Читать книгу The Gayworthys - Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney - Страница 12

Human histories and events go by periods and conjunctures, as well as the great planetary forces and systems. All are under one like law. This night of the 27th of June, which passed so seemingly unmarked, save by a simple social gathering, over the little town of Hilbury, and into the lives that revolved together, working out this story that I write, was a focus wherefrom radiated much. Here-after, years may be missed in the narration; to-night, hardly a moment or a thought.

Mrs. Hartshorne went home early from the party; took "French leave," as she called it, making more bustle in doing so, however, through explaining to every member of the family the why, than could possibly have been accomplished in any other manner. But, underneath the bustle, her good heart was anxious, troubled. She said, that "Gabe would be tired after his day's sail, and she wouldn't wait to make him come for her;" that "father had a headache, which was why she came alone;" she knew, false-lipped woman that she was, that Gabriel had come back from Deepwater before she left her home, no more tired than a hearty young New-Englander should be, after a day's toil or frolic, and with no thought but to dress in his best, and go to the strawberry party. But a shadow that was coming over their simple home,—a fearful something which they did not name, as yet, even to each other,—lifted its apparitional finger, and stayed them in this, as in many another hope and plan to come. There was a secret at the Hartshornes'; a secret surmised, as yet, by none but mother and son; but which should come to be more than surmise with all the little world about them, as such things do, long before they would acknowledge in words, between themselves, the terrible truth.

There was something queer about old Mr. Hartshorne. He took strange fancies now and then. He did things in odd ways, and at odd times.

"Gabriel," his mother had said, as the young man came down from his little corner bedroom that looked out toward the Gayworthy farm, and whence he could see the flutter of a white curtain at one particular window of the doctor's mansion,—he looked bright and handsome, to-night, in his new dark-blue coat, and with the yellow-brown waves tossed back above the broad brow and beaming blue eyes,—"Gabriel, you don't care no great about the party to-night, I suppose?"

"Well,—no; nothing particular. Why?" returned Gabriel, forcing down heart and conscience with one great gulp, and holding them there with this lie that he laid upon them.

"Because, father's taken a notion that he won't go; he says he must walk clear over to the five-acre lot, to mow a piece round a turkey-hen that's settin' there, for fear the men should come foul of her in the morn'n'; an' I donno how, exactly, to leave him to go alone. It's kinder pokerish over there, and he might cut himself,—or something."

"Well,—I'll go with him," said Gabriel, slowly, turning to go up-stairs again and take off the best suit. The cloud that came over his face,—the sudden quench in the beaming blue eye,—told nothing to his mother that her own heart did not answer to and explain.

And Gabriel inquired curiously after the turkey's nest, and "took a notion," in his turn, to walk over with his father to the five-acre lot, in the low sunlight, and fibbed again when he said he "didn't feel much like rigging up for a party;" which had been true but for the last five minutes, since he unrigged, and went his way, bearing the glittering scythe upon his shoulder, as any martyr might bear the weapon of his sacrifice; and Mrs. Hartshorne rendered herself at the tea-party as we have seen; and Joanna had hard, disappointed, bitter, mistaken thoughts, and carried them away to bed with her, and cried over them, as she had promised herself; and of all possible things never dreamed in her imaginings, of this,—that Gabriel might haply, be somehow as compulsorily and painfully disappointed as she. The best reasons for human conduct are often, alas! precisely those which can never be given to them who demand of us the why. And so a story of misconception, which should not, for long, be made quite clear, began, between these two. So the threads of these lives, which seemed about to be caught together in a web of joy, were raveled apart for awhile, and floated away from each other, reaching and feeling,—unfastened thrums,—into a hopeless void.

It was a good two hours before Gabriel Hartshorne was free of his father. The turkey's nest was islanded with a fragrant swath,—the "heft" of the crop noted and rejoiced over,—the tons of good timothy and clover calculated,—a circuit taken,—in a dreamy loiter by the old man, in a fever of impatience by the young one,—around by the brook, and up through the long meadow; and then there was a delay at the barn,—scythes looked to for the morrow; Gabriel sent down the lane, by a sudden thought, to see if the bars were up at the end; and, last of all, after they had fairly reached the house again, a fidget about the lantern they had lighted for a minute in the tool-room, and Gabriel must go back to the barn, and examine, lest by chance there might be any sparks about.

By the time all this was over and his father composed to the smoking of his evening pipe, the young man was tired. Tired in body and in spirit. Besides, the shoes he had blackened so nicely were all unpolished and dusty, now; his clean wristbands crumpled; the feeling of freshness and fitness gone beyond possibility of renewal by the changing of a coat; the hour was late, according to their primitive customs, and presently, deciding all question that he might else have had, he saw from the front gate where he stood and leaned, thinking gloomily, his mother's stout, comfortable figure moving homeward in the mingled light of sunset and moonrise, down the hill.

"Well, Gabriel. How's father?"

"Inside, smoking his pipe."

"You look tired. Where've you been?"

"All round the lot. He's been pretty res'less. How was the party?"

"Elegant. I wish you'd a been there. Mis' Gair was as fine as a fiddle; and as to that Joann, she does beat all for carryin' on. I never see a girl in such spirits as she was to-night. It kinder frightens me, too, when young folks begin so. They'll take such a lot o' soberin' down. I was pretty chipper myself when I was her age."

Good Mrs. Hartshorne ended with a sigh. In its fleeting breath exhaled a subtile distillation of many a sorrow that had come upon her since the "chipper" days. There were slabs in the churchyard to tell of some; there were care and labor-lines on face and hands, that might hint at others; there was something in the very breaking off of her report of the just past festivities, and the quickening of her footsteps toward the house, that had to do, as Gabriel knew, with an unspoken weight that lay upon her now.

He followed his mother into the house, asking no more questions.

Joanna had been gay, to-night, then. She had missed nothing from her pleasure.—Well!

From the corner bedroom he could see the white curtain still in the moonlight. There came a light that glimmered behind it, for a little while, and then went suddenly out, as something that flared wildly for an instant, and quenched coldly, also, in his own heart. And night and stillness lay between the two homes.

O God! who holdest all lives in Thine own bosom, wherein all are quickened and commune together: what is this space, this circumstance, which Thou hast made, that can—ever so little of it—part them so; that can keep them so unwistful of each other, even in Thee?

Sunday came. The old meeting-house was full of its Sabbath fragrance. Do you know what I mean? Did you ever sit—a great while ago it must have been, to be sure—in one of those family inclosures in an old-fashioned country church, whose space is railed off in roomy squares, and smell the mingled incense that goes up, on a summer day, with the prayers and praises? The tender aroma of fresh flowers, held here and there in a hand that has gathered them just the last thing at home, or on the way; the odor of aromatics,—of peppermints, perhaps, or nibbled cloves; the lavender and musk that breathe faintly forth from the best laces, muslins, and ribbons; to say nothing of whiffs, now and then, that betray spice-cake and simballs and sage-cheese, stowed away carefully in sanctuary cupboards, under the hinge-seats, until the "nooning"? Whatever you may think, there was nothing disagreeable about it,—nothing even of coarseness or desecration; to long-accustomed nostrils, it was the very atmosphere of the Lord's Day; and the life-long, subtile association helped the people, doubtless, even in their prayers.

Little Sarah Gair found it all very delightful, contrasted with city church-going, where people shove themselves into narrow crannies, and sit with their knees against one board and their backs against another,—stuck in rows, like knives in a knife-box,—compressing the body, by way of expanding the soul. There was nothing Say liked better than to go to meeting in Hilbury; to sit in the corner, on the broad window-seat that came in so as to form a commodious place for two, and where Gershom was usually her companion; to listen to the full-voiced village choir, and look up with a sort of childish awe at the row of men and maidens who filled the "singing-seats," and bore part in the solemn service of praise; to glance from group to group of the crowded congregation, and, when tired of bonnets and faces within to turn eyes and thoughts outward, where the stone slabs were planted thickly, marking the more solemn congregation of the dead; to walk round, quietly, from pew to pew in the nooning, or to go with Aunt Rebecca into the churchyard, and read the names,—it didn't seem a sad, but rather a pleasant and beautiful thing, to be lying there, where neighbors and friends came up and walked weekly, and talked gently, among the green graves,—or to go with Aunt Joanna to a neighbor's house, and eat simballs, and hear the great girls talk, which was pretty much all the little girls could do on Sunday; and as for the incense we were speaking of, Say always complained to her mother, when she got back to Selport, that it "didn't ever smell like Sunday there!"

These were her impressions. Quiet Aunt Rebecca,—merry Aunt Joanna,—pretty Stacy Lawton, who looked unwontedly demure to-day,—stout, good-natured Mrs. Hartshorne, and Gabriel, who, as first tenor, stood next, in the singing-seats, to Joanna, leading the treble,—with scores of others, whose hidden life it does not come within our especial province to trace,—had theirs.

Gabriel came late into the gallery. He was shy of meeting Joanna; fearful of the resentment she might show him for his apparent slight. He encountered something worse than resentment. An utter unconcern. Joanna was as blooming to-day in her "cottage-straw" with its blue ribbons,—her eye was as clear, her cheek was as fresh, as if that "cry" of the other night had never been. Her shoulder turned not a hair's breadth from the line of his, as they stood side by side in the opening hymn. Her hand shrunk with no disdain from the touch that met it for an instant, as they turned the pages of their books to find the tune. She settled a little, comfortably, into the corner of her seat which the narrow passage separated from his, when the sermon began, and the cottage-bonnet just shaded her face from his sight. After service, her "how-dye-do, Mr. Hartshorne," in answer to his greeting, was to the last degree insouciante; and then, just as he was about to say something more, she caught her name whispered from behind, and turning promptly, yet without any undue quickness, responded to some proposition or remark, and was drawn away among the girls, and down the left-hand staircase, which was the feminine exit.

She went, with half a dozen of them, down the hill from the meeting-house, between the rows of poplars, to Deacon Whittaker's; the deacon's daughter, Carrie, leading the way. Gabriel stood among a group of young men at the church-door, and saw them pass.

Presently, they disappeared round the corner of the large, old, unpainted house, whose great square open porch gave, not upon the road, but upon the smooth sloping grass-plat at the side. Here, buzzing and fluttering, as bees and maidens alone know how, they clustered and chatted, while baskets were opened and the simple nooning meal, that needed intervention of neither knife nor fork, was eaten.

"Where's Stacy Lawton?" asked somebody.

"I can't tell you that, but I can tell you one thing, girls," said Joanna Gayworthy. "And before it happens, too. We're in for a revival; and Stacy Lawton's going to lead off. She's getting impressions, you may depend upon it. And some others, too, perhaps. You'll see 'em in the anxious-seats, before long. The parson ought to have left that text for Gordon King, though."

"Oh, Joanna, how can you?" the others exclaimed, and laughed. The morning sermon had been from the words, "Give me thine heart."

"Well, I can't help it, when I see how things go on. Religion's so interesting when a handsome young man comes and talks about it. Why, poor Mr. Fairbrother might have preached his cheek bones through, and his eyes into hollows till they came out at the back of his head, and nobody would have been the least bit anxious. But those waving locks! and those heavenly eyes! and 'sech a figger!' as Sabiah Millet says! I'm sure I don't know what the sinners can be made of, if they don't come under conviction!"

While Joanna spoke, the three or four young men, of whom Gabriel Hartshorne was one, came into the dooryard, and passed the porch, going towards the well, which, with its long sweep and wide curb, occupied a central position in the space between house and garden, not so far from the porch as to be beyond conversational distance. There were almost always girls in the porch and young men about the well, in these summer Sunday noons. Joanna, standing upon the step, facing inward, neither paused nor turned, but talked on recklessly, as they went by.

"I never heard anybody run on as you do!" cried Eunice Gibson. "It don't make any difference what it's about. It was just so at your party the other night. How you did train! You made fun of everything that came up."

"Yes; Satan entered into me. And I don't believe he's gone out yet. So don't set me going. I should like to be a little proper on Sunday. Here comes Mrs. Prouty. Her umbrella's always up. She's never caught in a shower."

"What do you mean?"

"Why, don't she always make you feel as if you were out in the rain, and she standing under cover, chuckling? She does me. Her work's always so dreadfully sure to be done up, whether it's cheeses or salvation. She is not as other women are. There's never anything left over on a Saturday night, with her. Don't you see how her mouth's primmed up? That's as much as to say the washing and mending and churning and cleaning and baking are all through with, up to the minute, and her soul seen to, besides.—Mrs. Prouty! Where's Eliza? We're going down the Brook Road, presently, for a little walk."

"Eliza stayed in. She's preparing herself for her Sunday School class," replied Mrs. Prouty, precisely, and with a tone of subdued self-gratulation. Her daughter, also, was not as other people's daughters were.

"Wasn't that Christian of me, to give her such a chance? See how much good it's done her," whispered Joanna to Eunice, as Mrs. Prouty passed them, and went in. "We're such terrible creatures, you know, talking and laughing over our luncheon, and going to walk. And it's such a satisfaction to her to see it! I don't know what some saints would do, if there wasn't a world round them lying in wickedness!"

"Hush! there she is at the window!"

Mrs. Prouty had entered the deaconess' sitting-room, and taken a position where she could converse directly with that lady, and if occasion offered, send a few words also, over her shoulder, at the group upon the porch.

In a minute or two the side-fire began.

"Yes, it was a very feeling discourse; and I do hope we shall see some fruits of it. But it seems pretty hard to make any impression on our young folks, somehow. It's in at one ear, and out at the other, with most of 'em."

"Might as well be so, perhaps, as in at the ear and out at the mouth," commented Joanna, in an under-tone.

"I'm afraid there's some mischeevous influence, that undooes it all," continued Mrs. Prouty with a sigh.

"I know there is; but it isn't the sort you mean. Come girls, let's go and have our walk. I shall say something out loud, presently, if we stay here.

"I can't bear," continued Joanna, as the little party prepared to move, at her suggestion, "to be put into a dark closet, and have somebody continually coming to look in, and ask me if I'm sorry yet. I always feel like saying, as I did to my mother once, when I was a little girl. 'When I horry, I let oo know!'"

"But then!" said one of the group, timidly, "I don't think we ought to make fun of such things."

"Nor I, neither, Abby," answered Joanna, quickly, and with a changed manner. "I don't make fun of the things; it's only the way people behave about them. It isn't real. It isn't natural. When folks really do give their hearts, whether it's to God or a fellow-creature, it isn't a thing, I think, that they run round telling about. There's only one concerned to know anything about it."

This sudden shifting to earnest, and of such outright sort, threw an astonished silence, for a moment, over the company. The girls didn't always know just how to take Joanna Gayworthy.

Whether the allusion to giving of hearts, or the approach of the young men, who now came up from behind, as if to join them, suggested the next remark or not, it came, with an unintentional "by the way," that made Joanna secretly wince.

"Why wasn't Gabriel Hartshorne at your house the other night?"

"Sure enough! I don't know. I'll ask him."

The quick, fine, feminine artifice of this, Gabriel, catching the words, could not discern. He took them at their surface meaning, and verily believed that she had never thought to miss him, or to wonder why he had not come. She, who had kept the whole company merry! Man-like, he turned off in a clumsy huff, and walked beside Eunice Gibson.

She put the question.

"I came home late from Deepwater," he answered; "and afterwards, I was wanted,—at home."

"A good plan, to stay where he was sure of that," whispered Joanna, as she moved forward with her companion. This was the word too much, which women are pretty sure to say when they try to cover up with words their true feelings. She bit her lip when she had spoken it. If Gabriel had not been already set off with such an impetus upon the wrong track, it might have gone far to guide him upon the right one. But men always do rush away headlong, at the first word; and another, sent after, drives them forward, rather than brings them back. There's where we have advantage of them.

The effervescence of Joanna's sauciness was over, however. She subsiding, the little party walked, in a new mood of quietness, tinged, perhaps, with a slight, half-recognized constraint, onward, down the Brook Road; paused a moment or two, upon the narrow bridge, listening to the Sunday song of the busy waters; and then, like the "King of France with twenty thousand men," turned, at her lead, and "marched up again." An evolution which, to them, as to the king in the old rhyme, had, doubtless, its own meaning.

With two of the number, it had at any rate, its own result.

A word, or the want of a word, is a little thing; but into the momentary wound or chasm, so made or left, throng circumstances; these thrust wider and wider asunder, till the whole round bulk of the world may lie between two lives.