, the story will prove exceedingly attractive."
By this time the sun had gone down, and was tinting the clouds towardsthe zenith with those bright hues which are not seen there until sometime after sunset, and when the horizon has quite lost its richerbrilliancy. The moon, too, which had long been climbing overhead, andunobtrusively melting its disk into the azure,--like an ambitiousdemagogue, who hides his aspiring purpose by assuming the prevalent hueof popular sentiment,--now began to shine out, broad and oval, in itsmiddle pathway. These silvery beams were already powerful enough tochange the character of the lingering daylight. They softened andembellished the aspect of the old house; although the shadows felldeeper into the angles of its many gables, and lay brooding under theprojecting story, and within the half-open door. With the lapse ofevery moment, the garden grew more picturesque; the fruit-trees,shrubbery, and flower-bushes had a dark obscurity among them. Thecommonplace characteristics--which, at noontide, it seemed to havetaken a century of sordid life to accumulate--were now transfigured bya charm of romance. A hundred mysterious years were whispering amongthe leaves, whenever the slight sea-breeze found its way thither andstirred them. Through the foliage that roofed the little summer-housethe moonlight flickered to and fro, and fell silvery white on the darkfloor, the table, and the circular bench, with a continual shift andplay, according as the chinks and wayward crevices among the twigsadmitted or shut out the glimmer.
So sweetly cool was the atmosphere, after all the feverish day, thatthe summer eve might be fancied as sprinkling dews and liquidmoonlight, with a dash of icy temper in them, out of a silver vase.Here and there, a few drops of this freshness were scattered on a humanheart, and gave it youth again, and sympathy with the eternal youth ofnature. The artist chanced to be one on whom the reviving influencefell. It made him feel--what he sometimes almost forgot, thrust soearly as he had been into the rude struggle of man with man--howyouthful he still was.
"It seems to me," he observed, "that I never watched the coming of sobeautiful an eve, and never felt anything so very much like happinessas at this moment. After all, what a good world we live in! How good,and beautiful! How young it is, too, with nothing really rotten orage-worn in it! This old house, for example, which sometimes haspositively oppressed my breath with its smell of decaying timber! Andthis garden, where the black mould always clings to my spade, as if Iwere a sexton delving in a graveyard! Could I keep the feeling that nowpossesses me, the garden would every day be virgin soil, with theearth's first freshness in the flavor of its beans and squashes; andthe house!--it would be like a bower in Eden, blossoming with theearliest roses that God ever made. Moonlight, and the sentiment inman's heart responsive to it, are the greatest of renovators andreformers. And all other reform and renovation, I suppose, will proveto be no better than moonshine!"
"I have been happier than I am now; at least, much gayer," said Phoebethoughtfully. "Yet I am sensible of a great charm in this brighteningmoonlight; and I love to watch how the day, tired as it is, lags awayreluctantly, and hates to be called yesterday so soon. I never caredmuch about moonlight before. What is there, I wonder, so beautiful init, to-night?"
"And you have never felt it before?" inquired the artist, lookingearnestly at the girl through the twilight.
"Never," answered Phoebe; "and life does not look the same, now that Ihave felt it so. It seems as if I had looked at everything, hitherto,in broad daylight, or else in the ruddy light of a cheerful fire,glimmering and dancing through a room. Ah, poor me!" she added, with ahalf-melancholy laugh. "I shall never be so merry as before I knewCousin Hepzibah and poor Cousin Clifford. I have grown a great dealolder, in this little time. Older, and, I hope, wiser, and,--notexactly sadder,--but, certainly, with not half so much lightness in myspirits! I have given them my sunshine, and have been glad to give it;but, of course, I cannot both give and keep it. They are welcome,notwithstanding!"
"You have lost nothing, Phoebe, worth keeping, nor which it waspossible to keep," said Holgrave after a pause. "Our first youth is ofno value; for we are never conscious of it until after it is gone. Butsometimes--always, I suspect, unless one is exceedinglyunfortunate--there comes a sense of second youth, gushing out of theheart's joy at being in love; or, possibly, it may come to crown someother grand festival in life, if any other such there be. Thisbemoaning of one's self (as you do now) over the first, careless,shallow gayety of youth departed, and this profound happiness at youthregained,--so much deeper and richer than that we lost,--are essentialto the soul's development. In some cases, the two states come almostsimultaneously, and mingle the sadness and the rapture in onemysterious emotion."
"I hardly think I understand you," said Phoebe.
"No wonder," replied Holgrave, smiling; "for I have told you a secretwhich I hardly began to know before I found myself giving it utterance.Remember it, however; and when the truth becomes clear to you, thenthink of this moonlight scene!"
"It is entirely moonlight now, exce
pt only a little flush of faintcrimson, upward from the west, between those buildings," remarkedPhoebe. "I must go in. Cousin Hepzibah is not quick at figures, andwill give herself a headache over the day's accounts, unless I helpher."
But Holgrave detained her a little longer.
"Miss Hepzibah tells me," observed he, "that you return to the countryin a few days."
"Yes, but only for a little while," answered Phoebe; "for I look uponthis as my present home. I go to make a few arrangements, and to takea more deliberate leave of my mother and friends. It is pleasant tolive where one is much desired and very useful; and I think I may havethe satisfaction of feeling myself so here."
"You surely may, and more than you imagine," said the artist."Whatever health, comfort, and natural life exists in the house isembodied in your person. These blessings came along with you, and willvanish when you leave the threshold. Miss Hepzibah, by secludingherself from society, has lost all true relation with it, and is, infact, dead; although she galvanizes herself into a semblance of life,and stands behind her counter, afflicting the world with agreatly-to-be-deprecated scowl. Your poor cousin Clifford is anotherdead and long-buried person, on whom the governor and council havewrought a necromantic miracle. I should not wonder if he were tocrumble away, some morning, after you are gone, and nothing be seen ofhim more, except a heap of dust. Miss Hepzibah, at any rate, will losewhat little flexibility she has. They both exist by you."
"I should be very sorry to think so," answered Phoebe gravely. "But itis true that my small abilities were precisely what they needed; and Ihave a real interest in their welfare,--an odd kind of motherlysentiment,--which I wish you would not laugh at! And let me tell youfrankly, Mr. Holgrave, I am sometimes puzzled to know whether you wishthem well or ill."
"Undoubtedly," said the daguerreotypist, "I do feel an interest in thisantiquated, poverty-stricken old maiden lady, and this degraded andshattered gentleman,--this abortive lover of the beautiful. A kindlyinterest, too, helpless old children that they are! But you have noconception what a different kind of heart mine is from your own. It isnot my impulse, as regards these two individuals, either to help orhinder; but to look on, to analyze, to explain matters to myself, andto comprehend the drama which, for almost two hundred years, has beendragging its slow length over the ground where you and I now tread. Ifpermitted to witness the close, I doubt not to derive a moralsatisfaction from it, go matters how they may. There is a convictionwithin me that the end draws nigh. But, though Providence sent youhither to help, and sends me only as a privileged and meet spectator, Ipledge myself to lend these unfortunate beings whatever aid I can!"
"I wish you would speak more plainly," cried Phoebe, perplexed anddispleased; "and, above all, that you would feel more like a Christianand a human being! How is it possible to see people in distress withoutdesiring, more than anything else, to help and comfort them? You talkas if this old house were a theatre; and you seem to look at Hepzibah'sand Clifford's misfortunes, and those of generations before them, as atragedy, such as I have seen acted in the hall of a country hotel, onlythe present one appears to be played exclusively for your amusement. Ido not like this. The play costs the performers too much, and theaudience is too cold-hearted."
"You are severe," said Holgrave, compelled to recognize a degree oftruth in the piquant sketch of his own mood.
"And then," continued Phoebe, "what can you mean by your conviction,which you tell me of, that the end is drawing near? Do you know of anynew trouble hanging over my poor relatives? If so, tell me at once, andI will not leave them!"
"Forgive me, Phoebe!" said the daguerreotypist, holding out his hand,to which the girl was constrained to yield her own. "I am somewhat ofa mystic, it must be confessed. The tendency is in my blood, togetherwith the faculty of mesmerism, which might have brought me to GallowsHill, in the good old times of witchcraft. Believe me, if I werereally aware of any secret, the disclosure of which would benefit yourfriends,--who are my own friends, likewise,--you should learn it beforewe part. But I have no such knowledge."
"You hold something back!" said Phoebe.
"Nothing,--no secrets but my own," answered Holgrave. "I can perceive,indeed, that Judge Pyncheon still keeps his eye on Clifford, in whoseruin he had so large a share. His motives and intentions, however area mystery to me. He is a determined and relentless man, with thegenuine character of an inquisitor; and had he any object to gain byputting Clifford to the rack, I verily believe that he would wrench hisjoints from their sockets, in order to accomplish it. But, so wealthyand eminent as he is,--so powerful in his own strength, and in thesupport of society on all sides,--what can Judge Pyncheon have to hopeor fear from the imbecile, branded, half-torpid Clifford?"
"Yet," urged Phoebe, "you did speak as if misfortune were impending!"
"Oh, that was because I am morbid!" replied the artist. "My mind has atwist aside, like almost everybody's mind, except your own. Moreover,it is so strange to find myself an inmate of this old Pyncheon House,and sitting in this old garden--(hark, how Maule's well ismurmuring!)--that, were it only for this one circumstance, I cannothelp fancying that Destiny is arranging its fifth act for acatastrophe."
"There!" cried Phoebe with renewed vexation; for she was by nature ashostile to mystery as the sunshine to a dark corner. "You puzzle memore than ever!"
"Then let us part friends!" said Holgrave, pressing her hand. "Or, ifnot friends, let us part before you entirely hate me. You, who loveeverybody else in the world!"
"Good-by, then," said Phoebe frankly. "I do not mean to be angry agreat while, and should be sorry to have you think so. There hasCousin Hepzibah been standing in the shadow of the doorway, thisquarter of an hour past! She thinks I stay too long in the damp garden.So, good-night, and good-by."
On the second morning thereafter, Phoebe might have been seen, in herstraw bonnet, with a shawl on one arm and a little carpet-bag on theother, bidding adieu to Hepzibah and Cousin Clifford. She was to takea seat in the next train of cars, which would transport her to withinhalf a dozen miles of her country village.
The tears were in Phoebe's eyes; a smile, dewy with affectionateregret, was glimmering around her pleasant mouth. She wondered how itcame to pass, that her life of a few weeks, here in this heavy-heartedold mansion, had taken such hold of her, and so melted into herassociations, as now to seem a more important centre-point ofremembrance than all which had gone before. How had Hepzibah--grim,silent, and irresponsive to her overflow of cordial sentiment--contrivedto win so much love? And Clifford,--in his abortive decay, with themystery of fearful crime upon him, and the close prison-atmosphere yetlurking in his breath,--how had he transformed himself into the simplestchild, whom Phoebe felt bound to watch over, and be, as it were, theprovidence of his unconsidered hours! Everything, at that instant offarewell, stood out prominently to her view. Look where she would, layher hand on what she might, the object responded to her consciousness,as if a moist human heart were in it.
She peeped from the window into the garden, and felt herself moreregretful at leaving this spot of black earth, vitiated with such anage-long growth of weeds, than joyful at the idea of again scenting herpine forests and fresh clover-fields. She called Chanticleer, his twowives, and the venerable chicken, and threw them some crumbs of breadfrom the breakfast-table. These being hastily gobbled up, the chickenspread its wings, and alighted close by Phoebe on the window-sill,where it looked gravely into her face and vented its emotions in acroak. Phoebe bade it be a good old chicken during her absence, andpromised to bring it a little bag of buckwheat.
"Ah, Phoebe!" remarked Hepzibah, "you do not smile so naturally as whenyou came to us! Then, the smile chose to shine out; now, you choose itshould. It is well that you are going back, for a little while, intoyour native air. There has been too much weight on your spirits. Thehouse is too gloomy and lonesome; the shop is full of vexations; and asfor me, I have no faculty of making things look brighter than they a
re.Dear Clifford has been your only comfort!"
"Come hither, Phoebe," suddenly cried her cousin Clifford, who had saidvery little all the morning. "Close!--closer!--and look me in theface!"
Phoebe put one of her small hands on each elbow of his chair, andleaned her face towards him, so that he might peruse it as carefully ashe would. It is probable that the latent emotions of this parting hourhad revived, in some degree, his bedimmed and enfeebled faculties. Atany rate, Phoebe soon felt that, if not the profound insight of a seer,yet a more than feminine delicacy of appreciation, was making her heartthe subject of its regard. A moment before, she had known nothingwhich she would have sought to hide. Now, as if some secret werehinted to her own consciousness through the medium of another'sperception, she was fain to let her eyelids droop beneath Clifford'sgaze. A blush, too,--the redder, because she strove hard to keep itdown,--ascended bigger and higher, in a tide of fitful progress, untileven her brow was all suffused with it.
"It is enough, Phoebe," said Clifford, with a melancholy smile. "WhenI first saw you, you were the prettiest little maiden in the world; andnow you have deepened into beauty. Girlhood has passed into womanhood;the bud is a bloom! Go, now--I feel lonelier than I did."
Phoebe took leave of the desolate couple, and passed through the shop,twinkling her eyelids to shake off a dew-drop; for--considering howbrief her absence was to be, and therefore the folly of being cast downabout it--she would not so far acknowledge her tears as to dry themwith her handkerchief. On the doorstep, she met the little urchinwhose marvellous feats of gastronomy have been recorded in the earlierpages of our narrative. She took from the window some specimen orother of natural history,--her eyes being too dim with moisture toinform her accurately whether it was a rabbit or a hippopotamus,--putit into the child's hand as a parting gift, and went her way. OldUncle Venner was just coming out of his door, with a wood-horse and sawon his shoulder; and, trudging along the street, he scrupled not tokeep company with Phoebe, so far as their paths lay together; nor, inspite of his patched coat and rusty beaver, and the curious fashion ofhis tow-cloth trousers, could she find it in her heart to outwalk him.
"We shall miss you, next Sabbath afternoon," observed the streetphilosopher. "It is unaccountable how little while it takes some folksto grow just as natural to a man as his own breath; and, begging yourpardon, Miss Phoebe (though there can be no offence in an old man'ssaying it), that's just what you've grown to me! My years have been agreat many, and your life is but just beginning; and yet, you aresomehow as familiar to me as if I had found you at my mother's door,and you had blossomed, like a running vine, all along my pathway since.Come back soon, or I shall be gone to my farm; for I begin to findthese wood-sawing jobs a little too tough for my back-ache."
"Very soon, Uncle Venner," replied Phoebe.
"And let it be all the sooner, Phoebe, for the sake of those poor soulsyonder," continued her companion. "They can never do without you,now,--never, Phoebe; never--no more than if one of God's angels hadbeen living with them, and making their dismal house pleasant andcomfortable! Don't it seem to you they'd be in a sad case, if, somepleasant summer morning like this, the angel should spread his wings,and fly to the place he came from? Well, just so they feel, now thatyou're going home by the railroad! They can't bear it, Miss Phoebe; sobe sure to come back!"
"I am no angel, Uncle Venner," said Phoebe, smiling, as she offered himher hand at the street-corner. "But, I suppose, people never feel somuch like angels as when they are doing what little good they may. SoI shall certainly come back!"
Thus parted the old man and the rosy girl; and Phoebe took the wings ofthe morning, and was soon flitting almost as rapidly away as if endowedwith the aerial locomotion of the angels to whom Uncle Venner had sograciously compared her.
The House of the Seven Gables Page 16