Читать книгу We and Our Neighbors; or, The Records of an Unfashionable Street - Harriet Beecher Stowe - Страница 10

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After Harry went out, Eva arranged the fire, dropped the curtains over the window, drew up an easy chair into a warm corner under the gas-light, and began looking over the outside of her Parisian letters with that sort of luxurious enjoyment of delay with which one examines the post-marks and direction of letters that are valued as a great acquisition. There was one from her sister Ida and one from Harry's cousin Caroline. Ida's was opened first. It was dated from a boarding-house in the Rue de Clichy, giving a sort of journalised view of their studies, their medical instructors, their walks and duties in the hospital, all told with an evident and vigorous sense of enjoyment. Eva felt throughout what a strong, cheerful, self-sustained being her sister was, and how fit it was that a person so sufficient to herself, so equable, so healthfully balanced and poised in all her mental and physical conformation, should have undertaken the pioneer work of opening a new profession for women. "I never could do as she does, in the world," was her mental comment, "but I am thankful that she can." And then she cut the envelope of Caroline's letter.

To a certain extent there were the same details in it—Caroline was evidently associated in the same studies, the same plans, but there was missing in the letter the professional enthusiasm, the firmness, the self-poise, and calm clearness. There were more bursts of feeling on the pictures in the Louvre than on scientific discoveries; more sensibility to the various æsthetic wonders which Paris opens to an uninitiated guest than to the treasures of anatomy and surgery. With the letter were sent two or three poems, contributions to the Magazine—poems full of color and life, of a subdued fire, but with that undertone of sadness which is so common in all female poets. A portion of the letter may explain this:

"You were right, my dear Eva, in saying, in our last interview, that it did not seem to you that I had the kind of character that was adapted to the profession I have chosen. I don't think I have. I am more certain of it from comparing myself from day to day with Ida, who certainly is born and made for it, if ever a woman was. My choice of it has been simply and only for the reason that I must choose something as a means of self-support, and more than that, as a refuge from morbid distresses of mind which made the still monotony of my New England country life intolerable to me. This course presented itself to me as something feasible. I thought it, too, a good and worthy career—one in which one might do one's share of good for the world. But, Eva, I can feel that there is one essential difference between Ida and myself: she is peculiarly self-sustained and sufficient to herself, and I am just the reverse. I am full of vague unrest; I am chased by seasons of high excitement, alternating with deadly languor. Ida has hard work to know what to do with me. You were right in supposing, as you intimate in your letter, that a certain common friend has something to do with this unrest, but you cannot, unless you know my whole history, know how much. There was a time when he and I were all the world to each other—when shall I ever forget that time! I was but seventeen; a young girl, so ignorant of life! I never had seen one like him; he was a whole new revelation to me; he woke up everything there was in me, never to go to sleep again; and then to think of having all this tide and current of feeling checked—frozen. My father overwhelmed him with accusations; every baseness was laid to his charge. I was woman enough to have stood for him against the world if he had come to me. I would have left all and gone to the ends of the earth with him if he had asked me, but he did not. There was only one farewell, self-accusing letter, and even that fell into my father's hands and never came to me till after his death. For years I thought myself wantonly trifled with by a man of whose attentions I ought to be ashamed. I was indignant at myself for the love that might have been my glory, for it is my solemn belief that if we had been let alone he would have been saved all those wretched falls, those blind struggles that have marred a life whose purpose is yet so noble.

"When the fates brought us together again in New York, I saw at a glance that whatever may have been the proud, morbid conscientiousness that dictated his long silence, he loved me still;—a woman knows that by an unmistakable instinct. She can feel the reality through all disguises. I know that man loves me, and yet he does not now in word or deed make the least profession beyond the boundaries of friendship. He is my friend; with entire devotion he is willing to spend and be spent for me—but he will accept nothing from me. I, who would give my life to him willingly—I must do nothing for him!

"Well, it's no use writing. You see now that I am a very unworthy disciple of your sister. She is so calm and philosophical that I cannot tell her all this; but you, dear little Eva, you know the heart of woman, and you have a magic key which unlocks everybody's heart in confidence to you. I seem to see you, in fancy, with good Cousin Harry, sitting cosily in your chimney-corner; your ivies and nasturtiums growing round your sunny windows, and an everlasting summer in your pretty parlors, while the December winds whistle without. Such a life as you two lead, such a home as your home, is worth a thousand 'careers' that dazzle ambition. Send us more letters, journals, of all your pretty, lovely home life, and let me warm myself in the glow of your fireside.

Your Cousin,

Carry."

Eva finished this letter, and then folding it up sat with it in her lap, gazing into the fire, and pondering its contents. If the truth must be told, she was revolving in her young, busy brain a scheme for restoring Caroline to her lover, and setting them up comfortably at housekeeping on a contiguous street, where she had seen a house to let. In five minutes she had gone through the whole programme—seen the bride at the altar, engaged the house, bought the furniture, and had before her a vision of parlors, of snuggeries and cosy nooks, where Caroline was to preside, and where Bolton was to lounge at his ease, while she and Caroline compared housekeeping accounts. Happy young wives develop an aptitude for match-making as naturally as flowers spring in a meadow, and Eva was losing herself in this vision of Alnaschar, when a loud, imperative, sharp bark of a dog at the front door of the house called her back to life and the world.

Now there are as many varieties to dog-barks as to man-talks. There is the common bow-wow, which means nothing, only that it is a dog speaking; there is the tumultuous angry bark, which means attack; the conversational bark, which, of a moonlight night, means gossip; and the imperative staccato bark which means immediate business. The bark at the front door was of this kind: it was loud and sharp, and with a sort of indignant imperativeness about it, as of one accustomed to be attended to immediately.

Eva flew to the front door and opened it, and there sat Jack, the spoiled darling of Miss Dorcas Vanderheyden and her sister, over the way.

"Why, Jacky! where did you come from?" said Eva. Jacky sat up on his haunches and waved his forepaws in a vigorous manner, as was his way when he desired to be specially ingratiating.

Eva seized him in her arms and carried him into the parlor, thinking that as he had accidentally been shut out for the night she would domesticate him for a while, and return him to his owners on the morrow. So she placed him on the ottoman in the corner and attempted to caress him, but evidently that was not the purpose he had in view. He sprang down, ran to the door and snuffed, and to the front windows and barked imperiously.

"Why, Jack, what do you want?"

He sprang into a chair and barked out at the Vanderheyden house.

Eva looked at the mantel clock—it wanted a few minutes of ten—without, it was a bright moonlight night.

"I'll run across with him, and see what it is," she said. She was young enough to enjoy something like an adventure. She opened the front door and Jack rushed out, and then stopped to see if she would follow; as she stood a moment he laid hold on the skirt of her dress, as if to pull her along.

"Well, Jacky, I'll go," said Eva. Thereat the creature bounded across the street and up the steps of the opposite house, where he stood waiting. She went up and rang the door-bell, which appeared to be what he wanted, as he sat down quite contented on the doorstep.

Nobody came. Eva looked up and down the street. "Jacky, we shall have to go back, they are all asleep," she said. But Jacky barked contradiction, sprang nearer to the door, and insisted on being let in.

"Well, if you say so, Jacky, I must ring again," she said, and with that she pulled the door-bell louder, and Jack barked with all his might, and the two succeeded after a few moments in causing a perceptible stir within.

Slowly the door unclosed, and a vision of Miss Dorcas in an old-fashioned broad-frilled night-cap peeped out. She was attired in a black water-proof cloak, donned hastily over her night gear.

"Oh, Jack, you naughty boy!" she exclaimed, stooping eagerly to the prodigal, who sprung tumultuously into her arms and began licking her face.

"I'm so much obliged to you, Mrs. Henderson," she said to Eva. "We went down in the omnibus this afternoon, and we suddenly missed him, the naughty fellow," she said, endeavoring to throw severity into her tones.

Eva related Jack's ruse.

"Did you ever!" said Miss Dorcas; "the creature knew that we slept in the back of the house, and he got you to ring our door-bell. Jacky, what a naughty fellow you are!"

Mrs. Betsey now appeared on the staircase in an equal state of dishabille:

"Oh dear, Mrs. Henderson, we are so shocked!"

"Dear me, never speak of it. I think it was a cunning trick of Jack. He knew you were gone to bed, and saw I was up and so got me to ring his door-bell for him. I don't doubt he rode up town in the omnibus. Well, good-night!"

And Eva closed the door and flew back to her own little nest just in time to let in Harry.

The first few moments after they were fairly by the fireside were devoted to a recital of the adventure, with dramatic representations of Jack and his mistresses.

"It's a capital move on Jack's part. It got me into the very interior of the fortress. Only think of seeing them in their night-caps! That is carrying all the out-works of ceremony at a move."

"To say nothing of their eternal gratitude," said Harry.

"Oh, that of course. They were ready to weep on my neck with joy that I had brought the dear little plague back to them, and I don't doubt are rejoicing over him at this moment. But, oh, Harry, you must hear the girls' Paris letters."

"Are they very long?" said Harry.

"Fie now, Harry; you ought to be interested in the girls."

"Why, of course I am," said Harry, pulling out his watch, "only—what time is it?"

"Only half-past ten—not a bit late," said Eva. As she began to read Ida's letter, Harry settled back in the embrace of a luxurious chair, with his feet stretched out towards the fire, and gradually the details of Paris life mingled pleasingly with a dream—a fact of which Eva was made aware as she asked him suddenly what he thought of Ida's views on a certain point.

"Now, Harry—you haven't been asleep?"

"Just a moment. The very least in the world," said Harry, looking anxiously alert and sitting up very straight.

Then Eva read Caroline's letter.

"Now, isn't it too bad?" she said, with eagerness, as she finished.

"Yes, it's one of those things that you and I can do nothing to help—it is αναγκη [Greek: anagkê]."

"What's ananke?"

"The name the old Greeks gave to that perverse Something that brought ruin and misery in spite of and out of the best human efforts."

"But I want to bring these two together."

"Be careful how you try, darling. Who knows what the results may be? It's a subject Bolton never speaks of, where he has his own purposes and conclusions; and it's the best thing for Caroline to be where she has as many allurements and distractions as she has in Paris, and such a wise, calm, strong friend as your sister.

"And now, dear, mayn't I go to bed?" he added, with pathos, "You've no idea, dear, how sleepy I am."

"Oh, certainly, you poor boy," said Eva, bustling about and putting up the chairs and books preparatory to leaving the parlor.

"You see," she said, going up stairs, "he was so imperious that I really had to go with him."

"He! Who?"

"Why, Jack, to be sure, he did all but speak," said Eva, brush in hand, and letting down her curls before the glass. "You see I was in a reverie over those letters when the barking roused me—I don't think you ever heard such a barking; and when I got him in, he wouldn't be contented—kept insisting on my going over with him—wasn't it strange?"

Harry, by this time composed for the night and half asleep, said it was.

In a few moments he was aroused by Eva's saying, suddenly,

"Harry, I really think I ought to bring them together. Now, couldn't I do something?"

"With Jack?" said Harry, drowsily.

"Jack!—oh, you sleepy-head! Well, never mind. Good night."