The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865

"Oh, no," says Reuben, gayly. "I see Dr. Mowry off and on, pretty often. He's a clever old gentleman,—Dr. Mowry."

Clever old gentleman!

The Doctor walked on oppressed with grief,—silent, but with lips moving in prayer,—beseeching God to take away the stony heart from this poor child of his, and to give him a heart of flesh.

Reuben had improved, as we said, by his New York schooling. He was quick of apprehension, well informed; and his familiarity with the counting-room of Mr. Brindlock had given him a business promptitude that was specially agreeable to the Doctor, whose habits in that regard were of woful slackness. But religiously, the good man looked upon his son as a castaway. It was only too apparent that Reuben had not derived the desired improvement from attendance at the Fulton-Street Church. That attendance had been punctual, indeed, for nearly all the first year of his city life, in virtue of the inexorable habit of his education; but Dr. Mowry had not won upon him by any personal magnetism. The city Doctor was a ponderously good man, preaching for the most part ponderous sermons, and possessed of a most imposing friendliness of manner. When Reuben had presented to him the credentials from his father, (which he could hardly have done, save for the urgency of the Brindlocks,) the ponderous Doctor had patted him upon the shoulder, and said,—

"My young friend, your father is a most worthy man,—most worthy. I should be delighted to see you following in his steps. I shall be most glad to be of service to you. Our meetings for Bible instruction are on Wednesdays, at seven: the young men upon the left, the young ladies on the right."

The Doctor appeared to Reuben a man solemnly preoccupied with the immensity of his charge; and it seemed to him (though it was doubtless a wicked thought of the boy) that the ponderous minister would have counted it a matter of far smaller merit to instruct, and guide, and save a wanderer from the country, than to perform the same offices for a good fat sinner of the city.

As we have said, the memory of old teachings for a year or more made any divergence from the severe path of boyhood seem to Reuben a sin; and these divergencies so multiplied by easy accessions as to have made him, after a time, look upon himself very confidently, and almost cheerily, as a reprobate. And if a reprobate, why not taste the Devil's cup to the full?

That first visit to the theatre was like a bold push into the very domain of Satan. Even the ticket-seller at the door seemed to him on that eventful night an understrapper of Beelzebub, who looked out at him with the goggle eyes of a demon. That such a man could have a family, or family affections, or friendships, or any sense of duty or honor, was to him a thing incomprehensible; and when he passed the wicket for the first time into the vestibule of the old Park Theatre, the very usher in the corridor had to his eye a look like the Giant Dagon, and he conceived of him as mumbling, in his leisure moments, the flesh from human bones. And when at last the curtain rose, and the damp air came out upon him from behind the scenes as he sat in the pit, and the play began with some wonderful creature in tight bodice and painted cheeks, sailing across the stage, it seemed to him that the flames of Divine wrath might presently be bursting out over the house, or a great judgment of God break down the roof and destroy them all.

But it did not; and he took courage. It is so easy to find courage in those battles where we take no bodily harm! If conscience, sharpened by the severe discipline he had known, pricked him awkwardly at the first, he bore the stings with a good deal of sturdiness. A sinner, no doubt,—that he knew long ago: a little slip, or indeed no slip at all, had ranked him with the unregenerate. Once a sinner, (thus he pleasantly reasoned,) and a fellow may as well be ten times a sinner: a bad job anyhow. If in his moments of reflection—these being not yet wholly crowded out from his life—there comes a shadowy hope of better things, of some moral poise that should be in keeping with the tenderer recollections of his boyhood,—all this can never come, (he bethinks himself, in view of his old teaching,) except on the heel of some terrible conviction of sin; and the conviction will hardly come without some deeper and more damning weight of it than he feels as yet. A heavy cumulation of the weight may some day serve him a good turn. Thus the Devil twists his vague yearning for a condition of spiritual repose into a pleasantly smacking lash with which to scourge his grosser appetites; so that, upon the whole, Reuben drives a fine, showy team along the high-road of indulgence.

Yet the minister's son had no love for gross vices; there were human instincts in him (if it maybe said) that rebelled against his more deliberate sinnings. Nay, he affected with his boon companions an enjoyment of wanton excesses that he only half felt. A certain adventurous, dare-devil reach in him craved exercise. The character of Reuben at this stage would surely have offered a good subject for the study and the handling of Dr. Mowry, if that worthy gentleman could have won his way to the lad's confidence; but the ponderous methods of the city parson showed no fineness of touch. Even the father, as we have seen, could not reach down to any religious convictions of the son; and Reuben keeps him at bay with a banter, and an exaggerated attention to the personal comforts of the old gentleman, that utterly baffle him. Reuben holds too much in dread the old catechismal dogmas and the ultimate "anathema maran-atha."

So it was with a profound sigh that the father bade his son adieu after this city visit.

"Good bye, father! Love to them all in Ashfield."

So like Rachel's voice! So like Rachel's! And the heart of the old man yearned toward him and ached bitterly for him. "O my son Absalom! my son! my son Absalom!"

XXXV

Maverick hurried his departure from the city; and Adèle, writing to Rose to announce the programme of her journey, says only this much of Reuben:—"We have of course seen R–, who was very attentive and kind. He has grown tall,—taller, I should think, than Phil; and he is quite well-looking and gentlemanly. I think he has a very good opinion of himself."

The summer's travel offered a season of rare enjoyment to Adèle. The lively sentiment of girlhood was not yet wholly gone, and the thoughtfulness of womanhood was just beginning to tone, without controlling, her sensibilities. The delicate attentions of Maverick were more like those of a lover than of a father. Through his ever watchful eyes, Adèle looked upon the beauties of Nature with a new halo on them. How the water sparkled to her vision! How the days came and went like golden dreams!

Ah, happy youth-time! The Hudson, Lake George, Saratoga, the Mountains, the Beach,—to us old stagers, who have breasted the tide of so many years, and flung off long ago all the iridescent sparkles of our sentiment, these are only names of summer thronging-places. Upon the river we watch the growth of the crops, or ask our neighbors about the cost of our friend Faro's new country-seat; we lounge upon the piazzas of the hotels, reading price-lists, or (if not too old) an editorial; we complain of the windy currents upon the lake, and find our chiefest pleasure in a trout boiled plain, with a dressing of Champagne sauce; we linger at Fabian's on a sunny porch, talking politics with a rheumatic old gentleman in his overcoat, while the youngsters go ambling through the fir woods and up the mountains with shouts and laughter. Yet it was not always thus. There were times in the lives of us old travellers—let us say from sixteen to twenty—when the great river was a glorious legend trailing its storied length through the Highlands; when in every opening valley there lay purple shadows whereon we painted castles; when the corridors and shaded walks of the "United States" were like a fairy land, with flitting skirts and waving plumes, and some delicately gloved hand beating its reveille upon the heart; and when every floating film of mist along the sea, whether at Newport or Nahant, tenderly entreated the fancy.

But we forget ourselves, and we forget Adèle. In her wild exuberance of joy Maverick shares with a spirit that he had believed to be dead in him utterly. And if he finds it necessary to check from time to time the noisy effervescence of her pleasure, as he certainly does at the first, he does it in the most tender and considerate way; and Adèle learns, what many of her warm-hearted sisters never do learn, that a well-bred control over our enthusiasms in no way diminishes the exquisiteness of their savor.

Maverick should be something over fifty now, and his keenness of observation in respect to feminine charms is not perhaps so great as it once was; but even he cannot fail to see, with a pride that he makes no great effort to conceal, the admiring looks that follow the lithe, graceful figure of Adèle, wherever their journey may lead them. Nor, indeed, were there any more comely toilettes for a young girl to be met with anywhere than those which had been provided for the young traveller under the advice of Mrs. Brindlock.

It may be true—what his friend Papiol had predicted—that Maverick will be too proud of his child to keep her in a secluded corner of New England. For his pride there is certainly abundant reason; and what father does not love to see the child of whom he is proud admired?

Yet weeks had run by and Maverick had never once broached the question of a return. The truth was, that the new experience was so charming and so engrossing for him, the sweet, intelligent face ever at his side was so full of eager wonder, and he so delightfully intent upon providing new sources of pleasure and calling out again and again the gushes of her girlish enthusiasm, that he shrunk instinctively from a decision in which must be involved so largely her future happiness.

At last it was Adèle herself who suggested the inquiry,—

"Is it true, dear papa, what the Doctor tells me, that you may possibly take, me back to France with you?"

"What say you, Adèle? Would you like to go?"

"Dearly!"

"But," said Maverick, "your friends here,—can you so easily cast them away?"

"No, no, no!" said Adèle,—"not cast them away! Couldn't I come again some day? Besides, there is your home, papa; I should love any home of yours, and love your friends."

"For instance, Adèle, there is my book-keeper, a lean Savoyard, who wears a red wig and spectacles,—and Lucille, a great, gaunt woman, with a golden crucifix about her neck, who keeps my little parlor in order,—and Papiol, a fat Frenchman, with a bristly moustache and iron-gray hair, who, I dare say, would want to kiss the pet of his dear friend,—and Jeannette, who washes the dishes for us, and wears great wooden sabots"–

"Nonsense, papa! I am sure you have other friends; and then there's the good godmother."

"Ah, yes,—she indeed," said Maverick; "what a precious hug she would give you, Adèle!"

"And then—and then—should I see mamma?"

The pleasant humor died out of the face of Maverick on the instant; and then, in a slow, measured tone,—

"Impossible, Adèle,—impossible! Come here, darling!" and as he fondled her in a wild, passionate way, "I will love you for both, Adèle; she was not worthy of you, child."

Adèle, too, is overcome with a sudden seriousness.

"Is she living, papa?" And she gives him an appealing look that must be answered.

And Maverick seems somehow appalled by that innocent, confiding expression of hers.

"May-be, may-be, my darling; she was living not long since; yet it can never matter to you or me more. You will trust me in this, Adèle?" And he kisses her tenderly.

And she, returning the caress, but bursting into tears as she does so, says,—

"I will, I do, papa."

"There, there, darling!"—as he folds her to him; "no more tears,—no more tears, chérie!"

But even while he says it, he is nervously searching his pockets, since there is a little dew that must be wiped from his own eyes. Maverick's emotion, however, was but a little momentary contagious sympathy with the daughter,—he having no understanding of that unsatisfied yearning in her heart of which this sudden tumult of feeling was the passionate outbreak.

Meantime Adèle is not without her little mementos of the life at Ashfield, which come in the shape of thick double letters from that good girl Rose,—her dear, dear friend, who has been advised by the little traveller to what towns she should direct these tender missives; and Adèle is no sooner arrived at these postal stations than she sends for the budget which she knows must be waiting for her. And of course she has her own little pen in a certain travelling-escritoire the good papa has given her; and she plies her white fingers with it often and often of an evening, after the day's sight-seeing is over, to tell Rose, in return, what a charming journey she is having, and how kind papa is, and what a world of strange things she is seeing; and there are descriptions of sunsets and sunrises, and of lakes and of mountains, on those close-written sheets of hers, which Rose, in her enthusiasm, declares to be equal to many descriptions in print. We dare say they were better than a great many such.

Poor Rose feels that she has only very humdrum stories to tell in return for these; but she ekes out her letters pretty well, after all, and what they lack in novelty is made up in affection.

"There is really nothing new to tell," she writes, "except it be that our old friend, Miss Almira Tourtelot, astonished us all with a new bonnet last Sunday, and with new saffron ribbons; and she has come out, too, in the new tight sleeves, in which she looks drolly enough. Phil is very uneasy, now that his schooling is done, and talks of going to the West Indies about some business in which papa is concerned. I hope he will go, if he doesn't stay too long. He is such a dear, good fellow! Madame Arles asks after you, when I see her, which is not very often now; for since the Doctor has come back from New York, he has had a new talk with mamma, and has quite won her over to his view of the matter. So good bye to French for the present! Heigho! But I don't know that I'm sorry, now that you are not here, dear Ady.

"Another queer thing I had almost forgotten to tell you. The poor Boody girl,—you must remember her? Well, she has come back on a sudden; and they say her father would not receive her in his house,—there are terrible stories about it!—and now she is living with an old woman far out upon the river-road,—only a little garret-chamber for herself and the child she brought back with her. Of course nobody goes near her, or looks at her, if she comes on the street. But—the queerest thing!—when Madame Arles heard of it and of her story, what does she do but walk far out to visit her, and talked with her in her broken English for an hour, they say. Papa says she (Madame A.) must be a very bad woman or a very good woman. Miss Johns says she always thought she was a bad woman. The Bowriggs are, of course, very indignant, and I doubt if Madame A. comes to Ashfield again with them."

And again, at a later date, Rose writes,—

"The Bowriggs are all off for the winter, and the house closed. Reuben has been here on a flying visit to the parsonage; and how proud Miss Eliza was of her nephew! He came over to see Phil, I suppose; but Phil had gone two weeks before. Mamma thinks he is fine-looking. I fancy he will never live in the country again. When shall I see you again, dear, dear Ady? I have so much to talk to you about!"

A month thereafter Maverick and his daughter find their way back to Ashfield. Of course Miss Johns has made magnificent preparations to receive them. She surpassed herself in her toilette on the day of their arrival, and fairly astonished Maverick with the warmth of her welcome to his child. Yet he could not help observing that Adèle met it more coolly than was her wont, and that her tenderest words were reserved for the good Doctor. And how proud she was to walk with her father upon the village street, glancing timidly up at the windows from which she knew those stiff old Miss Hapgoods must be peeping out! How proud to sit beside him in the parson's pew, feeling that the eyes of half the congregation were fastened on the tall gentleman beside her! Ah, happy daughter! may your beautiful filial pride never have a fall!

Important business letters command Maverick's early presence abroad; and, after conference with the Doctor, he decides to leave Adèle once more under the roof of the parsonage.

"Under God, I will do for her what I can," said the Doctor.

"I know it, I know it, my good friend," says Maverick. "Teach her self-reliance; she may need it some day. And mind what I have said of this French woman. Adèle seems to have a tendresse that way. Those French women are very insidious, Johns."

"You know their ways better than I," said the Doctor, dryly.

"Good! a smack of the old college humor there, Johns. Well, well, at least you don't doubt the sacredness of my love for Adèle?"

"I trust, Maverick, I may never doubt the sacredness of your love in any direction. I only hope you may direct it where I fear you do not."

"God bless you, Johns! I wish I were as good a man as you."

A little afterwards Maverick was humming a snatch from an opera under the trees of the orchard; and Adèle went bounding toward him, to take the last walk with him for so long,—so long!

XXXVI

Autumn and winter passed by, and the summer of 1838 opened upon the old quiet life of Ashfield. The stiff Miss Johns, busy with her household duties, or with her stately visitings. The Doctor's hat and cane in their usual place upon the little table within the door, and of a Sunday his voice is lifted up under the old meeting-house roof in earnest expostulation. The birds pipe their old songs, and the orchard has shown once more its wondrous glory of bloom. But all these things have lost their novelty for Adèle. Would it be strange, if the tranquil life of the little town had lost something of its early charm? That swift French blood of hers has been stirred by contact with the outside world. She has, perhaps, not been wholly insensible to those admiring glances which so quickened the pride of the father. Do not such things leave a hunger in the heart of a girl of seventeen which the sleepy streets of a country town can but poorly gratify?

The young girl is, moreover, greatly disturbed at the thought of the new separation from her father for some indefinite period. Her affections have knitted themselves around him, during that delightful journey of the summer, in a way that has made her feel with new weight the parting. It is all the worse that she does not clearly perceive the necessity for it. Is she not of an age now to contribute to the cheer of whatever home he may have beyond the sea? Why, pray, has he given her such uninviting pictures of his companions there? Or what should she care for his companions, if only she could enjoy his tender watchfulness? Or is it that her religious education is not yet thoroughly complete, and that she still holds out against a full and public avowal of all the doctrines which the Doctor urges upon her acceptance? And the thought of this makes his kindly severities appear more irksome than ever.

Another cause of grief to Adèle is the extreme disfavor in which she finds that Madame Arles is now regarded by the townspeople. Her sympathies had run out towards the unfortunate woman in some inexplicable way, and held there even now, so strongly that contemptuous mention of her stung like a reproach to herself. At least she was a countrywoman, and alone among strangers; and in this Adèle found abundant reason for a generous sympathy. As for her religion, was it not the religion of her mother and of her good godmother? And with this thought flaming in her, is it wonderful, if Adèle toys more fondly than ever, in the solitude of her chamber, with the little rosary she has guarded so long? Not, indeed, that she has much faith in its efficacy; but it is a silent protest against the harsh speeches of Miss Eliza, who had been specially jealous of the influence of the French teacher.

"I never liked her countenance, Adèle," said the spinster, in her solemn manner; "and I am rejoiced that you will not be under her influence the present summer."

"And I'm sorry," said Adèle, petulantly.

"It is gratifying to me," continued Miss Eliza, without notice of Adèle's interruption, "that Mr. Maverick has confirmed my own impressions, and urged the Doctor against permitting so unwise association."

"When? how?" said Adèle, sharply. "Papa has never seen her."

"But he has seen other French women, Adèle, and he fears their influence."

Adèle looked keenly at the spinster for a moment, as if to fathom the depth of this reply, then burst into tears.

"Oh, why, why didn't he take me with him?" But this she says under breath, and to herself, as she rushes into the Doctor's study to question him.

"Is it true, New Papa, that papa thought badly of Madame Arles?"

"Not personally, my child, since he had never seen her. But, Adaly, your father, though I fear he is far away from the true path, wishes you to find it, my child. He has faith in the religion we teach so imperfectly; he wishes you to be exposed to no influences that will forbid your full acceptance of it."

"But Madame Arles never talked of religion to me"; and Adèle taps impatiently upon the floor.

"That may be true, Adaly,—it may be true; but we cannot be thrown into habits of intimacy with those reared in iniquity without fear of contracting stain. I could wish, my child, that you would so far subdue your rebellious heart, and put on the complete armor of righteousness, as to be able to resist all attacks."

"And it was for this papa left me here?" And Adèle says it with a smile of mockery that alarms the good Doctor.

"I trust, Adaly, that he had that hope."

The good man does not know what swift antagonism to his pleadings he has suddenly kindled in her. The little foot taps more and more impatiently as he goes on to set forth (as he had so often done) the heinousness of her offences and the weight of her just condemnation. Yet the antagonism did not incline her to open doubt; but after she had said her evening prayer that night, (taught her by the parson,) she drew out her little rosary and kissed reverently the crucifix. It is so much easier at this juncture for her tried and distracted spirit to bolster its faith upon such material symbol than to find repose in any merely intellectual conviction of truth!

Adèle's intimacy with Rose and with her family retained all its old tenderness, but that good fellow Phil was gone. A blithe and merry companion he had been! Adèle missed his kindly attentions more than she would have believed. The Bowriggs have come to Ashfield, but their clamorous friendship is more than ever distasteful to Adèle. Over and over she makes a feint of illness to escape the noisy hilarity. Nor, indeed, is it wholly a feint. Whether it were that her state of moral perturbation and unrest reacted upon the physical system, or that there were other disturbing causes, certain it was that the roses were fading from her cheeks, and that her step was losing day by day something of its old buoyancy. It is even thought best to summon the village doctor to the family council. He is a gossiping, kindly old gentleman, who spends an easy life, free from much mental strain, in trying to make his daily experiences tally with the little fund of medical science which he accumulated thirty years before.

The serene old gentleman feels the pulse, with his head reflectively on one side,—tells his little jokelet about Sir Astley Cooper, or some other worthy of the profession,—shakes his fat sides with a cheery laugh,—"And now, my dear," he says, "let us look at the tongue. Ah, I see, I see,—the stomach lacks tone."

"And there's dreadful lassitude, sometimes, Doctor," speaks up Miss Eliza.

"Ah, I see,—a little exhaustion after a long walk,—isn't it so, Miss Maverick? I see, I see; we must brace up the system, Miss Johns,—brace up the system."

And the kindly old gentleman prescribes his little tonics, of which Adèle takes some, and throws more out of the window.