The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864

It was a case which had vastly interested me. I mean that it was quite in my line, detecting a man's secret in his countenance. I was glad of the practice.

Mary Ellen knew, too; and yet she had received no help from the profession. Only an innocent little country-girl! 'Twas her natural penetration. What a pity women can't be lawyers, they have so much to start with!

Poor David! He wasn't sensible of what had befallen him. How should he be? He didn't know why he smarted up his dress, why Bay-fishing wasn't profitable, or why working on the land agreed with him best. He hadn't even found out, as late as June, why he liked to have her bring out the luncheon-basket to the mowers. But before the autumn he had discovered his own secret. He knew very well, then, why he thought it a good plan for Mary Ellen to come in and pare apples with Miss Joey at the halves.

I could have wished him a pleasanter way, though, of finding out his secret.

There was another that saw the alteration, and that was Emily, the sick one,—the care and the blessing of the household. For twelve summers her foot had never pressed the greensward. They told me that once she was a gay, frolicsome girl. 'Twas hard to believe, so tranquil, so spiritual, so heavenly was the expression which long suffering had brought to her face. That face, apart from this wonderful expression, was beautiful to look upon. It seemed as if sickness itself was loath to meddle with aught so lovely. So, while her body slowly wasted from the ravages of disease, her countenance remained fair and youthful.

She often had days of freedom from suffering,—days when, as she expressed it, her Father called away His unwelcome messengers. At these times she would sit in her stuffed chair, or lie on the sofa, and the family went in and out as they chose. Everybody liked to stay in Emily's room. Its very atmosphere was elevating.

Then there were collected so many beautiful things,—for these she craved. "I need them, mother," she would say,—"my soul has need of them. If there are no flowers, get green leaves, or a picture of Christ, or of some saint, or little child." And sometimes I would dream, for a moment, that even I, with all my obtuseness, my earthiness, could have some faint perception of the way in which, in the midst of suffering, any form of beauty was a strength and a consolation.

And singularly enough for a sick girl, she liked gold ornaments and jewels. People used to lend her their chains and bracelets. "I know it is strange, mother," she said, one day, while holding in her hand a ruby bracelet,—"strange that I care for them; but they look so strong, so enduring, so full of life: hang them across the white vase, please; I love to see them there."

It was good for her when Mary Ellen came, vigorous, fresh, beautiful, like the early morning. She liked to have her in the room, to watch her face, to braid her long brown hair, and dress it with flowers, or pearls, or strings of beads,—to clasp her hands about the pretty white throat, as if she were only a pigeon, or a little lamb, brought in for her to play with.

She was pleased, too, about David. "He is so good," she said to me one day. "I always knew he had love and gentleness in his heart, and now an angel has come to roll away the stone."

I thought a great deal of my privilege of going into her room, the same as the rest. After the perplexing, and often low, grovelling duties of my profession, it was like sitting at the gate of heaven.

I used to love to come home, at the close of a long summer's day, and find the family assembled there. I felt the rest of the hour so much more, sitting among people who had been hard at work all day.

The windows would be set wide open, that not a breath of out-door air might he lost. And with the air would seem to come in the deep peace, the solemn Hush of a country-twilight. It pervaded the room; and even my cold, worldly nature would be touched.

In these dim, shadowy hours, when Nature seemed to stand still, breathless, waiting for the coming darkness, if I longed for anything, it was for a voice to sing. Speech seemed harsh. Yet we often repeated hymns and ballads. Emily knew a great many, and, after saying them over, would dwell upon them, drawing the most beautiful meanings from passages which to me had seemed obscure, and sometimes talked like one inspired.

I felt that these seasons were my salvation,—were saving me from my worldliness. Still, I sometimes had a guilty feeling, as if I were drawing from Emily her beautiful life,—as if I were getting something to which I had no right, something too good for me,—as if she might exclaim, at any moment, "Virtue is gone out from me!"

But Mary Ellen could sing. That was good. She knew hymns by dozens, and tunes to them all, both old and new. Besides these, she could sing love-songs and quaint old ballads, that nobody ever heard before.

After she came, we had music to our twilights.

David, of course, was a listener. He said he was always fond of music. I used sometimes to wonder if the pretty singer of love-songs had any special designs upon him. For I had been curiously watching this innocent little country-girl.

In talking with a friend of mine, he had laid it down as a law of Nature, that all women, wild or cultivated, delight to worry and torment all men; that they play with and prey upon their hearts; and that this is done instinctively, as a cat worries a mouse.

"A ministering angel thou," quoted I, rather abstractedly, as if comparing views.

"Angels? Yes,—and so they are," he answered, rather smartly. "And every man's heart is a pool, into which they must descend and trouble the waters!"

I knew my friend had reason for his bitterness. Still, I resolved to watch Mary Ellen.

David's bashful attentions were by no means displeasing to her: that I saw. She had not been accustomed to your glib, off-handed, smartly dressed youths. Here was a good-looking young man, of blameless life, who helped her draw up the bucket, took her to sail, taught her to row, brought her home bushes of huckleberries and branches of swamp-pinks from the pasture, and shells from the beach.

That few words accompanied his offerings was matter of little moment, since what he would have said was easily enough read in his face. It was sufficient that his eyes spoke, that they followed her motions, that he seemed never ready to go so long as she remained, that when she went he could not long stay behind.

Poor David! It wasn't his fault. He didn't mean to. Everybody knew 't wasn't a bit like him. He was charmed. And that reminds me of what Miss Joey said to Mr. Lane, the old man.

It was just about sundown, and they two were sitting in the front-room, looking out of the windows. It had been a sultry day. I was trying to keep comfortable, and had found a nice little seat just outside the door, underneath the lilacs.

Mary Ellen and David came slowly walking past. They didn't seem to be saying much. She had come out bareheaded, just for a little fresh air and a stroll round the house. How cool she looked, in her light blue gown, and her white apron, that tied behind with white bows and strings, or streams! A May-bee buzzed about their ears, and lighted on her shoulder. Poor David! He brushed it off before he thought. How frightened he looked! how confused! But then just think of all the other may-bes he had in his head, confusing him, buzzing to him all manner of beautiful things!

They stopped under the early-ripe tree. Mary Ellen pointed upwards, laughing. He sprang up and snatched off the apple. Then she pointed higher, and still higher, until at last he climbed the tree, and dropped the apples down into her apron.

"Mr. Lane," said Miss Joey, in an impressive undertone, "did you ever hear of anybody's bewitchin' anybody?"

"In books, Joey," he answered.

"Wal," said she, in a low, but decided voice, "I'll tell you what I think, and what's ben my mind from the beginnin' on't. That gal's bewitched David. Don't you remember," she continued, "that the fust week they come David had a bad cold?"

"Wal, like enough he did," drawled the old man. "David was always subject to a bad cold."

"He did," replied Miss Joey. "I've got the whole on't in my mind now. And mebby you've noticed that these folks are great for gatherin' in herbs, and lobely, and bottlin' up hot-crop?"

"Pepper-tea's a suvverin' remedy for a cold," put in the old man.

"But now," Miss Joey proceeded, sinking her voice almost to a whisper, "I want to fix your thoughts on somethin' dark-colored, in a vial, that she fetched across the entry for him to take."

"Help him any?"

"Can't say it did, and can't say it didn't. But ever sence that, David's ben a different man. He's follered that gal about as if there'd ben a chain a-drawin' him,—as if she'd flung a lassoo round his neck, and was pullin' him along. See him, and you see her. If she wants huckleberries, she has huckleberries. If she wants violets, she has violets. See him now, lookin' down at her through the branches. And see her, turnin' her face up towards him. He's nigh upon addled. Shouldn't wonder this minute, if he didn't know enough to keep his hold o' the branch. Does that seem like our David, Mr. Lane, a bashful young feller like him?"

"Bashful or bold makes no difference," replied the old man. "Love'll go where't is sent,—likely to hit one as t' other. And when they're hit, you can't tell 'em apart.—Why, Joey," he continued, suddenly quickening his tone, "there's the Doctor's boy, as I'm alive!"

Dr. Luce lived the other side of "the Crick." The young man coming along the road was his son, just arrived home.

As he came nearer, I took notice of his dress. I usually did, when people came from the city. He wore a black bombazine coat, white trousers, white waistcoat, blue necktie, and a Panama hat. His complexion was fair, with plenty of light hair waving about his temples. He stepped briskly along, with shoulders set back, twirling his glove.

I knew Warren Luce well enough. I could tell just how it would strike him, seeing David up in a tree, flinging down apples to a girl. I could very well judge, too, how he would encounter the fair apparition beneath.

But how would he strike Mary Ellen,—this polished, smooth-tongued, handsomely dressed youth? I had forebodings. I seemed to divine the future. I fidgeted upon my seat, and straightened myself up, rather pleased that my studies were getting complicated,—that I should have a chance of searching out the natural heart of woman, when under the most trying circumstances.

But just as I was making ready to commence upon my new chapter, Mrs. Lane called me to come and help move Emily. I very often lifted her from the chair to the sofa. It could hardly be called lifting. 'Twas like taking a little bird out of its nest and placing it in another. "The Doctor's boy has come," said I, very quietly, when I had wheeled the sofa so that she might feel the air from the window.

She made no answer then; but a little after, when her mother stepped out a minute, she said, just as quietly,—

"How will it be?"

"How do you think?" I said.

"I wish," she replied, "that he hadn't come. David is a dear brother. I fear."

When Emily said "I fear," there was no need to ask what. She feared the effect upon Warren Luce of Mary Ellen's fresh and simple beauty. She feared the effect upon her of his city-manners and fluent speech. She feared for David an abiding sorrow. Warren Luce had travelled, had been in society, and had been educated. I knew him well for a selfish, heartless fellow, whose very soul had been drowned in worldly pleasures. Just from the midst of artificial life, how charming must appear to him our sweet wild-rose, our singing-bird, our fresh, untutored, innocent little country-girl!

"But why borrow trouble?" I said to myself. "It will come soon enough. If not in this way, then in some other. Trouble stays not long away."

CHAPTER II

"The Crick" wasn't half a mile across. The Doctor's house was in plain sight from our windows. 'Twas just a pleasant walk round there, and we called them neighbors. The two young men had always been on the very best of terms. Warren liked David because he knew how good he was, and David liked Warren because he didn't know how bad he was. The chief bond between them was the boat. Our stylish young gentleman, when he came down to Nature, wanted to get as near her as he could,—not, perhaps, that he loved her, but he liked a change. Nothing suited him better than "camping out," or starting off before light a-fishing with David.

I was not at all surprised, therefore, that he should appear bright and early the next morning, to make some arrangement for the day.

I saw him coming, from my window, and was pleased that I had lingered at home rather beyond office-hours,—for Mary Ellen was shelling peas in the back-doorway beneath, and I should have an opportunity of advancing somewhat in my new chapter. It was a nice shady place. The door-steps and the ground about them were still damp from the dew.

He came trippingly along, inquiring for David. Mary Ellen blushed some. I saw that their acquaintance had commenced the night before. He chatted a little with the old folks, but directed most of his talk to Mary Ellen, that he might have an excuse for looking her full in the face, and drinking in her beauty. I saw him seat himself on the flat stone. I saw him glance admiringly at the pretty white hands, handling so daintily the green pods. I saw him show her how to make a boat of one, putting in sticks for the thwarts. And finally, I saw David come round the house and stop short.

Warren sprang up.

"Waiting for you, David," said he. "Tide coming, stiff breeze. We can be on Jake's Ledge in a twinkling."

And passing over a high hill, on my way to the Square, I saw the sloop-boat, with flag flying, putting off towards Jake's Ledge.

For the next two months the Doctor's boy walked straight in the path which my prophetic vision had marked out for him. Morning, noon, and evening brought him paddling across "the Crick," or footing it round by the shore-way.

Emily and I were troubled. We had once feared that our good brother and friend would pass through life as a blind man wanders through a flower-garden, lost to its chief beauty and sweetness. But his eyes had been opened. And now was his life-path to lead him into a thorny wilderness? was a worse darkness to settle down upon him?

I fancied there was a hopeless look in his face,—that he shrank into himself more than ever. The Doctor's boy had fairer gifts than he to offer, and no lack of well-chosen words. It was with the utmost uneasiness that I caught, occasionally, some of these telling phrases. I liked not his air of devotedness, his eye constantly following Mary Ellen's movements. I liked not the flower-gatherings, the rambles among the rocks, the rowing by moonlight. Emily's short sentence came often to mind, "I fear."

For I felt almost sure that Warren Luce was in earnest,—that he was deeply and truly in love with Mary Ellen. Not that he intended this at first, but that her beauty conquered him. Most likely this was the first of his knowing he had a heart, 'twas so small. Still, 'twas the best thing he had, and appeared to hold considerable love for one of its size.

And how was it with Mary Ellen? Ah, she was enough to puzzle a justice! I was not long, though, in perceiving that this unenlightened maiden felt instinctively that her personal appearance should be attended to a little more carefully than when only David was to admire. Her hair was always in nice order, and I observed that even in the morning she would have some bit of muslin or lace-work peeping from beneath her short sleeve. I hope there is no harm in saying that I had, even before this, noticed the shapeliness of her arm. I think I was struck with it the first morning, when she came across the entry.

And was she really a coquette, carrying herself steadily along between two lovers, that she smiled just as pleasantly on David, giving him never a cold word, even while the blushes kindled by the soft speeches of Warren Luce still burned upon her cheeks?

I found myself getting confused. My new studies were very absorbing in their nature, and extremely intricate. Three books to translate, and never a dictionary!

After patient investigation, I settled down upon the conviction that there was in the heart of our little country-girl one corner of which David's constant goodness, and earnest, though unspoken love, had given him the entire possession.

I thought thus, because I saw that in her own nature were truth and goodness. And she was quick of perception. I was often struck by the shrewdness of her remarks. I thought the more favorably of her, too, that she was fond of pictures. Before they came to live in the other part, she had taken a dozen lessons of an itinerant drawing-master. I had often encountered her in my walks, trying to make a sketch of a tree or a house. She always tucked it behind her, though, or into her pocket, the minute I came in sight.

It was certainly true that she had not yielded to the fascinations of the Doctor's boy so readily and so entirely as I had feared. "The girl has some common sense," I thought, "some stability,—and likewise some ideas of the eternal fitness of things." For I noticed, with pleasure, one night in Emily's room, when somebody said, "There comes the Doctor's boy," that she got up and closed the door.

She had been singing the old-fashioned hymn commencing,—

"On the fair Heavenly Hills."

The last line,

"And all the air is Love,"

was repeated. The music was peculiar,—the notes rising and falling and rolling over each other like waves.

She had just stopped. Nobody moved. The silence was broken only by the rustling of the lilac-bushes, as the night-wind swept over them.

"The whispering of angels!" said Emily, softly.

I was pleased that she closed the door. It showed that she felt his unfitness to enter our little paradise. I took heart for David. And yet it was only the next day that came the crowning with hop-blossoms.

I had returned home early, and was in my own room, waiting for tea. Casting my eyes towards the garden, I saw Mary Ellen sitting beneath a tree, leaning against the trunk. Near by was a hop-pole, laden with its green. And near by, also, stood Warren Luce, holding in his hand a thin, square book. He had gathered a quantity of the beautiful hop-blossoms and tendrils, and was directing her how to arrange them about her head. It appeared to be his object to make her look like a picture in his book. "A little more to the right. A few leaves about the ear," I heard him say; and then, "They must drop a little lower on the other side. In the picture, the tendrils touch the left shoulder. Now hold the basket full of them, in this way. The blossoms must be trailing over it, and your right hand upon the handle. Not so. Let me show"—And as he touched her hand to place it in the right position, I almost sprang from my seat, I was so indignant for David.

I might have saved myself the trouble, though, for the next moment David himself appeared, walking slowly home from the Square, with something in a basket he was bringing for Emily. David was a good brother.

"Perfect!" exclaimed Warren, as he completed his tableau. "Just like the picture, only"—And here he dropped his voice.

"David, come here," he called out, "and see which picture is the prettiest."

Poor David! I saw that it was all he could do, to walk straight past without speaking.

"Take them off," said Mary Ellen. "They are heavy."

And she pulled the wreath from her head.

That evening, coming home late, I saw a bright light in her room, and glanced up, as I came near. She stood at the looking-glass between the windows, holding a light in her hand. Upon her head, trailing down upon her left shoulder, was a wreath of hop-blossoms. She wanted to know how she looked in them. At least, this was my interpretation of the vision. And while she held the light, first in one hand, then in the other, turning this way and that, I stood debating whether there was any harm in a girl's knowing she was pretty, or in her wishing to inform herself whether any adornments rather out of the common course—hop-blossoms, for instance—were becoming. That question, and the other, about all women being coquettes, remain in my mind undecided to this day.

Emily must have noticed something peculiar in David's manner, when he brought her the basket. For it was the next day, I think, that she said to me, in her quiet way,—

"Mr. Turner, a new feeling is taking hold of me. I'm afraid I—hate!"

She made this announcement in her usual calm voice, as if she had been speaking of some new manifestation of her disease. Then she told what she had been observing in David's manner, and in Mary Ellen's. Said she,—

"The girl has no heart. She trifles with David, and he is so wretched. Better the stone had never been rolled away than his love be so thrown back upon him. I pity him so much, and can do nothing."

I hardly knew what to say in reply, for I was just as troubled as she about David. He wandered off by himself, in the chill autumn evenings, returned late, and stole off to his bed in silence. Stories of suicides came to me. A man who never spoke might do anything. And this, I thought, was the point. If I could only make him speak!

He had always been more open with me than anybody,—had expressed himself freely about the homestead, and his plans for redeeming it, and about his anxiety for Emily. I could certainly, I thought, bring him to speak of his trouble, if I only had for him a sure word of encouragement. But this I had not, because Mary Ellen was such a puzzle. Her openness served better for hiding the truth than did David's reserve. At the bottom of my heart, though, was full faith in her love for him. I paid her the compliment of believing she was too good to care seriously for such a man as Warren Luce. But, then, I couldn't give my faith to David.

How would it do to make a bold move,—to speak to her? Might I not show her how much was at stake, and in some way have my faith confirmed? Would, or wouldn't it answer for me to do this? Should, or shouldn't I make bungling work of it? I turned the matter over in my mind, to assure myself of my right to intermeddle.

We, too, had a sort of friendship, and I conceived that she very much respected my opinion. In some ways, I had been of service to her. The old man, her father, had been involved in legal troubles. She was anxious to understand all about it. So I talked law to her, read law to her, and marked law for her in my big books, besides giving advice gratis. She had also taken other books from my library, whenever she chose. I had lent her pictures to copy, and had shown her the way to various points, in the country round about, whence a simple view might easily be taken. Moreover, I was all the same as one of the family, and felt a brother's interest in David. And, lastly, I was eight or ten years older than she.

'Twas certainly my right to speak. I could well see, however, that it was a matter of some delicacy. My superior age and wisdom might shed a halo around me; still, I was nothing more nor less than a young man, for all that.

It was one pleasant afternoon in the latter part of September, that, engaged in these perplexing meditations, I strolled down towards the shore. Mary Ellen hadn't been in to tea, her mother said, and I was wondering what had become of her.

One solitary buttonwood stood close to the edge of the bank,—so close that at high tide its brandies hung over the water. I climbed up into a reserved seat which was always kept for me there, a comfortable little crotch among the boughs. Upon extraordinary occasions,—a splendid sunset, or a rain, coming over the water, or an uncommonly fine moon, or a furious storm,—I used to mount to this seat for a good view.

On this particular afternoon the tide was unusually high,—in some places, up to the top-rail of the meadow-fence. Our "Crick" was quite a little bay.

A skiff came paddling along-shore. As it drew near, I saw that it contained two people,—the Doctor's boy and Mary Ellen. He was singing, but I was unable to distinguish the words. Then there was some laughing. After that, she began singing to him, and I made out both words and tune, for then the boat was quite near. It was an old-fashioned ballad, which I once heard her sing to Emily. It began thus:—