“Now, Mr. Henderson,” said Eva, as she stood with me surveying this scene, “is not a Church which preserves all these historical memorials a most lovely one? Ought we not thus to cherish the memory of that greatest event that ever happened in this world? And how beautiful it is to bring up children year after year by festivals like these, to mark off their life in acts of remembrance.”
“You speak truly,” I said, sharing her enthusiasm. “I could wish the Church of all good people had never ceased to keep Easter; indeed, they who do disregard it seem to me a cold minority out of the great fellowship. I think it is fortunate that the Romish and the Episcopal churches are bringing us, descendants of the Puritans, back to those primitive customs. I, for one, come back willingly and joyfully.”
[Eva Van Arsdel to Isabel Convers.]
My DARLING BELLE, — I have been a naughty girl to let your letter lie so long. But my darling, it is not true, as you there suggest, that the bonds of sisterly affection, which bound us in school, are growing weaker, and that I no longer trust you as a confidential friend. Believe me, the day will never come, dearest Belle, when I shall cease to unfold to you every innermost feeling.
And now to come to the point about “that Mr. Henderson.” Indeed, my love, your cautions are greatly mistaken. It is true that, much to my surprise, he has taken a fancy to visit quite intimately at our house, and has made himself a general favorite in the family. Mamma, and Aunt Maria, and all the girls like him so much. But, then, you must know he is generally set down as Ida’s admirer. At all events, Ida and he are extremely good friends; and when he calls here he generally spends the largest part of the evening in her sanctum; and they have most edifying conversations on all the approved modern topics — the Darwinian theory, Woman’s Bights, and everything else you can think of. One thing I admit is a little peculiar — he notices everything that I say in conversation —— I must own. I never saw such an observing creature. For example, the first evening he was at our house, I just accidentally dropped before him the remark that I was going to early morning services in Lent, and would you believe it? — the next morning he was there, too, and walked home with me. I was the more astonished because he does not belong to the Church — so one would not expect it, you know. He is a member of the Bethany Church himself, but he seems delighted with our services, and talks about them beautifully — as well as our rector could. I really wish you could have heard him! He seems to have such an earnest, thoughtful mind; and what I like in him is, that he never flatters, and talks that matter-of-course complimentary nonsense that some men think is the thing to be talked to ladies; neither has he that way of talking down to one that superior men sometimes have when they are talking with us girls. I read somewhere this sentiment — that we may know the opinion people have of us by the kind of conversation they address to us: and if this is so I ought to be flattered by the way Mr. Henderson talks to me; for I think he shows quite as much anxiety to find out my opinion on all subjects as he does Ida’s. You will, perhaps, think it rather peculiar if I tell you that ever since that first morning he has been as constant at the morning services as I have, and always walks home with me. In this way we really are getting quite intimately acquainted. Now, Belle, don’t put on that knowing look of yours, and intimate that there is anything particular in all this, for there is not. I do assure you there is not a bit of nonsense in it. You would be perfectly astonished to hear how gravely and philosophically we talk. We moralize and philosophize, and as Jim Fellows would say, “come the high moral dodge” in a way that would astonish you.
And yet, Belle, they wrong us who are called fashionable girls when they take for granted that we are not capable of thinking seriously, and that we prefer those whose conversation consists only of flattery and nonsense. It is mainly because I feel that Mr. Henderson has deep, serious purposes in life, and because he appreciates and addresses himself to the deepest part of my nature, that his friendship is so valuable to me. I say friendship advisedly, dear Belle, because I insist upon it that there can be friendship, pure and simple, between a gentleman and a lady; in our case there is “only this and nothing more.”
How very teasing and provoking it is that there cannot be this friendship without observation and comment! Now I am very careful to avoid any outward appearance of special intimacy that might make talk, and he appears to be very careful also. After the first day at morning service he did not join me immediately on going out of church, but went out at another door and joined me at the next corner. I was so thankful for it, for old Mrs. Eyelett was there with her sharp eyes, and I know by experience that though she is a pillar of the Church she finds abundance of leisure from her devotions to watch all the lambs of the flock; and I am one that everybody seems to keep specially in mind as proper to be looked after. If I only speak to, or look at, or walk with the same person more than once, the airy tongues of rumor are busy engaging and marrying me. Isn’t it horrid? I would not have old Mrs. Eyelett get anything of this sort into her head for the world; it’s so disagreeable to have such a thing get to a gentleman’s hearing when he knows there is no truth in it; and the world has condescended to interest itself so much in my fortunes that it seems dangerous for anybody to be more than civil without being set down as an aspirant.
The only comfort there is in being persistently reported engaged to Mr. Sydney is that it serves to keep off other reports, and I sometimes think of the old fable of the fox who would not have the present swarm of flies driven off lest there should come a new one in its place. How I wish people would let one’s private affairs alone! Here I must break off, for there is company downstairs.
Wednesday Eve.
I have let this thing lie some days, dear Belle, because there has been so much going and coming time has flitted away. Mr. H. has been at our house a good deal. I have made a discovery about him. He has a beautiful cousin that he thinks everything of—” Cousin Caroline” — and she is a very superior woman. So you see how silly all your suggestions are, Belle. For aught I know he may be engaged to this Cousin Caroline. I believe she is coming to New York, and I am just wild to see her. You know I want to see if I shall like her. She must be just the thing for him; and I hope I shall like her. Ida thinks she shall. Aunt Maria, who wants to portion off the fate of mortals, has made up her mind that Mr. H. must be an admirer of Ida’s; and, in short, that they are to be for each other.
Ida looks down on all this sort of thing with her placid superiority. She has a perfect contempt for it, so very perfect that it is quiet. She does not even trouble herself to express it. Ida likes Mr. H. very much, and has a straightforward, open, honest friendship with him, and doesn’t trouble her head a bit what people may say.
Saturday Morning.
We are all busy now about Easter decorations. We have ordered no end of flowers, and are going into adornments on a great scale. We press all hands in that we can get. Mr. Henderson and Jim Fellows are coming tonight to tea to help us carry our things to church and get them up.
Monday Morning.
I am so tired. We were up nearly all night Saturday, and then at the sunrise service Easter morning, and services all day. Beautiful! Lovely as they could be! But if one has a good time in this world one must pay for it —— and I am all tired out.
Mr. Henderson was with us through the whole affair. One thing seemed to me quite strange. I dropped my glove among some flowers while I was busy putting up a wreath of lilies, and I saw him through a bower of hemlock-trees walk up to the spot, and slyly confiscate the article. In a moment I came back, and said, “I dropped my glove here. Where can it be?” The wretched creature helped me search for it with every appearance of interest, but never offered to restore the stolen goods. It was all so quiet — so private! You know, gentlemen often pretend, as a matter of gallantry, that they want your glove, or a ribbon, or some such memento; but this was all so secret. He evidently thinks I don’t know it; and, Belle — what should you think about it?
E
VA.
CHAPTER XXVII. ENCHANTMENT AND DISENCHANTMENT
DURING a month after Easter I was, so to speak, in a state of mental somnambulism, seeing the visible things of this mortal life through an enchanted medium, in which old, prosaic, bustling New York, with its dry drudgeries and uninteresting details, became suddenly vivified and glorified; just as when some rosy sunset floods with light the matter-of-fact architecture of Printing-House Square, and etherealizes every line, and guides every detail, and heightens every bit of color, till it all seems picturesque and beautiful.
I did not know what was the matter with me, but I felt somehow as if I had taken the elixir of life and was breathing the air of an immortal youth. Whenever I sat down to write I found my inspiration. I no longer felt myself alone in my thoughts and speculations; I wrote to another mind, a mind that I felt would recognize mine; and then I carried what I had written, and read it to Ida Van Arsdel for her criticisms. Ida was a capital critic, and had graciously expressed her willingness and desire to aid me in this way, to any extent. But was it Ida who was my inspiration?
Sitting by, bent over her embroidery, or coming in accidentally and sitting down to listen, was Eva; full of thought, full of inquiry; sometimes gay and airy, sometimes captious and controversial — always suggestive and inspiring. From these readings grew talks protracted and confidential, on all manner of subjects; and each talk was the happy parent of more talks, till it seemed that there was growing up an endless series of occasions for our having long and exciting interviews; for what was said yesterday, in the reflections and fancies of the night following, immediately blossomed out into queries and consequences and inferences on both sides, which it was immediately and pressingly necessary that we should meet to compare and adjust. Now, when two people are in this state of mind, it is surprising what a number of providential incidents are always bringing them together. It was perfectly astonishing to us both to find how many purely accidental interviews we had. If I went out for a walk, I was sure, first or last, to meet her. To be sure, I took to walking very much in streets and squares where I had observed she might be expected to appear; but that did not make the matter seem to me the less unpremeditated.
I had been in the habit of taking a daily constitutional stroll in Central Park, and the Van Arsdels were in the habit of driving there at orthodox fashionable hours. In time, it seemed to happen that this afternoon stroll of mine always brought forth the happy fruit of a pleasant interview. There was no labyrinth or bower or summer-house, no dingle or bosky dell, so retired that I did not find it occasionally haunted by the presence of this dryad. True she was not there alone — sometimes with Ida, sometimes with Alice, or with a lively bevy of friends; but it made no difference with whom so long as she was there.
The many sins of omission and commission of which the City Fathers of New York are accused are, I think, wonderfully redeemed and covered by the beauties of the provision for humanity which they have made in Central Park. Having seen every park in the world, I am not ashamed to glorify our own, as providing as much beauty and cheap pleasure as can anywhere be found under the sun.
Especially ought all lovers par excellence to crown the projectors and executors of this Park with unfading wreaths of olive and myrtle. It is so evidently adapted to all the purposes of falling in love and keeping in love that the only wonder is that any one can remain a bachelor in presence of such advantages and privileges! There is all the peacefulness, all the seclusion, all the innocent wildness of a country Arcadia, given for the price of a five cents’ ride in the cars to any citizen who chooses to be made moral and innocent.
The Central Park is an immortal poem, forever addressing itself to the eye and ear in the whirl and bubble of that hot and bewildered city. It is a Wordsworth immortalized and made permanent, preaching to the citizens.
“One impulse from a vernal mood
May teach you more of man —
Of moral evil, and of good —
Than all the sages can.”
Certainly during this one season of my life I did full justice to the beauties of Central Park. There was not a nook or corner where wild flowers unfolded, where whitestemmed birches leaned over still waters, or ivies clambered over grottoed rocks, which I did not explore; and when in the winding walks of “the Ramble” I caught distant sight of a white drapery, or heard through budding thickets the silvery sounds of laughing and talking, I knew I was coming on one of those pleasant surprises for which the Park grounds are so nicely arranged.
Sometimes Eva would come with a carriage full of children, and with the gay little fairies would pass a sunny afternoon, swinging them, watching them riding in the little goat-carriages, or otherwise presiding over their gayeties. We had, under these circumstances, all the advantage of a tête-à-tête without any of the responsibility of seeking or prolonging it. In fact, the presence of others was a salvo to my conscience, and to public appearance, for, looking on Eva as engaged to another, I was very careful not to go over a certain line of appearances in my relations to her. My reason told me that I was upon dangerous ground for my own peace, but I quieted reason, as young men in my circumstances generally do, by the best of arguments.
I said to myself that, “No matter if she were engaged, why shouldn’t I worship at her shrine, and cherish her image as Dante did that of Beatrice,. and Tasso that of Eleanora d’Este?” and so on.
“To be sure,” I reflected, “this thing can never come to anything; of course she never can be anything to you more than a star in the heavens. But,” I said in reply, “she is mine to worship and adore with the worship that we give to all beautiful things. She is mine as are fair flowers, and the blue skies, and the bright sunshine, which cheer and inspire.”
I was conscious that I had in my own most sacred receptacle at home a little fairy glove that she had dropped, to which I had no claim; but I said to myself, “When a leaf falls from the rose, who shall say that I shall not gather it up?” So, too, I had one of those wonderful, useless little bits of fairy gossamer, which Eve’s daughters call a “pocket-handkerchief.” I had yet so little sense of sin that I stole that too, kept the precious theft folded in my Prayer-Book, and thought she would never know it. I began to understand the efficacy that is ascribed to holy relics, for it seemed to me that if ever any deadly trouble or trial should come upon me, I would lay these little things upon my heart, and they would comfort me.
And yet, all this while, I solemnly told myself I was not in love, — oh, no, not in the least. This was friendship — the very condensed, distilled essence of friendship, that and nothing more. To be sure, it was friendship set to a heroic key — friendship of a rare quality. I longed to do something for her, and often thought how glad I would be to give my life for her. Having a very active imagination, sometimes as I lay awake at night I perpetrated all sorts of confusions in the city of New York, for the sole purpose of giving myself an opportunity to do something for her. I set fire to the Van Arsdel mansion several times, in different ways, and, rushing in, bore her through the flames. I inaugurated a horrible plot against the life of her father, and rushing in at the critical moment, delivered the old gentleman that I might revel in her delight. I became suddenly a millionaire by the death of a supposititious uncle in the East Indies, and immediately proceeded to lay all my treasures at her feet.
As for Mr. Wat Sydney, it is incredible the resignation with which I saw him shipwrecked, upset in stages, crushed in railroad accidents, while I appeared on the scene as the consoling friend; not that I had, of course, any purpose of causing such catastrophes, but there was a degree of resignation attending the view of them that was soothing. I had in my heart a perfect certainty that Sydney was unworthy of her, but of course racks and thumbscrews should not draw from me the slightest intimation of the kind in her presence.
So matters went on for some weeks. But sometimes it happens, when a young fellow has long wandered in a beautiful dream of this kind, a sudden and harsh light of re
ality and of common-sense, every-day life is thrown upon him in an unforeseen moment; and this moment at last arrived for me.
One evening, when I dropped in for a call at the Van Arsdel mansion, the young ladies were all out at a concert, but Mrs. Van Arsdel was at home, and for some reason unusually bland and motherly.
“My dear Mr. Henderson,” she said, “it is rather hard on you to be obliged to accept an old woman like me as a substitute for youth and beauty; but really, I am not sorry, on the whole, that the girls are out, for I would like a little chance of having a free, confidential talk with you. Your relations with us have been so intimate and kindly, I feel, you know, quite as if you were one of us.”
I replied, of course, that “I was extremely flattered and gratified by her kindness,” and assured her with effusion, and, if I mistake not, with tears in my eyes, that “she had made me forget that I was a stranger in New York, and that I should always cherish the most undying recollection of the kindness that I had received in her family and of the pleasant hours I had spent there.”
“Ah, yes, indeed,” she said, “Mr. Henderson, it is pleasant to me to think that you feel so. I like to give young men a home feeling. But after all,” she continued, “one feels a little pensive once in a while, in thinking that one cannot always keep the home circle unbroken. Indeed, I never could see how some mothers could seem to rejoice as they do in the engagement of their daughters. There is Mrs. Elmore, now, her feelings are perfectly inexplicable to me.”
I assured her that I was quite of her way of thinking, and agreed with her perfectly.
“Now,” she said, “as the time comes on when I begin to think of parting with Eva, though to the very best man in the world, do you know, Mr. Henderson, it really makes me feel sad?”
Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe Page 331