Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  These Latin titles stimulated my imagination like the sound of a trumpet, and I looked them out diligently in my father’s great dictionary, and sometimes astonished my grandmother by telling her what they meant.

  In fact, I was sent to bed that night thoroughly fortified against all seductions of the gay and worldly society into which I was about to be precipitated; and my reader will see that there was need enough of this preparation.

  All these various conversations in regard to differences of religion went on before us children with the freedom with which older people generally allow themselves to go on in the presence of the little non-combatants of life. In those days, when utter silence and reserve in the presence of elders was so forcibly inculcated as one of the leading virtues of childhood, there was little calculation made for the effect of such words on the childish mind. With me it was a perfect hazy mist of wonder and bewilderment; and I went to sleep and dreamed that John Rogers was burning Lady Lothrop at the stake, and Polly, as executioner, presided with a great broadaxe over her shoulder, while grandmother, with nine small children, all with stone bundles on their heads, assisted at the ceremony.

  Our ride to Boston was performed in a most proper and edifying manner. Lady Lothrop sat erect and gracious on the back seat, and placed Harry, for whom she seemed to have conceived a special affection, by her side. Tina was perched on the knee of my lady’s maid, a starched, prim woman who had grown up and dried in all the most sacred and sanctified essences of genteel propriety. She was the very crispness of old-time decorum, brought up to order herself lowly and reverently to all her betters, and with a secret conviction that, aside from Lady Lothrop, the whole of the Oldtown population were rather low Dissenters, whom she was required by the rules of Christian propriety to be kind to. To her master, as having been honored with the august favor of her mistress’s hand, she looked up with respect, but her highest mark of approbation was in the oft-repeated burst which came from her heart in moments of confidential enthusiasm, – “Ah, ma’am, depend upon it, master is a churchman in his heart. If ‘e ‘ad only ‘ad the good fortune to be born in Hengland, ‘e would ‘ave been a bishop!”

  Tina had been talked to and schooled rigorously by Miss Mehitable as to propriety of manner during this ride; and, as Miss Mehitable well knew what a chatterbox she was, she exacted from her a solemn promise that she would only speak when she was spoken to. Being perched in Mrs. Margery’s lap, she felt still further the stringent and binding power of that atmosphere of frosty decorum which encircled this immaculate waiting-maid. A more well-bred, inoffensive, reverential little trio never surrounded a lady patroness; and as Lady Lothrop was not much of a talker, and, being a childless woman, had none of those little arts of drawing out children which the maternal instinct alone teaches, our ride, though undoubtedly a matter of great enjoyment, was an enjoyment of a serious and even awful character. Lady Lothrop addressed a few kind inquiries to each one of us in turn, to which we each of us replied, and then the conversation fell into the hands of Mrs. Margery, and consisted mainly in precise details as to where and how she had packed her mistress’s Sunday cap and velvet dress; in doing which she evinced the great fluency and fertility of language with which women of her class are gifted on the one subject of their souls. Mrs. Margery felt as if the Sunday cap of the only supporter of the true Church in the dark and heathen parish of Oldtown was a subject not to be lightly or unadvisedly considered; and, therefore, she told at great length how she had intended to pack it first all together, – how she had altered her mind and taken off the bow, and packed that in a little box by itself, and laid the strings out flat in the box, – what difficulties had met her in folding the velvet dress, – and how she had at first laid it on top of the trunk, but had decided at last that the black lutestring might go on top of that, because it was so much lighter, &c., &c., &c.

  Lady Lothrop was so much accustomed to this species of monologue, that it is quite doubtful if she heard a word of it but poor Tina, who felt within herself whole worlds of things to say, from the various objects upon the road, of which she was dying to talk and ask questions, wriggled and twisted upon Mrs. Margery’s knee, and finally gave utterance to her pent-up feelings in deep sighs.

  “What ‘s the matter, little dear?” said Lady Lothrop.

  “O dear! I was just wishing I could go to church.”

  “Well, you are going to-morrow, dear.”

  “I just wish I could go now to say one prayer.”

  “And what is that, my dear?”

  “I just want to say, ‘O Lord, open thou my lips,’” said Tina with effusion.

  Lady Lothrop smiled with an air of innocent surprise, and Mrs. Margery winked over the little head.

  “I ‘m so tired of not talking!” said Tina, pathetically; “but I promised Miss Mehitable I would n’t speak unless I was spoken to,” she added, with an air of virtuous resolution.

  “Why, my little dear, you may talk,” said Lady Lothrop. “It won’t disturb me at all. Tell us now about anything that interests you.”

  “O, thank you ever so much,” said Tina; and from this moment, as a little elfin butterfly bursts from a cold, gray chrysalis, Tina rattled and chattered and sparkled, and went on with verve and gusto that quite waked us all up. Lady Lothrop and Mrs. Margery soon found themselves laughing with a heartiness which surprised themselves; and, the icy chains of silence being once broken, we all talked, almost forgetting in whose presence we were. Lady Lothrop looked from one to another in a sort of pleased and innocent surprise. Her still, childless, decorous life covered and concealed many mute feminine instincts which now rose at the voice and touch of childhood; and sometimes in the course of our gambols she would sigh, perhaps thinking of her own childless hearth.

  CHAPTER XXIV.

  WE BEHOLD GRANDEUR.

  IT was just at dusk that our carriage stood before the door of a respectable mansion at the north end of Boston.

  I remember our alighting and passing through a wide hall with a dark oaken staircase, into a low-studded parlor, lighted by the blaze of a fire of hickory logs, which threw out tongues of yellow flame, and winked at itself with a thousand fanciful flashes, in the crinkles and angles of a singularly high and mighty pair of brass andirons.

  A lovely, peaceful old lady, whose silvery white hair and black dress were the most striking features of the picture, kissed Lady Lothrop, and then came to us with a perfect outgush of motherly kindness. “Why, the poor little dears! the little darlings!” she said, as she began with her trembling fingers to undo Tina’s bonnet-strings. “Did they want to come to Boston and see the great city? Well, they should. They must be cold; there, put them close by the fire, and grandma will get them a nice cake pretty soon. Here, I ‘ll hold the little lady,” she said, as she put Tina on her knee.

  The child nestled her head down on her bosom as lovingly and confidingly as if she had known her all her days. “Poor babe,” said the old lady to Lady Lothrop, “who could have had a heart to desert such a child? and this is the boy,” she said, drawing Harry to her and looking tenderly at him. “Well, a father of the fatherless is God in his holy habitation.” There was something even grand about the fervor of this sentence as she uttered it, and Tina put up her hand with a caressing gesture around the withered old neck.

  “Debby, get these poor children a cake,” said the lady to a brisk, energetic, rather high-stepping individual, who now entered the apartment.

  “Come now, mother, do let it rest till supper-time. If we let you alone, you would murder all the children in your neighborhood with cake and sugar-plums; you ‘d be as bad as King Herod.”

  Miss Debby was a well-preserved, up-and-down, positive, cheery, sprightly maiden lady of an age lying somewhere in the indeterminate region between forty and sixty. There was a positive, brusque way about all her movements, and she advanced to the fire, rearranged the wood, picked up stray brands, and whisked up the coals with a brush, and then, seating herself bolt uprigh
t, took up the business of making our acquaintance in the most precise and systematic manner.

  “So this is Master Horace Holyoke. How do you do, sir?”

  As previously directed, I made my best bow with anxious politeness.

  “And this is Master Harry Percival, is it?” Harry did the same.

  “And this,” she added, turning to Tina, “is Miss Tina Percival, I understand? Well, we are very happy to see good little children in this house always.” There was a rather severe emphasis on the good, which, together with the somewhat martial and disciplinary air which invested all Miss Deborah’s words and actions, was calculated to strike children with a wholesome awe.

  Our resolution “to be very good indeed” received an immediate accession of strength. At this moment a serving-maid appeared at the door, and, with eyes cast down, and a stiff, respectful courtesy, conveyed the information, “If you please, ma’am, tea is ready.”

  This humble, self-abased figure – the utter air of self-abnegation with which the domestic seemed to intimate that, unless her mistress pleased, tea was not ready, and that everything in creation was to be either ready or not ready according to her sovereign will and good pleasure – was to us children a new lesson in decorum.

  “Go tell Lady Widgery that tea is served,” said Miss Deborah, in a loud, resounding voice. “Tell her that we will wait her ladyship’s convenience.”

  The humble serving-maid courtesied, and closed the door softly with reverential awe. On the whole, the impression upon our minds was deeply solemn; we were about to see her ladyship.

  Lady Widgery was the last rose of summer of the departed aristocracy. Lady Lothrop’s title was only by courtesy; but Sir Thomas Widgery was a live baronet; and as there were to be no more of these splendid dispensations in America, one may fancy the tenderness with which old Tory families cherished the last lingering remnants.

  The door was soon opened again, and a bundle of black silk appeared, with a pale, thin face looking out of it. There was to be seen the glitter of a pair of sharp, black eyes, and the shimmer of a thin white hand with a diamond ring upon it. These were the items that made up Lady Widgery, as she dawned upon our childish vision.

  Lest the reader should conceive any false hopes or impressions, I may as well say that it turned out, on further acquaintance, that these items were about all there was of Lady Widgery. It was one of the cases where Nature had picked up a very indifferent and commonplace soul, and shut it up in a very intelligent-looking body. From her youth up, Lady Widgery’s principal attraction consisted in looking as if there was a great deal more in her than there really was. Her eyes were sparkling and bright, and had a habit of looking at things in this world with keen, shrewd glances, as if she were thinking about them to some purpose, which she never was. Sometimes they were tender and beseeching, and led her distracted admirers to feel as if she were melting with emotions that she never dreamed of. Thus Lady Widgery had always been rushed for and contended for by the other sex; and one husband had hardly time to be cold in his grave before the air was filled with the rivalry of candidates to her hand; and after all the beautiful little hoax had nothing for it but her attractive soul-case. In her old age she still looked elegant, shrewd, and keen, and undeniably high-bred, and carried about her the prestige of rank and beauty. Otherwise she was a little dry bundle of old prejudices, of faded recollections of past conquests and gayeties, and weakly concerned about her own health, which, in her view and that of everybody about her, appeared a most sacred subject. She had a somewhat entertaining manner of rehearsing the gossip and scandals of the last forty years, and was, so far as such a person could be, religious: that is to say, she kept all the feasts and fasts of the Church scrupulously. She had, in a weakly way, a sense of some responsibility in this matter, because she was Lady Widgery, and because infidelity was prevailing in the land, and it became Lady Widgery to cast her influence against it. Therefore it was that, even at the risk of her precious life, as she thought, she had felt it imperative to come to Boston to celebrate Easter Sunday.

  When she entered the room there was an immediate bustle of welcome. Lady Lothrop ran up to her, saluting her with an appearance of great fondness, mingled, I thought, with a sort of extreme deference. Miss Deborah was pressing in her attentions. “Will you sit a moment before tea to get your feet warm, or will you go out at once? The dining-room is quite warm.”

  Lady Widgery’s feet were quite warm, and everybody was so glad to hear it, that we were filled with wonder.

  Then she turned and fixed her keen, dark eyes on us, as if she were reading our very destiny, and asked who we were. We were all presented circumstantially, and the brilliant eyes seemed to look through us shrewdly, as we made our bows and courtesies. One would have thought that she was studying us with a deep interest, which was not the case.

  We were now marshalled out to the tea-table, where we children had our plates put in a row together, and were waited on with obsequious civility by Mrs. Margery and another equally starched and decorous female, who was the attendant of Lady Widgery. We stood at our places a moment, while the lovely old lady, raising her trembling hand, pronounced the words of the customary grace: “For what we are now about to receive, the Lord make us truly thankful.” Her voice trembled as she spoke, and somehow the impression of fragility and sanctity that she made on me awoke in me a sort of tender awe. When the blessing was over, the maids seated us, and I had leisure to notice the entirely new scene about me.

  It was all conducted with an inexpressible stateliness of propriety, and, in an undefined way, the impression was produced upon my mind that the frail, shivery, rather thin and withered little being, enveloped in a tangle of black silk wraps, was something inexpressibly sacred and sublime. Miss Deborah waited on her constantly, pressingly, energetically; and the dear, sweet old white-haired lady tended her with obsequiousness, which, like everything else that she did, was lost in lovingness; and Lady Lothrop, to me the most awe-inspiring of the female race, paled her ineffectual fires, and bowed her sacred head to the rustling little black silk bundle, in a way that made me inwardly wonder. The whole scene was so different from the wide, rough, noisy, free-and-easy democracy of my grandmother’s kitchen, that I felt crusted all over with an indefinite stiffness of embarrassment, as if I had been dipped in an alum-bath. At the head of the table there was an old silver tea-urn, looking heavy enough to have the weight of whole generations in it, into which, at the moment of sitting down, a serious-visaged waiting-maid dropped a red-hot weight, and forthwith the noise of a violent boiling arose. We little folks looked at each other inquiringly, but said nothing. All was to us like an enchanted palace. The great, mysterious tea-urn, the chased silver tea-caddy, the precise and well-considered movements of Miss Deborah as she rinsed the old embossed silver teapots in the boiling water, the India-china cups and plates, painted with the family initials and family crest, all were to us solemn signs and symbols of that upper table-land of gentility, into which we were forewarned by Aunt Lois we were to enter.

  “There,” said Miss Deborah, with emphasis, as she poured and handed to Lady Widgery a cup of tea, – “there ‘s some of the tea that my brother saved at the time of that disgraceful Boston riot, when Boston Harbor was floating with tea-chests. His cargo was rifled in the most scandalous manner, but he went out in a boat and saved some at the risk of his life.”

  Now my most sacred and enthusiastic remembrance was of the glow of patriotic fervor with which, seated on my grandfather’s knee, I had heard the particulars of that event at a time when names and dates and dress, and time, place, and circumstance, had all the life and vividness of a recent transaction. I cannot describe the clarion tones in which Miss Deborah rung out the word disgraceful, in connection with an event which had always set my blood boiling with pride and patriotism. Now, as if convicted of sheep-stealing, I felt myself getting red to the very tips of my ears.

  “It was a shameful proceeding,” sighed Lady Widgery, in he
r pretty, high-bred tones, as she pensively stirred the amber fluid in her teacup. “I never saw Sir Thomas so indignant at any thing in all my life, and I ‘m sure it gave me a sick-headache for three days, so that I had to stay shut up in a dark room, and could n’t keep the least thing on my stomach. What a mysterious providence it is that such conduct should be suffered to lead to success!”

  “Well,” said Lady Lothrop, sipping her tea on the other side, “clouds and darkness are about the Divine dispensations; but let us hope it will be all finally overruled for the best.”

  “O, come,” said Miss Debby, giving a cheerful, victorious crow of defiance from behind her teapots. “Dorothy will be down on us with the tip-end of one of her husband’s sermons, of course. Having married a Continental Congress parson, she has to say the best she can; but I, Deborah Kittery, who was never yet in bondage to any man, shall be free to have my say to the end of my days, and I do say that the Continental Congress is an abomination in the land, and the leaders of it, if justice had been done, they would all have been hanged high as Haman; and that there is one house in old Boston, at the North End, and not far from the spot where we have the honor to be, where King George now reigns as much as ever he did, and where law and order prevail in spite of General Washington and Mrs. Martha, with her court and train. It puts me out of all manner of patience to read the papers, – receptions to ’em here, there, and everywhere; – I should like to give ’em a reception.”

  “Come, come, Deborah, my child, you must be patient,” said the old lady. “The Lord’s ways are not as our ways. He knows what is best.”

  “I dare say he does, mother, but we know he does let wickedness triumph to an awful extent. I think myself he ‘s given this country up.”

  “Let us hope not,” said the mother, fervently.

  “Just look at it,” said Miss Deborah. “Has not this miserable rebellion broken up the true Church in this country just as it was getting a foothold? has it not shaken hands with French infidelity? Thomas Jefferson is a scoffing infidel, and he drafted their old Declaration of Independence, which, I will say, is the most abominable and blasphemous document that ever sinners dared to sign.”