An Oldport Romance
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Thomas Wentworth Higginson >> An Oldport Romance
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"I can find time for that too, little sister, when I need them.
But I love children, you know, and I like to teach interesting
studies. I have splendid health, and I enjoy it all. I like it
as you love dancing, my child, only I like dancing too, so I
have a greater variety of enjoyments."
"But shall you not sometimes find it very hard?" said Emilia.
"That is why I shall like it," was the answer.
"What a girl you are!" exclaimed the younger sister. "You know
everything and can do everything."
"A very short everything," interposed Hope.
"Kate says," continued Emilia, "that you speak French as well
as I do, and I dare say you dance a great deal better; and
those are the only things I know."
"If we both had French partners, dear," replied the elder
maiden, "they would soon find the difference in both respects.
My dancing came by nature, I believe, and I learned French as a
child, by talking with my old uncle, who was half a Parisian.
I believe I have a good accent, but I have so little practice
that I have no command of the language compared to yours. In a
week or two we can both try our skill, as there is to be a ball
for the officers of the French corvette yonder," and Hope
pointed to the heavy spars, the dark canvas, and the high
quarter-deck which made the "Jean Hoche" seem as if she had
floated out of the days of Nelson.
The calm day waned, the sun drooped to his setting amid a few
golden bars and pencilled lines of light. Ere they were ready
for departure, the tide had ebbed, and, in getting the boats to
a practicable landing-place, Malbone was delayed behind the
others. As he at length brought his boat to the rock, Hope sat
upon the ruined fort, far above him, and sang. Her noble
contralto voice echoed among the cliffs down to the smooth
water; the sun went down behind her, and still she sat stately
and noble, her white dress looking more and more spirit-like
against the golden sky; and still the song rang on,--
"Never a scornful word should grieve thee,
I'd smile on thee, sweet, as the angels do;
Sweet as thy smile on me shone ever,
Douglas, Douglas, tender and true."
All sacredness and sweetness, all that was pure and brave and
truthful, seemed to rest in her. And when the song ceased at
his summons, and she came down to meet him,--glowing,
beautiful, appealing, tender,--then all meaner spells vanished,
if such had ever haunted him, and he was hers alone.
Later that evening, after the household had separated, Hope
went into the empty drawing-room for a light. Philip, after a
moment's hesitation, followed her, and paused in the doorway.
She stood, a white-robed figure, holding the lighted candle;
behind her rose the arched alcove, whose quaint cherubs looked
down on her; she seemed to have stepped forth, the awakened
image of a saint. Looking up, she saw his eager glance; then
she colored, trembled, and put the candle down. He came to her,
took her hand and kissed it, then put his hand upon her brow
and gazed into her face, then kissed her lips. She quietly
yielded, but her color came and went, and her lips moved as if
to speak. For a moment he saw her only, thought only of her.
Then, even while he gazed into her eyes, a flood of other
memories surged over him, and his own eyes grew dim. His head
swam, the lips he had just kissed appeared to fade away, and
something of darker, richer beauty seemed to burn through those
fair features; he looked through those gentle eyes into orbs
more radiant, and it was as if a countenance of eager passion
obliterated that fair head, and spoke with substituted lips,
"Behold your love." There was a thrill of infinite ecstasy in
the work his imagination did; he gave it rein, then suddenly
drew it in and looked at Hope. Her touch brought pain for an
instant, as she laid her hand upon him, but he bore it. Then
some influence of calmness came; there swept by him a flood of
earlier, serener memories; he sat down in the window-seat
beside her, and when she put her face beside his, and her soft
hair touched his cheek, and he inhaled the rose-odor that
always clung round her, every atom of his manhood stood up to
drive away the intruding presence, and he again belonged to her
alone.
When he went to his chamber that night, he drew from his pocket
a little note in a girlish hand, which he lighted in the
candle, and put upon the open hearth to burn. With what a
cruel, tinkling rustle the pages flamed and twisted and opened,
as if the fire read them, and collapsed again as if in
agonizing effort to hold their secret even in death! The
closely folded paper refused to burn, it went out again and
again; while each time Philip Malbone examined it ere
relighting, with a sort of vague curiosity, to see how much
passion had already vanished out of existence, and how much yet
survived. For each of these inspections he had to brush aside
the calcined portion of the letter, once so warm and beautiful
with love, but changed to something that seemed to him a
semblance of his own heart just then,--black, trivial, and
empty.
Then he took from a little folded paper a long tress of dark
silken hair, and, without trusting himself to kiss it, held it
firmly in the candle. It crisped and sparkled, and sent out a
pungent odor, then turned and writhed between his fingers, like
a living thing in pain. What part of us has earthly immortality
but our hair? It dies not with death. When all else of human
beauty has decayed beyond corruption into the more agonizing
irrecov-erableness of dust, the hair is still fresh and
beautiful, defying annihilation, and restoring to the powerless
heart the full association of the living image. These
shrinking hairs, they feared not death, but they seemed to fear
Malbone. Nothing but the hand of man could destroy what he was
destroying; but his hand shrank not, and it was done.
VII.
AN INTERNATIONAL EXPOSITION.
AT the celebrated Oldport ball for the French officers, the
merit of each maiden was estimated by the number of foreigners
with whom she could talk at once, for there were more gentlemen
than ladies, and not more than half the ladies spoke French.
Here Emilia was in her glory; the ice being once broken,
officers were to her but like so many school-girls, and she
rattled away to the admiral and the fleet captain and two or
three lieutenants at once, while others hovered behind the
circle of her immediate adorers, to pick up the stray shafts of
what passed for wit. Other girls again drove two-in-hand, at
the most, in the way of conversation; while those least gifted
could only encounter one small Frenchman in some safe corner,
and converse chiefly by smiles and signs.
On the whole, the evening opened gayly. Newly arrived
Frenchmen are apt to be so unused to the familiar society of
unmarried girls, that the most innocent share in it has for
them the zest of forbidden fruit, and the most blameless
intercourse seems almost a bonne fortune. Most of these
officers were from the lower ranks of French society, but they
all had that good-breeding which their race wears with such
ease, and can unhappily put off with the same.
The admiral and the fleet captain were soon turned over to
Hope, who spoke French as she did English, with quiet grace.
She found them agreeable companions, while Emilia drifted among
the elder midshipmen, who were dazzling in gold lace if not in
intellect. Kate fell to the share of a vehement little
surgeon, who danced her out of breath. Harry officiated as
interpreter between the governor of the State and a lively
young ensign, who yearned for the society of dignitaries. The
governor was quite aware that he himself could not speak
French; the Frenchman was quite unaware that he himself could
not speak English; but with Harry's aid they plunged boldly
into conversation. Their talk happened to fall on
steam-engines, English, French, American; their comparative
cost, comparative power, comparative cost per horse
power,--until Harry, who was not very strong upon the
steam-engine in his own tongue, and was quite helpless on that
point in any other, got a good deal astray among the numerals,
and implanted some rather wild statistics in the mind of each.
The young Frenchman was far more definite, when requested by
the governor to state in English the precise number of men
engaged on board the corvette. With the accuracy of his
nation, he beamingly replied, "Seeshun-dredtousand."
As is apt to be the case in Oldport, other European
nationalities beside the French were represented, though the
most marked foreign accent was of course to be found among
Americans just returned. There were European diplomatists who
spoke English perfectly; there were travellers who spoke no
English at all; and as usual each guest sought to practise
himself in the tongue he knew least. There was the usual
eagerness among the fashionable vulgar to make acquaintance
with anything that combined broken English and a title; and two
minutes after a Russian prince had seated himself comfortably
on a sofa beside Kate, he was vehemently tapped on the shoulder
by Mrs. Courtenay Brash with the endearing summons: "Why!
Prince, I didn't see as you was here. Do you set comfortable
where you be? Come over to this window, and tell all you know!"
The prince might have felt that his summons was abrupt, but
knew not that it was ungrammatical, and so was led away in
triumph. He had been but a month or two in this country, and so
spoke our language no more correctly than Mrs. Brash, but only
with more grace. There was no great harm in Mrs. Brash; like
most loquacious people, she was kind-hearted, with a tendency
to corpulence and good works. She was also afflicted with a
high color, and a chronic eruption of diamonds. Her husband
had an eye for them, having begun life as a jeweller's
apprentice, and having developed sufficient sharpness of vision
in other directions to become a millionnaire, and a
Congressman, and to let his wife do as she pleased.
What goes forth from the lips may vary in dialect, but wine and
oysters speak the universal language. The supper-table brought
our party together, and they compared notes.
"Parties are very confusing," philosophized Hope,--"especially
when waiters and partners dress so much alike. Just now I saw
an ill-looking man elbowing his way up to Mrs. Meredith, and I
thought he was bringing her something on a plate. Instead of
that, it was his hand he held out, and she put hers into it;
and I was told that he was one of the leaders of society. There
are very few gentlemen here whom I could positively tell from
the waiters by their faces, and yet Harry says the fast set are
not here."
"Talk of the angels!" said Philip. "There come the
Inglesides."
Through the door of the supper-room they saw entering the
drawing-room one of those pretty, fair-haired women who grow
older up to twenty-five and then remain unchanged till sixty.
She was dressed in the loveliest pale blue silk, very low in
the neck, and she seemed to smile on all with her white teeth
and her white shoulders. This was Mrs. Ingleside. With her
came her daughter Blanche, a pretty blonde, whose bearing
seemed at first as innocent and pastoral as her name. Her dress
was of spotless white, what there was of it; and her skin was
so snowy, you could hardly tell where the dress ended. Her
complexion was exquisite, her eyes of the softest blue; at
twenty-three she did not look more than seventeen; and yet
there was such a contrast between these virginal traits, and
the worn, faithless, hopeless expression, that she looked, as
Philip said, like a depraved lamb. Does it show the higher
nature of woman, that, while "fast young men" are content to
look like well-dressed stable boys and billiard-markers, one
may observe that girls of the corresponding type are apt to
addict themselves to white and rosebuds, and pose themselves
for falling angels?
Mrs. Ingleside was a stray widow (from New Orleans via Paris),
into whose antecedents it was best not to inquire too closely.
After many ups and downs, she was at present up. It was
difficult to state with certainty what bad deed she had ever
done, or what good deed. She simply lived by her wits, and
perhaps by some want of that article in her male friends. Her
house was a sort of gentlemanly clubhouse, where the presence
of two women offered a shade less restraint than if there had
been men alone. She was amiable and unscrupulous, went
regularly to church, and needed only money to be the most
respectable and fastidious of women. It was always rather a
mystery who paid for her charming little dinners; indeed,
several things in her demeanor were questionable, but as the
questions were never answered, no harm was done, and everybody
invited her because everybody else did. Had she committed some
graceful forgery tomorrow, or some mild murder the next day,
nobody would have been surprised, and all her intimate friends
would have said it was what they had always expected.
Meantime the entertainment went on.
"I shall not have scalloped oysters in heaven," lamented Kate,
as she finished with healthy appetite her first instalment.
"Are you sure you shall not?" said the sympathetic Hope, who
would have eagerly followed Kate into Paradise with a supply of
whatever she liked best.
"I suppose you will, darling," responded Kate, "but what will
you care? It seems hard that those who are bad enough to long
for them should not be good enough to earn them."
At this moment Blanche Ingleside and her train swept into the
supper-room; the girls cleared a passage, their attendant
youths collected chairs. Blanche tilted hers slightly against a
wall, professed utter exhaustion, and demanded a fresh bottle
of champagne in a voice that showed no signs of weakness.
Presently a sheepish youth drew near the noisy circle.
"Here comes that Talbot van Alsted," said Blanche, bursting at
last into a loud whisper. "What a goose he is, to be sure!
Dear baby, it promised its mother it wouldn't drink wine for
two months. Let's all drink with him. Talbot, my boy, just in
time! Fill your glass. Stosst an!"
And Blanche and her attendant spirits in white muslin thronged
around the weak boy, saw him charged with the three glasses
that were all his head could stand, and sent him reeling home
to his mother. Then they looked round for fresh worlds to
conquer.
"There are the Maxwells!" said Miss Ingleside, without lowering
her voice. "Who is that party in the high-necked dress? Is she
the schoolmistress? Why do they have such people here? Society
is getting so common, there is no bearing it. That Emily who is
with her is too good for that slow set. She's the school-girl
we heard of at Nice, or somewhere; she wanted to elope with
somebody, and Phil Malbone stopped her, worse luck. She will be
for eloping with us, before long."
Emilia colored scarlet, and gave a furtive glance at Hope, half
of shame, half of triumph. Hope looked at Blanche with
surprise, made a movement forward, but was restrained by the
crowd, while the noisy damsel broke out in a different
direction.
"How fiendishly hot it is here, though! Jones junior, put your
elbow through that window! This champagne is boiling. What a
tiresome time we shall have to-morrow, when the Frenchmen are
gone! Ah, Count, there you are at last! Ready for the German?
Come for me? Just primed and up to anything, and so I tell
you!"
But as Count Posen, kissing his hand to her, squeezed his way
through the crowd with Hal, to be presented to Hope, there came
over Blanche's young face such a mingled look of hatred and
weariness and chagrin, that even her unobserving friends saw
it, and asked with tender commiseration what was up.
The dancing recommenced. There was the usual array of
partners, distributed by mysterious discrepancies, like
soldiers' uniforms, so that all the tall drew short, and all
the short had tall. There were the timid couples, who danced
with trembling knees and eyes cast over their shoulders; the
feeble couples, who meandered aimlessly and got tangled in
corners; the rash couples, who tore breathlessly through the
rooms and brought up at last against the large white waistcoat
of the violon-cello. There was the professional lady-killer,
too supreme and indolent to dance, but sitting amid an admiring
bevy of fair women, where he reared his head of raven curls,
and pulled ceaselessly his black mustache. And there were
certain young girls who, having astonished the community for a
month by the lowness of their dresses, now brought to bear
their only remaining art, and struck everybody dumb by
appearing clothed. All these came and went and came again, and
had their day or their night, and danced until the robust Hope
went home exhausted and left her more fragile cousins to dance
on till morning. Indeed, it was no easy thing for them to tear
themselves away; Kate was always in demand; Philip knew
everybody, and had that latest aroma of Paris which the soul of
fashion covets; Harry had the tried endurance which befits
brothers and lovers at balls; while Emilia's foreign court held
out till morning, and one handsome young midshipman, in
special, kept revolving back to her after each long orbit of
separation, like a gold-laced comet.
The young people lingered extravagantly late at that ball, for
the corvette was to sail next day, and the girls were willing
to make the most of it. As they came to the outer door, the
dawn was inexpressibly beautiful,--deep rose melting into
saffron, beneath a tremulous morning star. With a sudden
impulse, they agreed to walk home, the fresh air seemed so
delicious. Philip and Emilia went first, outstripping the
others.
Passing the Jewish cemetery, Kate and Harry paused a moment.
The sky was almost cloudless, the air was full of a thousand
scents and songs, the rose-tints in the sky were deepening, the
star paling, while a few vague clouds went wandering upward,
and dreamed themselves away.
"There is a grave in that cemetery," said Kate, gently, "where
lovers should always be sitting. It lies behind that tall
monument; I cannot see it for the blossoming boughs. There were
two young cousins who loved each other from childhood, but were
separated, because Jews do not allow such unions. Neither of
them was ever married; and they lived to be very old, the one
in New Orleans, the other at the North. In their last
illnesses each dreamed of walking in the fields with the other,
as in their early days; and the telegraphic despatches that
told their deaths crossed each other on the way. That is his
monument, and her grave was made behind it; there was no room
for a stone."
Kate moved a step or two, that she might see the graves. The
branches opened clear. What living lovers had met there, at
this strange hour, above the dust of lovers dead? She saw with
amazement, and walked on quickly that Harry might not also see.
It was Emilia who sat beside the grave, her dark hair drooping
and dishevelled, her carnation cheek still brilliant after the
night's excitement; and he who sat at her feet, grasping her
hand in both of his, while his lips poured out passionate words
to which she eagerly listened, was Philip Malbone.
Here, upon the soil of a new nation, lay a spot whose
associations seemed already as old as time could make
them,--the last footprint of a tribe now vanished from this
island forever,--the resting-place of a race whose very
funerals would soon be no more. Each April the robins built
their nests around these crumbling stones, each May they reared
their broods, each June the clover blossomed, each July the
wild strawberries grew cool and red; all around was youth and
life and ecstasy, and yet the stones bore inscriptions in an
unknown language, and the very graves seemed dead.
And lovelier than all the youth of Nature, little Emilia sat
there in the early light, her girlish existence gliding into
that drama of passion which is older than the buried nations,
older than time, than death, than all things save life and God.
VIII.
TALKING IT OVER.
AUNT JANE was eager to hear about the ball, and called
everybody into her breakfast-parlor the next morning. She was
still hesitating about her bill of fare.
"I wish somebody would invent a new animal," she burst forth.
"How those sheep bleated last night! I know it was an
expression of shame for providing such tiresome food."
"You must not be so carnally minded, dear," said Kate. "You
must be very good and grateful, and not care for your
breakfast. Somebody says that mutton chops with wit are a great
deal better than turtle without."
"A very foolish somebody," pronounced Aunt Jane. "I have had a
great deal of wit in my life, and very little turtle. Dear
child, do not excite me with impossible suggestions. There are
dropped eggs, I might have those. They look so beautifully, if
it only were not necessary to eat them. Yes, I will certainly
have dropped eggs. I think Ruth could drop them; she drops
everything else."
"Poor little Ruth!" said Kate. "Not yet grown up!"
"She will never grow up," said Aunt Jane, "but she thinks she
is a woman; she even thinks she has a lover. O that in early
life I had provided myself with a pair of twins from some
asylum; then I should have had some one to wait on me."
"Perhaps they would have been married too," said Kate.
"They should never have been married," retorted Aunt Jane.
"They should have signed a paper at five years old to do no
such thing. Yesterday I told a lady that I was enraged that a
servant should presume to have a heart, and the woman took it
seriously and began to argue with me. To think of living in a
town where one person could be so idiotic! Such a town ought to
be extinguished from the universe."
"Auntie!" said Kate, sternly, "you must grow more charitable."
"Must I?" said Aunt Jane; "it will not be at all becoming. I
have thought about it; often have I weighed it in my mind
whether to be monotonously lovely; but I have always thrust it
away. It must make life so tedious. It is too late for me to
change,--at least, anything about me but my countenance, and
that changes the wrong way. Yet I feel so young and fresh; I
look in my glass every morning to see if I have not a new face,
but it never comes. I am not what is called well-favored. In
fact, I am not favored at all. Tell me about the party."
"What shall I tell?" said Kate.
"Tell me what people were there," said Aunt Jane, "and how they
were dressed; who were the happiest and who the most miserable.
I think I would rather hear about the most miserable,--at
least, till I have my breakfast."
"The most miserable person I saw," said Kate, "was Mrs.
Meredith. It was very amusing to hear her and Hope talk at
cross-purposes. You know her daughter Helen is in Paris, and
the mother seemed very sad about her. A lady was asking if
something or other were true; 'Too true,' said Mrs. Meredith;
'with every opportunity she has had no real success. It was not
the poor child's fault. She was properly presented; but as yet
she has had no success at all.'
"Hope looked up, full of sympathy. She thought Helen must be
some disappointed school-teacher, and felt an interest in her
immediately. 'Will there not be another examination?' she
asked. 'What an odd phrase,' said Mrs. Meredith, looking rather
disdainfully at Hope. 'No, I suppose we must give it up, if
that is what you mean. The only remaining chance is in the
skating. I had particular attention paid to Helen's skating on
that very account. How happy shall I be, if my foresight is
rewarded!'
"Hope thought this meant physical education, to be sure, and
fancied that handsome Helen Meredith opening a school for
calisthenics in Paris! Luckily she did not say anything. Then
the other lady said, solemnly, 'My dear Mrs. Meredith, it is
too true. No one can tell how things will turn out in society.
How often do we see girls who were not looked at in America,
and yet have a great success in Paris; then other girls go out
who were here very much admired, and they have no success at
all.'
"Hope understood it all then, but she took it very calmly. I
was so indignant, I could hardly help speaking. I wanted to
say that it was outrageous. The idea of American mothers
training their children for exhibition before what everybody
calls the most corrupt court in Europe! Then if they can catch
the eye of the Emperor or the Empress by their faces or their
paces, that is called success!"
"Good Americans when they die go to Paris," said Philip, "so
says the oracle. Naughty Americans try it prematurely, and go
while they are alive. Then Paris casts them out, and when they
come back, their French disrepute is their stock in trade."
"I think," said the cheerful Hope, "that it is not quite so
bad." Hope always thought things not so bad. She went on. "I
was very dull not to know what Mrs. Meredith was talking about.
Helen Meredith is a warm-hearted, generous girl, and will not
go far wrong, though her mother is not as wise as she is
well-bred. But Kate forgets that the few hundred people one
sees here or at Paris do not represent the nation, after all."
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