“But General Washington was a Churchman,” said Lady Widgery, “and they were always very careful about keeping the feasts and fasts. Why, I remember, in the old times, I have been there to Easter holidays, and we had a splendid ball.”
“Well, then, if he was in the true Church, so much the worse for him,” said Miss Deborah. “There is some excuse for men of Puritan families, because their ancestors were schismatics and disorganizers to begin with, and came over here because they did n’t like to submit to lawful government. For my part, I have always been ashamed of having been born here. If I ‘d been consulted I should have given my voice against it.”
“Debby, child, how you do talk!” said the old lady.
“Well, mother, what can I do but talk? and it ‘s a pity if I should n’t be allowed to do that. If I had been a man, I ‘d have fought; and, if I could have my way now, I ‘d go back to England and live, where there ‘s some religion and some government.”
“I don’t see,” said the old lady, “but people are doing pretty well under the new government.”
“Indeed, mother, how can you know anything about it? There ‘s a perfect reign of infidelity and immorality begun. Why, look here, in Boston and Cambridge things are going just as you might think they would. The college fellows call themselves D’Alembert, Rousseau, Voltaire, and other French heathen names; and there ‘s Ellery Davenport! just look at him, – came straight down from generations of Puritan ministers, and has n’t half as much religion as my cat there; for Tom does know how to order himself lowly and reverently to all his betters.”
Here there was such a burst of pleading feminine eloquence on all hands as showed that general interest which often pervades the female breast for some bright, naughty, wicked prodigal son. Lady Widgery and old Mrs. Kittery and Lady Lothrop all spoke at once. “Indeed, Miss Deborah,” – “Come, come, Debby,” – “You are too bad, – he goes to church with us sometimes.”
“To church, does he?” said Miss Debby, with a toss; “and what does he go for? Simply to ogle the girls.”
“We should be charitable in our judgments,” said Lady Widgery.
“Especially of handsome young men,” said Miss Debby, with strong irony. “You all know he does n’t believe as much as a heathen. They say he reads and speaks French like a native, and that ‘s all I want to know of anybody. I ‘ve no opinion of such people; a good honest Christian has no occasion to go out of his own language, and when he does you may be pretty sure it ‘s for no good.”
“O, come now, Deborah, you are too sweeping altogether,” said Lady Lothrop; “French is of course an elegant accomplishment.”
“I never saw any good of the French language, for my part, I must confess,” said Miss Debby, “nor, for that matter, of the French nation either; they eat frogs, and break the Sabbath, and are as immoral as the old Canaanites. It ‘s just exactly like them to aid and abet this unrighteous rebellion. They always hated England, and they take delight in massacres and rebellions, and every kind of mischief, ever since the massacre of St. Bartholomew. Well, well, we shall see what ‘ll come of these ungodly levelling principles in them. ‘All men created free and equal,’ forsooth. Just think of that! clearly against the church catechism.”
“Of course that is all infidelity,” said Lady Widgery, confidently. “Sir Thomas used to say it was the effect on the lower classes he dreaded. You see these lower classes are something dreadful; and what ‘s to keep them down if it is n’t religion? as Sir Thomas used to say when he always would go to church Sundays. He felt such a responsibility.”
“Well,” said Miss Deborah, “you ‘ll see. I predict we shall see the time when your butcher and your baker, and your candle-stick-maker will come into your parlor and take a chair as easy as if they were your equals, and every servant-maid will be thinking she must have a silk gown like her mistress. That ‘s what we shall get by our revolution.”
“But let us hope it will be all overruled for good,” said Lady Lothrop.
“O, overruled, overruled!” said Miss Deborah. “Of course, it will be overruled. Sodom and Gomorrah were overruled for good, but ‘t was a great deal better not to be living there about those times.” Miss Debby’s voice had got upon so high a key, and her denunciations began to be so terrifying, that the dear old lady interposed.
“Well, children, do let ‘s love one another, whatever we do,” she said; “and, Debby, you must n’t talk so hard about Ellery, – he ‘s your cousin, you know.”
“Besides, my dear,” said Lady Widgery, “great allowances should be made for his domestic misfortunes.”
“I don’t see why a man need turn infidel and rebel because his wife has turned out a madwoman,” said Miss Debby; “what did he marry her for?”
“O my dear, it was a family arrangement to unite the two properties,” said Lady Widgery. “You see all the great Pierrepoint estates came in through her, but then she was quite shocking, – very peculiar always, but after her marriage her temper was dreadful, – it made poor Ellery miserable, and drove him from home; it really was a mercy when it broke out into real insanity, so that they could shut her up. I ‘ve always had great tenderness for Ellery on that account.”
“Of course you have, because you ‘re a lady. Did I ever know a lady yet that did n’t like Ellery Davenport, and was n’t ready to go to the stake for him? For my part I hate him, because, after all, he humbugs me, and will make me like him in spite of myself. I have to watch and pray against him all the time.”
And as if, by the odd law of attraction which has given birth to the proverb that somebody is always nearest when you are talking about him, at this moment the dining-room door was thrown open, and the old man-servant announced “Colonel Ellery Davenport.”
“Colonel!” said Miss Debby, with a frown and an accent of contempt. “How often must I tell Hawkins not to use those titles of the old rebel mob army? Insubordination is beginning to creep in, I can see.”
These words were lost in the bustle of the entrance of one on whom, after listening to all the past conversation, we children looked with very round eyes of attention. What we saw was a tall, graceful young man, whose air and movements gave a singular impression of both lightness and strength. He carried his head on his shoulders with a jaunty, slightly haughty air, like that of a thorough-bred young horse, and there was quality and breeding in every movement of his body. He was dressed in the imposing and picturesque fashion of those times, with a slight military suggestion in its arrangements. His hair was powdered to a dazzling whiteness, and brushed off his low Greek forehead, and the powder gave that peculiar effect to the eye and complexion which was one of the most distinctive traits of that style of costume. His eyes were of a deep violet blue, and of that lively, flashing brilliancy which a painter could only represent by double lights. They seemed to throw out light like diamonds. He entered the room bowing and smiling with the gay good-humor of one sure of pleasing. An inspiring sort of cheerfulness came in with him, that seemed to illuminate the room like a whole stream of sunshine. In short, he fully justified all Miss Deborah’s fears.
In a moment he had taken a rapid survey of the party; he had kissed the hand of the dear old lady; he had complimented Lady Widgery; he had inquired with effusion after the health of Parson Lothrop, and ended all by an adroit attempt to kiss Miss Deborah’s hand, which earned him a smart little cuff from that wary belligerent.
“No rebels allowed on these premises,” said Miss Debby, sententiously.
“On my soul, cousin, you forget that peace has been declared,” he said, throwing himself into a chair with a nonchalant freedom.
“Peace! not in our house. I have n’t surrendered, if Lord Cornwallis has,” said Miss Debby, “and I consider you as the enemy.”
“Well, Debby, we must love our enemies,” said the old lady, in a pleading tone.
“Certainly you must,” he replied quickly; “and here I ‘ve come to Boston on purpose to go to church with you to-morrow.�
��
“That ‘s right, my boy,” said the old lady. “I always knew you ‘d come into right ways at last.”
“O, there are hopes of me, certainly,” he said; “if the gentler sex will only remember their mission, and be guardian angels, I think I shall be saved in the end.”
“You mean that you are going to wait on pretty Lizzie Cabot to church to-morrow,” said Miss Debby; “that ‘s about all the religion there is in it.”
“Mine is the religion of beauty, fair cousin,” said he. “If I had had the honor of being one of the apostles, I should have put at least one article to that effect into our highly respectable creed.”
“Ellery Davenport, you are a scoffer.”
“What, I? because I believe in the beautiful? What is goodness but beauty? and what is sin but bad taste? I could prove it to you out of my grandfather Edwards’s works, passim, and I think nobody in New England would dispute him.”
“I don’t know anything about him,” said Miss Debby, with a toss. “He was n’t in the Church.”
“Mere matter of position, cousin. Could n’t very well be when the Church was a thousand miles across the water; but he lived and died a stanch loyalist, – an aristocrat in the very marrow of his bones, as anybody may see. The whole of his system rests on the undisputed right of big folks to eat up little folks in proportion to their bigness, and the Creator, being biggest of all, is dispensed from all obligation to seek any thing but his own glory. Here you have the root-doctrine of the divine right of kings and nobles, who have only to follow their Maker’s example in their several spheres, as his blessed Majesty King George has of late been doing with his American colonies. If he had got the treatise on true virtue by heart, he could not have carried out its principles better.”
“Well, now, I never knew that there was so much good in President Edwards before,” said Lady Widgery, with simplicity. “I must get my maid to read me that treatise some time.”
“Do, madam,” said Ellery. “I think you will find it exactly adapted to your habits of thought, and extremely soothing.”
“It will be a nice thing for her to read me to sleep with,” said Lady Widgery, innocently.
“By all means,” said Ellery, with an indescribable mocking light in his great blue eyes.
For my own part, having that strange, vibrating susceptibility of constitution which I have described as making me peculiarly impressible by the moral sphere of others, I felt in the presence of this man a singular and painful contest of attraction and repulsion, such as one might imagine to be produced by the near approach of some beautiful but dangerous animal. His singular grace and brilliancy awoke in me an undefined antagonism akin to antipathy, and yet, as if under some enchantment, I could not keep my eyes off from him, and eagerly listened to everything that he had to say.
With that quick insight into human nature which enabled him, as by a sort of instinct, to catch the reflex of every impression which he made on any human being, he surveyed the row of wide-open, wondering, admiring eyes, which followed him at our end of the table.
“Aha, what have we here?” he said, as he advanced and laid his hand on my head. I shuddered and shook it off with a feeling of pain and dislike amounting to hatred.
“How now, my little man?” he said; “what ‘s the matter here?” and then he turned to Tina. “Here ‘s a little lady will be more gracious, I know,” and he stooped and attempted to kiss her.
The little lady drew her head back and repulsed him with the dignity of a young princess.
“Upon my word,” he said, “we learn the tricks of our trade early, don’t we? Pardon me, petite mademoiselle,” he said as he retreated, laughing. “So you don’t like to be kissed?”
“Only by proper persons,” said Tina, with that demure gravity which she could at times so whimsically assume, but sending with the words a long mischievous flash from under her downcast eyelashes.
“Upon my word, if there is n’t one that ‘s perfect in Mother Eve’s catechism at an early age,” said Ellery Davenport. “Young lady, I hope for a better acquaintance with you one of these days.”
“Come Ellery, let the child alone,” said Miss Debby; “why should you be teaching all the girls to be forward? If you notice her so much she will be vain.”
“That ‘s past praying for, anyhow,” said he, looking with admiration at the dimpling, sparkling face of Tina, who evidently was dying to answer him back. “Don’t you see the monkey has her quiver full of arrows?” he said. “Do let her try her infant hand on me.”
But Miss Debby, eminently proper, rose immediately, and broke up the tea-table session by proposing adjournment to the parlor.
After this we had family prayers, the maid-servants and man-servant being called in and ranged in decorous order on a bench that stood prepared for exactly that occasion in a corner of the room. Miss Deborah placed a stand, with a great quarto edition of the Bible and prayer-book, before her mother, and the old lady read in a trembling voice the psalm, the epistle, and the gospel for Easter evening, and then, all kneeling, the evening prayers. The sound of her tremulous voice, and the beauty of the prayers themselves, which I vaguely felt, impressed me so much that I wept, without knowing why, as one sometimes does at plaintive music. One thing in particular filled me with a solemn surprise; and that was the prayers, which I had never heard before, for “The Royal Family of England.” The trembling voice rose to fervent clearness on the words, “We beseech Thee with Thy favor, to behold our most Sovereign Lord, King George, and so replenish him with the grace of Thy Holy Spirit, that he may always incline to Thy will, and walk in Thy way. Endue him plenteously with heavenly gifts, grant him in health and wealth long to live, strengthen him that he may vanquish and overcome all his enemies, and finally after this life may attain everlasting joy and felicity, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
The loud “Amen” from Miss Debby which followed this, heartily chorussed as it was by the well-taught man-servant and maid-servants, might have done any king’s heart good. For my part, I was lost in astonishment; and when the prayer followed “for the gracious Queen Charlotte, Their Royal Highnesses, George, Prince of Wales, the Princess Dowager of Wales, and all the Royal Family,” my confusion of mind was at its height. All these unknown personages were to be endued with the Holy Spirit, enriched with heavenly grace, and brought to an everlasting kingdom, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. I must confess that all I had heard of them previously, in my education, had not prepared me to see the propriety of any peculiar celestial arrangements in their favor; but the sweet and solemn awe inspired by the trembling voice which pleaded went a long way towards making me feel as if there must have been a great mistake in my bringing up hitherto.
When the circle rose from their knees, Ellery Davenport said to Miss Debby, “It ‘s a pity the king of England could n’t know what stanch supporters he has in Boston.”
“I don’t see,” said the old lady, “why they won’t let us have that prayer read in churches now; it can’t do any harm.”
“I don’t, either,” said Ellery. “For my part, I don’t know any one who needs praying for more than the King of England; but the prayers of the Church don’t appear to have been answered in his case. If he had been in the slightest degree ‘endowed with heavenly gifts,’ he need n’t have lost these American colonies.”
“Come, Ellery, none of your profane talk,” said Miss Debby; “you don’t believe in anything good.”
“On the contrary, I always insist on seeing the good before I believe; I should believe in prayer, if I saw any good comes from it.”
“For shame, Ellery, when children are listening to you!” said Miss Debby. “But come, my little folks,” she added, rising briskly, “it ‘s time for these little eyes to be shut.”
The dear old lady called us all to her, and kissed us “good night,” laying her hand gently on our heads as she did so. I felt the peaceful influence of that hand go through me like music, and its benediction even in m
y dreams.
CHAPTER XXV.
EASTER SUNDAY.
FOR a marvel, even in the stormy clime of Boston, our Easter Sunday was one of those celestial days which seem, like the New Jerusalem of the Revelations, to come straight down from God out of heaven, to show us mortals what the upper world may be like. Our poor old Mother Boston has now and then such a day given to her, even in the uncertain spring-time; and when all her bells ring together, and the old North Church chimes her solemn psalm-tunes, and all the people in their holiday garments come streaming out towards the churches of every name which line her streets, it seems as if the venerable dead on Copps Hill must dream pleasantly, for “Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord,” and even to this day, in dear old Boston, their works do follow them.
At an early hour we were roused, and dressed ourselves with the most anxious and exemplary care. For the first time in my life I looked anxiously in the looking-glass, and scanned with some solicitude, as if it had been a third person, the little being who called himself “I.” I saw a pair of great brown eyes, a face rather thin and pale, a high forehead, and a great profusion of dark curls, – the combing out of which, by the by, was one of the morning trials of my life. In vain Aunt Lois had cut them off repeatedly, in the laudable hope that my hair would grow out straight. It seemed a more inextricable mat at each shearing; but as Harry’s flaxen poll had the same peculiarity, we consoled each other, while we labored at our morning toilet.
Down in the sunny parlor, a little before breakfast was on the table, we walked about softly with our hands behind us, lest Satan, who we were assured had always some mischief still for idle hands to do, should entice us into touching some of the many curious articles which we gazed upon now for the first time. There was the picture of a very handsome young man over the mantel-piece, and beneath it hung a soldier’s sword in a large loop of black crape, a significant symbol of the last great sorrow which had overshadowed the household. On one side of the door, framed and glazed, was a large coat of arms of the Kittery family, worked in chenille and embroidery, – the labor of Miss Deborah’s hands during the course of her early education. In other places on the walls hung oil paintings of the deceased master of the mansion, and of the present venerable mistress, as she was in the glow of early youth. They were evidently painted by a not unskilful hand, and their eyes always following us as we moved about the room gave us the impression of being overlooked, even while as yet there was nobody else in the apartment. Conspicuously hung on one side of the room was a copy of one of the Vandyck portraits of Charles the First, with his lace ruff and peaked beard. Underneath this was a printed document, framed and glazed; and I, who was always drawn to read any thing that could be read, stationed myself opposite to it and began reading aloud: –
Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe Page 269