CHAPTER XXVI. The Declaration
THE domesticating of Madame de Frontignac as an inmate of the cottage added a new element of vivacity to that still and unvaried life. One of the most beautiful traits of French nature is that fine gift of appreciation, which seizes at once the picturesque side of every condition of life, and finds in its own varied storehouse something to assort with it. As compared with the Anglo-Saxon, the French appear to be gifted with a naïve childhood of nature, and to have the power that children have of gilding every scene of life with some of their own poetic fancies. Madame de Frontignac was in raptures with the sanded floor of her little room, which commanded, through the apple-boughs, a little morsel of a sea view. She could fancy it was a nymph’s cave, she said. “Yes, ma Marie, I will play Calypso, and you shall play Telemachus, and Dr. Hopkins shall be Mentor. Mentor was so very, very good! — only a bit — dull,” she said, pronouncing the last word with a wicked accent, and lifting her hands with a whimsical gesture like a naughty child who expects a correction. Mary could not but laugh; and as she laughed, more color rose in her waxen cheeks than for many days before. Madame de Frontignac looked as triumphant as a child who has made its mother laugh, and went on laying things out of her trunk into her drawers with a zeal that was quite amusing to see. “You see, ma blanche, I have left all Madame’s clothes at Philadelphia, and brought only those that belong to Virginie, — no tromperie, no feathers, no gauzes, no diamonds, — only white dresses, and my straw hat en bergère. I brought one string of pearls that was my mother’s; but pearls, you know, belong to the sea-nymphs. I will trim my hat with seaweed and buttercups together, and we will go out on the beach to-night and get some gold and silver shells to dress mon miroir.” “Oh, I have ever so many now,” said Mary, running into her room, and coming back with a little bag. They both sat on the bed together, and began pouring them out, — Madame de Frontignac showering childish exclamations of delight. Suddenly Mary put her hand to her heart as if she had been struck with something; and Madame de Frontignac heard her say, in a low voice of sudden pain, “Oh, dear!” “What is it, mimi?” she said, looking up quickly. “Nothing,” said Mary, turning her head. Madame de Frontignac looked down, and saw among the sea-treasures a necklace of Venetian shells, that she knew never grew on the shores of Newport. She held it up. “Ah, I see,” she said. “He gave you this. Ah, ma pauvrette,” she said, clasping Mary in her arms, “thy sorrow meets thee everywhere! May I be a comfort to thee! — just a little one!” “Dear, dear friend!” said Mary, weeping. “I know not how it is. Sometimes I think this sorrow is all gone; but then, for a moment, it comes back again. But I am at peace; it is all right, all right; I would not have it otherwise. But, oh, if he could have spoken one word to me before! He gave me this,” she added, “when he came home from his first voyage to the Mediterranean. I did not know it was in this bag. I had looked for it everywhere.” “Sister Agatha would have told you to make a rosary of it,” said Madame de Frontignac; “but you pray without a rosary. It is all one,” she added; “there will be a prayer for every shell, though you do not count them. But come, ma chère, get your bonnet, and let us go out on the beach.” That evening, before going to bed, Mrs. Scudder came into Mary’s room. Her manner was grave and tender; her eyes had tears in them; and although her usual habits were not caressing, she came to Mary and put her arms around her and kissed her. It was an unusual manner, and Mary’s gentle eyes seemed to ask the reason of it. “My daughter,” said her mother, “I have just had a long and very interesting talk with our dear good friend, the Doctor; ah, Mary, very few people know how good he is!” “True, mother,” said Mary, warmly; “he is the best, the noblest, and yet the humblest man in the world.” “You love him very much, do you not?” said her mother. “Very dearly,” said Mary. “Mary, he has asked me, this evening, if you would be willing to be his wife.” “His wife, mother?” said Mary, in the tone of one confused with a new and strange thought. “Yes, daughter; I have long seen that he was preparing to make you this proposal.” “You have, mother?” “Yes, daughter; have you never thought of it?” “Never, mother.” There was a long pause, — Mary standing, just as she had been interrupted, in her night toilette, with her long, light hair streaming down over her white dress, and the comb held mechanically in her hand. She sat down after a moment, and, clasping her hands over her knees, fixed her eyes intently on the floor; and there fell between the two a silence so profound, that the tickings of the clock in the next room seemed to knock upon the door. Mrs. Scudder sat with anxious eyes watching that silent face, pale as sculptured marble. “Well, Mary,” she said at last. A deep sigh was the only answer. The violent throbbings of her heart could be seen undulating the long hair as the moaning sea tosses the rockweed. “My daughter,” again said Mrs. Scudder. Mary gave a great sigh, like that of a sleeper awakening from a dream, and, looking at her mother, said,—”Do you suppose he really loves me, mother?” “Indeed he does, Mary, as much as man ever loved woman!” “Does he indeed?” said Mary, relapsing into thoughtfulness. “And you love him, do you not?” said her mother. “Oh, yes, I love him.” “You love him better than any man in the world, don’t you?” “Oh, mother, mother! yes!” said Mary, throwing herself passionately forward, and bursting into sobs; “yes, there is no one else now that I love better, — no one! — no one!” “My darling! my daughter!” said Mrs. Scudder, coming and taking her in her arms. “Oh, mother, mother!” she said, sobbing distressfully, “let me cry, just for a little, — oh, mother, mother, mother!” What was there hidden under that despairing wail? — It was the parting of the last strand of the cord of youthful hope. Mrs. Scudder soothed and caressed her daughter, but maintained still in her breast a tender pertinacity of purpose, such as mothers will, who think they are conducting a child through some natural sorrow into a happier state. Mary was not one, either, to yield long to emotion of any kind. Her rigid education had taught her to look upon all such outbursts as a species of weakness, and she struggled for composure, and soon seemed entirely calm. “If he really loves me, mother, it would give him great pain if I refused,” said Mary thoughtfully. “Certainly it would; and, Mary, you have allowed him to act as a very near friend for a long time; and it is quite natural that he should have hopes that you loved him.” “I do love him, mother, — better than anybody in the world except you. Do you think that will do?” “Will do?” said her mother; “I don’t understand you.” “Why, is that loving enough to marry? I shall love him more, perhaps, after, — shall I, mother?” “Certainly you will; every one does.” “I wish he did not want to marry me, mother,” said Mary, after a pause. “I liked it a great deal better as we were before.” “All girls feel so, Mary, at first; it is very natural.” “Is that the way you felt about father, mother?” Mrs. Scudder’s heart smote her when she thought of her own early love, — that great love that asked no questions, — that had no doubts, no fears, no hesitations, — nothing but one great, outsweeping impulse, which swallowed her life in that of another. She was silent; and after a moment, she said,—”I was of a different disposition from you, Mary. I was of a strong, wilful, positive nature. I either liked or disliked with all my might. And besides, Mary, there never was a man like your father.” The matron uttered this first article in the great confession of woman’s faith with the most unconscious simplicity. “Well, mother, I will do whatever is my duty. I want to be guided. If I can make that good man happy, and help him to do some good in the world — After all, life is short, and the great thing is to do for others.” “I am sure, Mary, if you could have heard how he spoke, you would be sure you could make him happy. He had not spoken before, because he felt so unworthy of such a blessing; he said I was to tell you that he should love and honor you all the same, whether you could be his wife or not, — but that nothing this side of heaven would be so blessed a gift, — that it would make up for every trial that could possibly come upon him. And you know, Mary, he has a great many discouragements and trials; — people don
’t appreciate him; his efforts to do good are misunderstood and misconstrued; they look down on him, and despise him, and tell all sorts of evil things about him; and sometimes he gets quite discouraged.” “Yes, mother, I will marry him,” said Mary;—”yes, I will.” “My darling daughter!” said Mrs. Scudder,—”this has been the hope of my life!” “Has it, mother?” said Mary, with a faint smile; “I shall make you happier then?” “Yes, dear, you will. And think what a prospect of usefulness opens before you! You can take a position, as his wife, which will enable you to do even more good than you do now; and you will have the happiness of seeing, every day, how much you comfort the hearts and encourage the hands of God’s dear people.” “Mother, I ought to be very glad I can do it,” said Mary; “and I trust I am. God orders all things for the best.” “Well, my child, sleep to-night, and to-morrow we will talk more about it.”
CHAPTER XXVII. Surprises
MRS. SCUDDER kissed her daughter, and left her. After a moment’s thought, Mary gathered the long silky folds of hair around her head, and knotted them for the night. Then leaning forward on her toilet-table, she folded her hands together, and stood regarding the reflection of herself in the mirror. Nothing is capable of more ghostly effect than such a silent, lonely contemplation of that mysterious image of ourselves which seems to look out of an infinite depth in the mirror, as if it were our own soul beckoning to us visibly from unknown regions. Those eyes look into our own with an expression sometimes vaguely sad and inquiring. The face wears weird and tremulous lights and shadows; it asks us mysterious questions, and troubles us with the suggestions of our relations to some dim unknown. The sad, blue eyes that gazed into Mary’s had that look of calm initiation, of melancholy comprehension, peculiar to eyes made clairvoyant by “great and critical” sorrow. They seemed to say to her, “Fulfil thy mission; life is made for sacrifice; the flower must fall before fruit can perfect itself.” A vague shuddering of mystery gave intensity to her reverie. It seemed as if those mirror-depths were another world; she heard the far-off dashing of sea-green waves; she felt a yearning impulse towards that dear soul gone out into the infinite unknown. Her word just passed had in her eyes all the sacred force of the most solemnly attested vow; and she felt as if that vow had shut some till then open door between her and him; she had a kind of shadowy sense of a throbbing and yearning nature that seemed to call on her, — that seemed surging towards her with an imperative, protesting force that shook her heart to its depths. Perhaps it is so, that souls, once intimately related, have ever after this a strange power of affecting each other, — a power that neither absence nor death can annul. How else can we interpret those mysterious hours in which the power of departed love seems to overshadow us, making our souls vital with such longings, with such wild throbbings, with such unutterable sighings, that a little more might burst the mortal bond? Is it not deep calling unto deep? the free soul singing outside the cage to her mate beating against the bars within? Mary even, for a moment, fancied that a voice called her name, and started, shivering. Then the habits of her positive and sensible education returned at once, and she came out of her reverie as one breaks from a dream, and lifted all these sad thoughts with one heavy sigh from her breast; and opening her Bible, she read: “They that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth forever. As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about his people from henceforth, even forever.” Then she kneeled by her bedside, and offered her whole life a sacrifice to the loving God who had offered his life a sacrifice for her. She prayed for grace to be true to her promise, — to be faithful to the new relation she had accepted. She prayed that all vain regrets for the past might be taken away, and that her soul might vibrate without discord in unison with the will of Eternal Love. So praying, she rose calm, and with that clearness of spirit which follows an act of uttermost self-sacrifice; and so calmly she laid down and slept, with her two hands crossed upon her breast, her head slightly turned on the pillow, her cheek pale as marble, and her long dark lashes lying drooping, with a sweet expression, as if under that mystic veil of sleep the soul were seeing things forbidden to the waking eye. Only the gentlest heaving of the quiet breast told that the heavenly spirit within had not gone whither it was hourly aspiring to go. Meanwhile Mrs. Scudder had left Mary’s room, and entered the Doctor’s study, holding a candle in her hand. The good man was sitting alone in the dark, with his head bowed upon his Bible. When Mrs. Scudder entered, he rose, and regarded her wistfully, but did not speak. He had something just then in his heart for which he had no words; so he only looked as a man does who hopes and fears for the answer of a decisive question. Mrs. Scudder felt some of the natural reserve which becomes a matron coming charged with a gift in which lies the whole sacredness of her own existence, and which she puts from her hands with a jealous reverence. She therefore measured the man with her woman’s and mother’s eye, and said, with a little stateliness,—”My dear Sir, I come to tell you the result of my conversation with Mary.” She made a little pause, — and the Doctor stood before her as humbly as if he had not weighed and measured the universe; because he knew, that, though he might weigh the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance, yet it was a far subtiler power which must possess him of one small woman’s heart. In fact, he felt to himself like a great, awkward, clumsy mountainous earthite asking of a white-robed angel to help him up a ladder of cloud. He was perfectly sure, for the moment, that he was going to be refused; and he looked humbly firm, — he would take it like a man. His large blue eyes, generally so misty in their calm, had a resolute clearness, rather mournful than otherwise. Of course, no such celestial experience was going to happen to him. He cleared his throat, and said,—”Well, Madam?” Mrs. Scudder’s womanly dignity was appeased; she reached out her hand, cheerfully, and said,—”She has accepted.” The Doctor drew his hand suddenly away, turned quickly round, and walked to the window, — although, as it was ten o’clock at night and quite dark, there was evidently nothing to be seen there. He stood there, quietly, swallowing very hard, and raising his handkerchief several times to his eyes. There was enough going on under the black coat just then to make quite a little figure in a romance, if it had been uttered; but he belonged to a class who lived romance, but never spoke it. In a few moments he returned to Mrs. Scudder, and said,—”I trust, dear Madam, that this very dear friend may never have reason to think me ungrateful for her wonderful goodness; and whatever sins my evil heart may lead me into, I hope I may never fall so low as to forget the undeserved mercy of this hour. If ever I shrink from duty or murmur at trials, while so sweet a friend is mine, I shall be vile indeed.” The Doctor, in general, viewed himself on the discouraging side, and had berated and snubbed himself all his life as a most flagitious and evil-disposed individual, — a person to be narrowly watched, and capable of breaking at any moment into the most flagrant iniquity; and therefore it was that he received his good fortune in so different a spirit from many of the lords of creation in similar circumstances. “I am sensible,” he added, “that a poor minister, without much power of eloquence, and commissioned of the Lord to speak unpopular truths, and whose worldly condition, in consequence, is never likely to be very prosperous, — that such an one could scarcely be deemed a suitable partner for so very beautiful a young woman, who might expect proposals, in a temporal point of view, of a much more advantageous nature; and I am therefore the more struck and overpowered with this blessed result.” These last words caught in the Doctor’s throat, as if he were overpowered in very deed. “In regard to her happiness,” said the Doctor, with a touch of awe in his voice, “I would not have presumed to become the guardian of it, were it not that I am persuaded it is assured by a Higher Power; for ‘when He giveth quietness, who then can make trouble?’ (Job, xxxiv. 29.) But I trust I may say no effort on my part shall be wanting to secure it.” Mrs. Scudder was a mother, and had come to that stage in life where mothers always feel tears rising behind their sm
iles. She pressed the Doctor’s hand silently, and they parted for the night. We know not how we can acquit ourselves to our friends of the great world for the details of such an unfashionable courtship, so well as by giving them, before they retire for the night, a dip into a more modish view of things. The Doctor was evidently green, — green in his faith, green in his simplicity, green in his general belief of the divine in woman, green in his particular humble faith in one small Puritan maiden, whom a knowing fellow might at least have manoeuvred so skilfully as to break up her saintly superiority, discompose her, rout her ideas, and lead her up and down a swamp of hopes and fears and conjectures, till she was wholly bewildered and ready to take him at last — if he made up his mind to have her at all — as a great bargain, for which she was to be sensibly grateful. Yes, the Doctor was green, — immortally green, as a cedar of Lebanon, which, waving its broad archangel wings over some fast-rooted, eternal old solitude, and seeing from its sublime height the vastness of the universe, veils its kingly head with humility before God’s infinite majesty. He has gone to bed now, — simple old soul! — first apologizing to Mrs. Scudder for having kept her up to so dissipated and unparalleled an hour as ten o’clock on his personal matters. Meanwhile our Asmodeus shall transport us to a handsomely furnished apartment in one of the most fashionable hotels of Philadelphia, where Colonel Aaron Burr, just returned from his trip to the then aboriginal wilds of Ohio, is seated before a table covered with maps, letters, books, and papers. His keen eye runs over the addresses of the letters, and he eagerly seizes one from Madame de Frontignac, and reads it; and as no one but ourselves is looking at him now, his face has no need to wear its habitual mask. First comes an expression of profound astonishment; then of chagrin and mortification; then of deepening concern; there were stops where the dark eyelashes flashed together, as if to brush a tear out of the view of the keen-sighted eyes; and then a red flush rose even to his forehead, and his delicate lips wore a sarcastic smile. He laid down the letter, and made one or two turns through the room. The man had felt the dashing against his own of a strong, generous, indignant woman’s heart fully awakened, and speaking with that impassioned vigor with which a French regiment charges in battle. There were those picturesque, winged words, those condensed expressions, those subtile piercings of meaning, and, above all, that simple pathos, for which the French tongue has no superior; and for the moment the woman had the victory; she shook his heart. But Burr resembled the marvel with which chemists amuse themselves. His heart was a vase filled with boiling passions, — while his will, a still, cold, unmelted lump of ice, lay at the bottom. Self-denial is not peculiar to Christians. He who goes downward often puts forth as much force to kill a noble nature as another does to annihilate a sinful one. There was something in this letter so keen, so searching, so self-revealing, that it brought on one of those interior crises in which a man is convulsed with the struggle of two natures, the godlike and the demoniac, and from which he must pass out more wholly to the dominion of the one or the other. Nobody knew the true better than Burr. He knew the godlike and the pure; he had felt its beauty and its force to the very depths of his being, as the demoniac knew at once the fair Man of Nazareth; and even now he felt the voice within that said, “What have I to do with thee?” and the rending of a struggle of heavenly life with fast-coming eternal death. That letter had told him what he might be, and what he was. It was as if his dead mother’s hand had held up before him a glass in which he saw himself white-robed and crowned, and so dazzling in purity that he loathed his present self. As he walked up and down the room perturbed, he sometimes wiped tears from his eyes, and then set his teeth and compressed his lips. At last his face grew calm and settled in its expression, his mouth wore a sardonic smile; he came and took the letter, and, folding it leisurely, laid it on the table, and put a heavy paper-weight over it, as if to hold it down and bury it. Then drawing to himself some maps of new territories, he set himself vigorously to some columns of arithmetical calculations on the margin; and thus he worked for an hour or two, till his mind was as dry and his pulse as calm as a machine; then he drew the inkstand towards him, and scribbled hastily the following letter to his most confidential associate, — a letter which told no more of the conflict that preceded it than do the dry sands and the civil gossip of the sea-waves to-day of the storm and wreck of last week.
Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe Page 154