An Oldport Romance
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Thomas Wentworth Higginson >> An Oldport Romance
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But Kate entered any room, whether nursery or kitchen, as if it
were the private boudoir of a princess and she the favorite
maid of honor. Thus it was she came that morning to Aunt Jane.
"We are going down to see the bathers, dear," said Kate.
"Shall you miss me?"
"I miss you every minute," said her aunt, decisively. "But I
shall do very well. I have delightful times here by myself.
What a ridiculous man it was who said that it was impossible to
imagine a woman's laughing at her own comic fancies. I sit and
laugh at my own nonsense very often."
"It is a shame to waste it," said Kate.
"It is a blessing that any of it is disposed of while you are
not here," said Aunt Jane. "You have quite enough of it."
"We never have enough," said Kate. "And we never can make you
repeat any of yesterday's."
"Of course not," said Aunt Jane. "Nonsense must have the dew
on it, or it is good for nothing."
"So you are really happiest alone?"
"Not so happy as when you are with me,--you or Hope. I like to
have Hope with me now; she does me good. Really, I do not care
for anybody else. Sometimes I think if I could always have four
or five young kittens by me, in a champagne-basket, with a
nurse to watch them, I should be happier. But perhaps not; they
would grow up so fast!"
"Then I will leave you alone without compunction," said Kate.
"I am not alone," said Aunt Jane; "I have my man in the boat to
watch through the window. What a singular being he is! I think
he spends hours in that boat, and what he does I can't
conceive. There it is, quietly anchored, and there is he in it.
I never saw anybody but myself who could get up so much
industry out of nothing. He has all his housework there, a
broom and a duster, and I dare say he has a cooking-stove and a
gridiron. He sits a little while, then he stoops down, then he
goes to the other end. Sometimes he goes ashore in that absurd
little tub, with a stick that he twirls at one end."
"That is called sculling," interrupted Kate.
"Sculling! I suppose he runs for a baked potato. Then he goes
back. He is Robinson Crusoe on an island that never keeps still
a single instant. It is all he has, and he never looks away,
and never wants anything more. So I have him to watch. Think
of living so near a beaver or a water-rat with clothes on!
Good-by. Leave the door ajar, it is so warm."
And Kate went down to the landing. It was near the "baptismal
shore," where every Sunday the young people used to watch the
immersions; they liked to see the crowd of spectators, the
eager friends, the dripping convert, the serene young minister,
the old men and girls who burst forth in song as the new
disciple rose from the waves. It was the weekly festival in
that region, and the sunshine and the ripples made it
gladdening, not gloomy. Every other day in the week the
children of the fishermen waded waist-deep in the water, and
played at baptism.
Near this shore stood the family bathing-house; and the girls
came down to sit in its shadow and watch the swimming. It was
late in August, and on the first of September Emilia was to be
married.
Nothing looked cool, that day, but the bay and those who were
going into it. Out came Hope from the bathing-house, in a new
bathing-dress of dark blue, which was evidently what the others
had come forth to behold.
"Hope, what an imposter you are!" cried Kate instantly. "You
declined all my proffers of aid in cutting that dress, and now
see how it fits you! You never looked so beautifully in your
life. There is not such another bathing-dress in Oldport, nor
such a figure to wear it."
And she put both her arms round that supple, stately waist,
that might have belonged to a Greek goddess, or to some queen
in the Nibelungen Lied.
The party watched the swimmers as they struck out over the
clear expanse. It was high noon; the fishing-boats were all
off, but a few pleasure-boats swung different ways at their
moorings, in the perfect calm. The white light-house stood
reflected opposite, at the end of its long pier; a few vessels
lay at anchor, with their sails up to dry, but with that
deserted look which coasters in port are wont to wear. A few
fishes dimpled the still surface, and as the three swam out
farther and farther, their merry voices still sounded close at
hand. Suddenly they all clapped their hands and called; then
pointed forward to the light-house, across the narrow harbor.
"They are going to swim across," said Kate. "What creatures
they are! Hope and little Jenny have always begged for it, and
now Harry thinks it is so still a day they can safely venture.
It is more than half a mile. See! he has called that boy in a
boat, and he will keep near them. They have swum farther than
that along the shore."
So the others went away with no fears.
Hope said afterwards that she never swam with such delight as
on that day. The water seemed to be peculiarly thin and clear,
she said, as well as tranquil, and to retain its usual buoyancy
without its density. It gave a delicious sense of freedom; she
seemed to swim in air, and felt singularly secure. For the
first time she felt what she had always wished to
experience,--that swimming was as natural as walking, and might
be indefinitely prolonged. Her strength seemed limitless, she
struck out more and more strongly; she splashed and played with
little Jenny, when the child began to grow weary of the long
motion. A fisherman's boy in a boat rowed slowly along by their
side.
Nine tenths of the distance had been accomplished, when the
little girl grew quite impatient, and Hope bade Harry swim on
before her, and land his charge. Light and buoyant as the child
was, her tightened clasp had begun to tell on him.
"It tires you, Hal, to bear that weight so long, and you know I
have nothing to carry. You must see that I am not in the least
tired, only a little dazzled by the sun. Here, Charley, give
me your hat, and then row on with Mr. Harry." She put on the
boy's torn straw hat, and they yielded to her wish. People
almost always yielded to Hope's wishes when she expressed
them,--it was so very seldom.
Somehow the remaining distance seemed very great, as Hope saw
them glide away, leaving her in the water alone, her feet
unsupported by any firm element, the bright and pitiless sky
arching far above her, and her head burning with more heat than
she had liked to own. She was conscious of her full strength,
and swam more vigorously than ever; but her head was hot and
her ears rang, and she felt chilly vibrations passing up and
down her sides, that were like, she fancied, the innumerable
fringing oars of the little jelly-fishes she had so often
watched. Her body felt almost unnaturally strong, and she took
powerful strokes; but it seemed as if her heart went out into
them and left a vacant cavity within. More and more her life
seemed boiling up into her head; queer fancies came to her, as,
for instance, that she was an inverted thermometer with the
mercury all ascending into a bulb at the top. She shook her
head and the fancy cleared away, and then others came.
She began to grow seriously anxious, but the distance was
diminishing; Harry was almost at the steps with the child, and
the boy had rowed his skiff round the breakwater out of sight;
a young fisherman leaned over the railing with his back to her,
watching the lobster-catchers on the other side. She was almost
in; it was only a slight dizziness, yet she could not see the
light-house. Concentrating all her efforts, she shut her eyes
and swam on, her arms still unaccountably vigorous, though the
rest of her body seemed losing itself in languor. The sound in
her ear had grown to a roar, as of many mill-wheels. It seemed
a long distance that she thus swam with her eyes closed. Then
she half opened her eyes, and the breakwater seemed all in
motion, with tier above tier of eager faces looking down on
her. In an instant there was a sharp splash close beside her,
and she felt herself grasped and drawn downwards, with a whirl
of something just above her, and then all consciousness went
out as suddenly as when ether brings at last to a patient,
after the roaring and the tumult in his brain, its blessed
foretaste of the deliciousness of death.
When Hope came again to consciousness, she found herself
approaching her own pier in a sail-boat, with several very wet
gentlemen around her, and little Jenny nestled close to her,
crying as profusely as if her pretty scarlet bathing-dress were
being wrung out through her eyes. Hope asked no questions, and
hardly felt the impulse to inquire what had happened. The
truth was, that in the temporary dizziness produced by her
prolonged swim, she had found herself in the track of a
steamboat that was passing the pier, unobserved by her brother.
A young man, leaping from the dock, had caught her in his arms,
and had dived with her below the paddle-wheels, just as they
came upon her. It was a daring act, but nothing else could have
saved her. When they came to the surface, they had been picked
up by Aunt Jane's Robinson Crusoe, who had at last unmoored his
pilot-boat and was rounding the light-house for the outer
harbor.
She and the child were soon landed, and given over to the
ladies. Due attention was paid to her young rescuer, whose
dripping garments seemed for the moment as glorious as a
blood-stained flag. He seemed a simple, frank young fellow of
French or German origin, but speaking English remarkably well;
he was not high-bred, by any means, but had apparently the
culture of an average German of the middle class. Harry fancied
that he had seen him before, and at last traced back the
impression of his features to the ball for the French officers.
It turned out, on inquiry, that he had a brother in the
service, and on board the corvette; but he himself was a
commercial agent, now in America with a view to business,
though he had made several voyages as mate of a vessel, and
would not object to some such berth as that. He promised to
return and receive the thanks of the family, read with interest
the name on Harry's card, seemed about to ask a question, but
forbore, and took his leave amid the general confusion, without
even giving his address. When sought next day, he was not to
be found, and to the children he at once became as much a
creature of romance as the sea-serpent or the Flying Dutchman.
Even Hope's strong constitution felt the shock of this
adventure. She was confined to her room for a week or two, but
begged that there might be no postponement of the wedding,
which, therefore, took place without her. Her illness gave
excuse for a privacy that was welcome to all but the
bridesmaids, and suited Malbone best of all.
XVI.
ON THE STAIRS.
AUGUST drew toward its close, and guests departed from the
neighborhood.
"What a short little thing summer is," meditated Aunt Jane,
"and butterflies are caterpillars most of the time after all.
How quiet it seems. The wrens whisper in their box above the
window, and there has not been a blast from the peacock for a
week. He seems ashamed of the summer shortness of his tail. He
keeps glancing at it over his shoulder to see if it is not
looking better than yesterday, while the staring eyes of the
old tail are in the bushes all about."
"Poor, dear little thing!" said coaxing Katie. "Is she tired
of autumn, before it is begun?"
"I am never tired of anything," said Aunt Jane, "except my maid
Ruth, and I should not be tired of her, if it had pleased
Heaven to endow her with sufficient strength of mind to sew on
a button. Life is very rich to me. There is always something
new in every season; though to be sure I cannot think what
novelty there is just now, except a choice variety of spiders.
There is a theory that spiders kill flies. But I never miss a
fly, and there does not seem to be any natural scourge divinely
appointed to kill spiders, except Ruth. Even she does it so
feebly, that I see them come back and hang on their webs and
make faces at her. I suppose they are faces; I do not
understand their anatomy, but it must be a very unpleasant
one."
"You are not quite satisfied with life, today, dear," said
Kate; "I fear your book did not end to your satisfaction."
"It did end, though," said the lady, "and that is something.
What is there in life so difficult as to stop a book?" If I
wrote one, it would be as long as ten 'Sir Charles Grandisons,'
and then I never should end it, because I should die. And there
would be nobody left to read it, because each reader would have
been dead long before."
"But the book amused you!" interrupted Kate. "I know it did."
"It was so absurd that I laughed till I cried; and it makes no
difference whether you cry laughing or cry crying; it is
equally bad when your glasses come off. Never mind. Whom did
you see on the Avenue?"
"O, we saw Philip on horseback. He rides so beautifully; he
seems one with his horse."
"I am glad of it," interposed his aunt. "The riders are
generally so inferior to them."
"We saw Mr. and Mrs. Lambert, too. Emilia stopped and asked
after you, and sent you her love, auntie."
"Love!" cried Aunt Jane. "She always does that. She has sent
me love enough to rear a whole family on,--more than I ever
felt for anybody in all my days. But she does not really love
any one."
"I hope she will love her husband," said Kate, rather
seriously.
"Mark my words, Kate!" said her aunt. "Nothing but unhappiness
will ever come of that marriage. How can two people be happy
who have absolutely nothing in common?"
"But no two people have just the same tastes," said Kate,
"except Harry and myself. It is not expected. It would be
absurd for two people to be divorced, because the one preferred
white bread and the other brown."
"They would be divorced very soon," said Aunt Jane, "for the
one who ate brown bread would not live long."
"But it is possible that he might live, auntie, in spite of
your prediction. And perhaps people may be happy, even if you
and I do not see how."
"Nobody ever thinks I see anything," said Aunt Jane, in some
dejection. "You think I am nothing in the world but a sort of
old oyster, making amusement for people, and having no more to
do with real life than oysters have."
"No, dearest!" cried Kate. "You have a great deal to do with
all our lives. You are a dear old insidious sapper-and-miner,
looking at first very inoffensive, and then working your way
into our affections, and spoiling us with coaxing. How you
behave about children, for instance!"
"How?" said the other meekly. "As well as I can."
"But you pretend that you dislike them."
"But I do dislike them. How can anybody help it? Hear them
swearing at this moment, boys of five, paddling in the water
there! Talk about the murder of the innocents! There are so
few innocents to be murdered! If I only had a gun and could
shoot!"
"You may not like those particular boys," said Kate, "but you
like good, well-behaved children, very much."
"It takes so many to take care of them! People drive by here,
with carriages so large that two of the largest horses can
hardly draw them, and all full of those little beings. They
have a sort of roof, too, and seem to expect to be out in all
weathers."
"If you had a family of children, perhaps you would find such a
travelling caravan very convenient," said Kate.
"If I had such a family," said her aunt, "I would have a
separate governess and guardian for each, very moral persons.
They should come when each child was two, and stay till it was
twenty. The children should all live apart, in order not to
quarrel, and should meet once or twice a day and bow to each
other. I think that each should learn a different language, so
as not to converse, and then, perhaps, they would not get each
other into mischief."
"I am sure, auntie," said Kate, "you have missed our small
nephews and nieces ever since their visit ended. How still the
house has been!"
"I do not know," was the answer. "I hear a great many noises
about the house. Somebody comes in late at night. Perhaps it
is Philip; but he comes very softly in, wipes his feet very
gently, like a clean thief, and goes up stairs."
"O auntie!" said Kate, "you know you have got over all such
fancies."
"They are not fancies," said Aunt Jane. "Things do happen in
houses! Did I not look under the bed for a thief during fifteen
years, and find one at last? Why should I not be allowed to
hear something now?"
"But, dear Aunt Jane," said Kate, "you never told me this
before."
"No," said she. "I was beginning to tell you the other day,
but Ruth was just bringing in my handkerchiefs, and she had
used so much bluing, they looked as if they had been washed in
heaven, so that it was too outrageous, and I forgot everything
else."
"But do you really hear anything?"
"Yes," said her aunt. "Ruth declares she hears noises in those
closets that I had nailed up, you know; but that is nothing; of
course she does. Rats. What I hear at night is the creaking
of stairs, when I know that nobody ought to be stirring. If you
observe, you will hear it too. At least, I should think you
would, only that somehow everything always seems to stop, when
it is necessary to prove that I am foolish."
The girls had no especial engagement that evening, and so got
into a great excitement on the stairway over Aunt Jane's
solicitudes. They convinced themselves that they heard all
sorts of things,--footfalls on successive steps, the creak of a
plank, the brushing of an arm against a wall, the jar of some
suspended object that was stirred in passing. Once they heard
something fall on the floor, and roll from step to step; and
yet they themselves stood on the stairway, and nothing passed.
Then for some time there was silence, but they would have
persisted in their observations, had not Philip come in from
Mrs. Meredith's in the midst of it, so that the whole thing
turned into a frolic, and they sat on the stairs and told ghost
stories half the night.
XVII.
DISCOVERY.
THE next evening Kate and Philip went to a ball. As Hope was
passing through the hall late in the evening, she heard a
sudden, sharp cry somewhere in the upper regions, that sounded,
she thought, like a woman's voice. She stopped to hear, but
there was silence. It seemed to come from the direction of
Malbone's room, which was in the third story. Again came the
cry, more gently, ending in a sort of sobbing monologue.
Gliding rapidly up stairs in the dark, she paused at Philip's
deserted room, but the door was locked, and there was profound
stillness. She then descended, and pausing at the great
landing, heard other steps descending also. Retreating to the
end of the hall, she hastily lighted a candle, when the steps
ceased. With her accustomed nerve, wishing to explore the
thing thoroughly, she put out the light and kept still. As she
expected, the footsteps presently recommenced, descending
stealthily, but drawing no nearer, and seeming rather like
sounds from an adjoining house, heard through a party-wall.
This was impossible, as the house stood alone. Flushed with
excitement, she relighted the hall candles, and, taking one of
them, searched the whole entry and stairway, going down even to
the large, old-fashioned cellar.
Looking about her in this unfamiliar region, her eye fell on a
door that seemed to open into the wall; she had noticed a
similar door on the story above,--one of the closet doors that
had been nailed up by Aunt Jane's order. As she looked,
however, a chill breath blew in from another direction,
extinguishing her lamp. This air came from the outer door of
the cellar, and she had just time to withdraw into a corner
before a man's steps approached, passing close by her.
Even Hope's strong nerves had begun to yield, and a cold
shudder went through her. Not daring to move, she pressed
herself against the wall, and her heart seemed to stop as the
unseen stranger passed. Instead of his ascending where she had
come down, as she had expected, she heard him grope his way
toward the door she had seen in the wall.
There he seemed to find a stairway, and when his steps were
thus turned from her, she was seized by a sudden impulse and
followed him, groping her way as she could. She remembered
that the girls had talked of secret stairways in that house,
though she had no conception whither they could lead, unless to
some of the shut-up closets.
She steadily followed, treading cautiously upon each creaking
step. The stairway was very narrow, and formed a regular spiral
as in a turret. The darkness and the curving motion confused
her brain, and it was impossible to tell how high in the house
she was, except when once she put her hand upon what was
evidently a door, and moreover saw through its cracks the lamp
she had left burning in the upper hall. This glimpse of
reality reassured her. She had begun to discover where she
was. The doors which Aunt Jane had closed gave access, not to
mere closets, but to a spiral stairway, which evidently went
from top to bottom of the house, and was known to some one else
beside herself.
Relieved of that slight shudder at the supernatural which
sometimes affects the healthiest nerves, Hope paused to
consider. To alarm the neighborhood was her first thought. A
slight murmuring from above dispelled it; she must first
reconnoitre a few steps farther. As she ascended a little way,
a gleam shone upon her, and down the damp stairway came a
fragrant odor, as from some perfumed chamber. Then a door was
shut and reopened. Eager beyond expression, she followed on.
Another step, and she stood at the door of Malbone's apartment.
The room was brilliant with light; the doors and windows were
heavily draped. Fruit and flowers and wine were on the table.
On the sofa lay Emilia in a gay ball-dress, sunk in one of her
motionless trances, while Malbone, pale with terror, was
deluging her brows with the water he had just brought from the
well below.
Hope stopped a moment and leaned against the door, as her eyes
met Malbone's. Then she made her way to a chair, and leaning on
the back of it, which she fingered convulsively, looked with
bewildered eyes and compressed lips from the one to the other.
Malbone tried to speak, but failed; tried again, and brought
forth only a whisper that broke into clearer speech as the
words went on. "No use to explain," he said. "Lambert is in
New York. Mrs. Meredith is expecting her--to-night after the
ball. What can we do?"
Hope covered her face as he spoke; she could bear anything
better than to have him say "we," as if no gulf had opened
between them. She sank slowly on her knees behind her chair,
keeping it as a sort of screen between herself and these two
people,--the counterfeits, they seemed, of her lover and her
sister. If the roof in falling to crush them had crushed her
also, she could scarcely have seemed more rigid or more
powerless. It passed, and the next moment she was on her feet
again, capable of action.
"She must be taken," she said very clearly, but in a lower tone
than usual, "to my chamber." Then pointing to the candles, she
said, more huskily, "We must not be seen. Put them out." Every
syllable seemed to exhaust her. But as Philip obeyed her
words, he saw her move suddenly and stand by Emilia's side.
She put out both arms as if to lift the young girl, and carry
her away.
"You cannot," said Philip, putting her gently aside, while she
shrank from his touch. Then he took Emilia in his arms and
bore her to the door, Hope preceding.
Motioning him to pause a moment, she turned the lock softly,
and looked out into the dark entry. All was still. She went
out, and he followed with his motionless burden. They walked
stealthily, like guilty things, yet every slight motion seemed
to ring in their ears. It was chilly, and Hope shivered.
Through the great open window on the stairway a white fog
peered in at them, and the distant fog-whistle came faintly
through; it seemed as if the very atmosphere were condensing
about them, to isolate the house in which such deeds were done.
The clock struck twelve, and it seemed as if it struck a
thousand.
When they reached Hope's door, she turned and put out her arms
for Emilia, as for a child. Every expression had now gone from
Hope's face but a sort of stony calmness, which put her
infinitely farther from Malbone than had the momentary
struggle. As he gave the girlish form into arms that shook and
trembled beneath its weight, he caught a glimpse in the
pier-glass of their two white faces, and then, looking down,
saw the rose-tints yet lingering on Emilia's cheek. She, the
source of all this woe, looked the only representative of
innocence between two guilty things.
How white and pure and maidenly looked Hope's little
room,--such a home of peace, he thought, till its door suddenly
opened to admit all this passion and despair! There was a great
sheaf of cardinal flowers on the table, and their petals were
drooping, as if reluctant to look on him. Scheffer's Christus
Consolator was upon the walls, and the benign figure seemed to
spread wider its arms of mercy, to take in a few sad hearts
more.
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