Say and Seal, Volume II

CHAPTER XXXI

A month passed away,—with apple blossoms, strawberry flowers, now with strawberries themselves. Roses coming into splendour, carnations in full force, and both re-established in the cheeks of Faith Derrick. What a month it had been!—of weather, of work, of society. Lessons after the old fashion, reading aloud, talking; going round the country at Jerry's heels, or on the back of Mrs. Stoutenburgh's pony—for there she was put, just so soon as she could bear it, passing by degrees from a gentle trot on level ground to a ladylike scamper over the hills. Faith had not been so strong for many a day as the longest day of that summer found her.

Coming home from their afternoon ride by the way of the postoffice, Mr. Linden found there a letter from Europe; the seal of which he broke as they entered, the house, just in time to give Faith a little enclosed note to herself as she went up stairs to change her dress. Its words were few. Referring Faith to Mr. Linden for particulars, it asked her to let him come to Germany without delay. The aunt with whom Miss Linden lived was at the point of death, apparently—she herself in danger of being left quite alone in a strange land. Yet with all the urgency of the case, the whole breathing of Miss Linden's note was, "Faith—can you spare him?—will you let him come?"

The question was settled before it was asked, in Faith's mind; but what a laying down of pleasure and what a taking up of pain was there! The rest of the vacation was gone at once; for Mr. Linden could not go to Europe and come back, even on the wings of steam, and have a day left before study would begin again. No more of him—except, at the best, snatches—till next year; and next year was very far off, and who could tell what might be next year? But at the best, she must see little more of him until then; and in the mean time he must put half the world between them. Nobody saw how fast the roses faded on Faith's cheek; she sat and looked at the matter all alone, and looked it through. For one few minutes; and then she rose up and began dressing slowly, looking at it still, but gathering all her forces together to deal with it. And when her dressing was done, she still stood leaning one hand and her head on the dressing table, thinking over all that was to do. She had remembered, as with a flash of remembrance, what day the next steamer would sail—from what port—she knew the hour when Mr. Linden must leave Pattaquasset. And when her mind had seen all the preparations to be made, and she thought she was strong enough, she turned to go down stairs; but then feeling very weak Faith turned again and kneeled down to pray. And in a mixed feeling of strength and weakness, she went down stairs.

First to the kitchen, where she quietly looked after the state of the clothes in the wash, and desired Cindy to have all Mr. Linden's things ready for ironing that evening. Then attended to the supply of bread and the provision for breakfast; saw that one or two things about the supper were in proper order and progress; asked Mrs. Derrick to make the tea when it was time, and finally, as quietly as if the afternoon's ride had been the only event of the afternoon, opened the door of the sitting-room and softly went in.

For a while after reading his own letter Mr. Linden had sat absolutely still,—then with a sort of impatience to see Faith, to give her what comfort he could, at least to have her with him every minute, he had paced up and down the sitting-room till she appeared. Now he took her in his arms with all sorts of tender caresses—with no words at first but, "My little Mignonette!" Faith herself was quite still and wordless; only once, and that suddenly and earnestly, she gave his cheek the salutation she had never given him before unbidden. From her it was a whole volume, and thoroughly peace-speaking, although it might intimate a little difficulty of words.

Keeping one arm round her, Mr. Linden began again his walk up and down the room; beginning to talk as well—telling her what was in his letter, how long the journey would take, and more than all, what she must do while he was away. How long the absence would be—when he should be at home again, that was little touched upon by either; the return might be very speedy—that seemed most probable, but neither he nor Faith cared to put in words all the uncertainties that hung about it. From every point he came back to her,—with injunctions about her strength, and directions about her studies, and charges to take care of herself for him—with other words of comfort and cheering, spoken cheerfully from a very sorrowful heart. One other charge he gave—

"My little Sunbeam, my dearest Faith, keep both your names unclouded!"

"I have had one lesson, Endy"—

She was a little pale, but had listened to him quietly as intently; voice and smile both ready to do their part, albeit gravely, whenever there was a part for them.

"I shall not forget—" she added now with a smile, a rare one, after a little pause.

He brought her back to the sofa then, kissing the pale cheeks as if he missed their carnations. Yet—with the stringency of the old law which saith that "Doublet and hose must shew itself courageous to petticoat"—Mr. Linden gave her bright words, although they were words of a very grave brightness—not contradicted, but qualified by his eyes.

"Mignonette," he said, "I did not think next year could gain brightness from anything—but I cannot tell you how it has looked to me within these last two hours. If I could but call in Mr. Somers, and then take you with me!"

It brought a rush of the carnations; but Faith did not think so extravagant a wish required any combating. Neither did she say what she thought of "next year."

That evening at least they had quietly together. What Faith did after they had separated for the night, Mr. Linden never knew; but the morning saw everything ready for his departure,—ready down to the little details which a man recognizes only (for the most part) by the sense of want. And if cheeks were paler than last night, they were only now and then less steady—till he was gone.

CHAPTER XXXII

Dr. Harrison took passage in the steamship Vulcan, C. W. Cyclops, commander, for the Old World; having come to the conclusion that the southern country was not sufficiently remote, and that only a change of hemispheres would suit the precise state of his mind. Letters of combined farewell and notice-giving, reached Pattaquasset too late to cumber the doctor with a bevy of friends to see him off; but his sudden motions were too well known, and his peculiarities too long established, to excite much surprise or dismay by any new manifestations.

The Vulcan lay getting her steam up in that fair June morning, with very little regard to the amount of high pressure that her passengers might bring on board. Nothing could be more regardless of their hurry and bustle, the causes that brought them, the tears they shed, the friends they left behind, than the ship with her black sides and red smoke pipe. Tears did indeed trickle down some parts of her machinery, but they were only condensed steam—which might indeed be true of some of the tears of her passengers.

Punctual to her time she left her moorings, steaming down the beautiful bay with all the June light upon her, throwing back little foamy waves that glittered in the sun, making her farewell with a long train of blue rollers that came one after another to kiss the shore. What if tears sprinkled the dusty sidewalks of Canal St.?—what if that same light shone on white handkerchiefs and bowed heads?—The answering drops might fall in the state-rooms of the Vulcan, but on deck bustle and excitement had their way.

So went on the miles and the hours,—then the pilot left the vessel, taking with him a little handful of letters; and the passengers who had been down stairs to write were on deck, watching him off. In the city business rolled on with its closing tide,—far down on the Long Branch shore people looked northward towards a dim outline, a little waft of smoke, and said—"There goes the Vulcan." The freshening breeze, the long rolls of the Atlantic, sent some passengers below, even now,—others stood gazing back at the faint city indications,—others still walked up and down—those who had left little, or cared little for what they had left. Of these was Dr. Harrison, who paced the deck with very easy external manifestations.

Some change of mind—some freak of fancy, sent him at last to the other side of the ship—then to the prow. Here sailors were busy,—here one passenger stood alone: but if there had been twenty more, Dr. Harrison could have seen but this one. He was standing with arms folded, in a sort of immoveable position, that yet accommodated itself easily to the ship's slow courtseying; as regardless of that as of the soft play of the sea breeze; looking back—but not to the place where the Vulcan had lain a few hours before. He was rather looking forward,—looking off to some spot that lay north or northeast of them: some spot invisible, yet how clearly seen! Looking thither,—as if in all the horizon that alone had any interest. So absorbed—so far from the ship,—his lips set in such grave, sad lines; his eyes so intent, as if they could by no means look at anything else. Nay, for the time, there was nothing else to see! Dr. Harrison might come or go—the sailors might do their utmost,—far over the rolling water, conscious of that only because it was a barrier of separation, the watcher's eyes rested on Mignonette. If once or twice the eyelids fell, it was not that the vision failed.

Dr. Harrison stopped short, unseen, and not wishing at that moment to meet the consequences of being seen. Yet he stood still and looked. The first feeling being one of intense displeasure and disgust that the Vulcan carried so unwelcome a fellow-passenger; the second, of unbounded astonishment and wonder what he did there. He putting the ocean between him and Pattaquasset? he setting out for the Old World, with all his hopes just blossoming in the New? What could be the explanation? Was it possible, Dr. Harrison asked himself for one moment, that he could have been mistaken? that he could have misunderstood the issue of the conversation that morning in Faith's sick room? A moment resolved him. He recalled the steady, dauntless look of Faith's eyes after his words,—a look which he had two or three times been privileged to receive from her and never cared to meet;—he remembered how daintily her colour rose as her eyes fell, and the slow deliberate uncovering of her diamond finger from which the eyes were not raised again to look at him; he remembered it with the embittered pang of the moment. No! he had not been mistaken; he had read her right. Could it be—it crossed the doctor's mind like a flash of the intensest lightning—that his letter had done its work? its work of separation? But the cool reminder of reason came like the darkness after the lightning. Mr. Linden would not have been at Mrs. Derrick's, as the doctor had heard of his being there, if any entering wedge of division had made itself felt between his place there and him. No, though now he was here in the Vulcan. And Dr. Harrison noticed anew, keenly, that the expression of the gazer's face, though sorrowful and grave, was in nowise dark or desponding. Nothing of that! The grave brow was unbent in every line of it; the grave lips had no hard set of pain; the doctor read them well, both lips and brow! Mr. Linden was no man to stand and look towards Pattaquasset if he had nothing there. And with a twinge he now recollected the unwonted sound of that name from the pilot's mouth as he took charge of the letters and went off. Ay! and turning with the thought the doctor paced back again, as unregardful now of the contents of the Vulcan, animate or inanimate, as the man himself whom he had been watching.

What should he do? he must meet him and speak to him, though the doctor desired nothing less in the whole broad earth. But he must do it, for the maintenance of his own character and the safety of his own secret and pride that hung thereby. That little piece of simplicity up there in the country had managed to say him no without being directly asked to say anything—thanks to her truthful honesty; and perhaps, a twinge or two of another sort came to Dr. Harrison's mind as he thought of his relations with her,—yes, and of his relations with him. Not pleasant, but all the more, if possible, Dr. Harrison set his teeth and resolved to speak to Mr. Linden the first opportunity. All the more, that he was not certain Mr. Linden had received his letter,—it was likely, yet Dr. Harrison had had no note of the fact. It might have failed. And not withstanding all the conclusions to which his meditations had come, curiosity lingered yet;—a morbid curiosity, unreasonable, as he said to himself, yet uncontrollable, to see by eye and ear witness, even in actual speech and conversation, whether all was well with Mr. Linden or not. His own power of self-possession Dr. Harrison could trust; he would try that of the other. Yet he took tolerably good care that the opportunity of speaking should not be this evening. The doctor did not come in to supper till all the passengers were seated, or nearly so, and then carried himself to the end of the apartment furthest from his friend; where he so bore his part that no mortal could have supposed Dr. Harrison had suffered lately in mind, body, or estate.

Mr. Linden's part that night was a quiet one, the voluntary part of it, and strictly confined to the various little tea-table courtesies which with him might indeed be called involuntary. But it so happened that the Vulcan carried out quite a knot of his former friends—gentlemen who knew him well, and these from their various places at the table spoke either to him or of him frequently. Dr. Harrison in the pauses of his own talk could hear, "Linden"—"Endecott Linden"—"John, what have you been doing with yourself?"—in different tones of question or comment,—sometimes caught the tones of Mr. Linden's voice in reply; but as they were both on the same side of the table eyesight was not called for. The doctor sat in his place until the table was nearly cleared; then sauntered forth into the evening light. Fair, bright, glowing light, upon gay water and a gay deck-full; but Dr. Harrison gaining nothing from its brightness, stood looking out on its reflection in the waves more gloomily than he had seen another look a little time ago. Then a hand was laid lightly on his shoulder, making its claim of acquaintanceship with a very kind, friendly touch. The doctor turned and met hand and eye with as far as could be seen his old manner, only perhaps his fingers released themselves a little sooner than once they would, and the smile was a trifle more broad than it might if there had been no constraint about it.

"I am not altogether taken now by surprise," said he, "though surprise hasn't yet quit its hold of me. I heard your name a little while ago. What are you doing here, Linden?"

"Rocking in the cradle of business as well as of the deep," said Mr. Linden. "The last steamer brought word that I must sail by this, and so here I am."

"Who rocks the cradle of business?" said the doctor, with the old comical lift of the eyebrows with which he used to begin a tilt with Mr. Linden.

"Duty and Interest rock it between them,—singing of rest, and keeping one awake thereby."

"A proper pair of nurses!" said the doctor. "Why man, they would tear the infant Business to pieces between them! Unless one of them did as much for the other in time to prevent it."

"Never—unless Inclination took the place of Interest."

"Don't make any difference," said the doctor;—"Inclination always follows the lead of Interest.—Except in a few extraordinary specimens of human nature."

Mr. Linden turned towards the scattered groups of passengers, and so doing his eye caught the shining of that very star which was rising over Pattaquasset as he and Mignonette rode home two nights before. Only two nights!—For a minute everything else might have been at the antipodes—then Mr. Linden brought at least his eyes back to the deck of the Vulcan. "What sort of a motley have we here, doctor? Do you know many of them?"

"Yes," said the doctor slightly;—"the usual combinations of Interest and Inclination. I wonder if we are exceptions, Linden?"

"The usual combination is not, perhaps, just the best,—it is a nice matter for a man to judge in his own case how far the proportions are rectified."

"He can't do it. Human machinery can't do it. Can you measure the height of those waves while they dazzle your eyes with gold and purple as they do now?"

"Nay—but I can tell how much they do or do not throw me out of my right course."

"What course are you on now, Linden?" said the doctor with his old-fashioned assumption of carelessness, dismissing the subject.

"Now?" Mr. Linden repeated. "Do you mean in studies, travels, or conversation?"

"In conversation, you have as usual brought me to a point! I mean—if I mean anything,—the other two; but I mean nothing, unless you like."

"I do like. Just now, then, I am in the vacation before the last year of my Seminary life,—for the rest, I am on my way to Germany."

"Finish your course there, eh?" said the doctor. "Why man, I thought you had found the 'four azure chains' long ago."

"No, not to finish my course,—if I am kept in Germany more than a few weeks, it will not be by 'azure' chains," said Mr. Linden.

"That it will not!" said one of the young men coming up, fresh from the tea-table and his cigar. "Azure chains?—pooh!—Linden breaks them as easy as Samson did the green withs. How biblical it makes one to be in company with such a theologian! But I shouldn't wonder if he was going to Europe to join some order of friars—he'll find nothing monastic enough for him in America."

"Mistaken your man, Motley!" said the doctor; who for reasons of his own did not choose to quit the conversation. "The worst I have to say of him is, that if he spends an other year in Germany his hearers will never be able to understand him!"

"Mistaken him!" said Mr. Motley—"at this time of day,—that'll do!Where did you get acquainted with him, pray?"

"Once when I had the management of him," said the doctor coolly. "There is no way of becoming acquainted with a man, like that."

"Once when you thought you had," said Mr. Motley. "Well, where was it?—in a dark passage when you got to the door first?"

"Whenever I have had the misfortune to be in a dark passage with him, he has shewed me the door," said the doctor gravely but gracefully, in his old fashion admirably maintained.

"If one of you wasn't Endecott Linden," said Mr. Motley throwing the end of his cigar overboard, "I should think you had made acquaintance on a highway robbery."

"Instead of which, it was in the peaceful town of Pattaquasset," saidMr. Linden.

"Permit me to request the reason of Mr. Motley's extraordinary guess," said the doctor.

"So natural to say where you've met a man—if there's no reason against it," said the other coolly. "But you don't say it was in Pattaquasset, doctor? Were you ever there?"

"Depends entirely on the decision of certain questions in metaphysics,"—said the doctor. "As for instance, whether anything that is, is—and the matter of personal identity, which you know is doubtful. I know the appearance of the place, Motley."

"Are there any pretty girls there?" said Mr. Motley, carelessly, but keeping his eye rather on Mr. Linden than the doctor.

"Mr. Linden can answer better than I," said Dr. Harrison, whose eye also turned that way, and whose tone changed somewhat in spite of himself. "There are none there that could not answer any question about Mr. Linden."—

"By the help of a powerful imagination," said the person spoken of. Mr.Motley looked from one to the other.

"I don't know what to make of either of you," he said. "Why doctor, Endecott Linden is a—a mere—I don't like to call him hard names, and I can't call him soft ones! However—to be sure—the cat may look at the king, even if his majesty won't return the compliment. Well—you and I were never thought hard-hearted, so I'll tell you my story. Did it ever happen—or seem to happen, doctor—that you, seeming to be in Pattaquasset, went—not to church—but along the road therefrom? Preferring the exit to the entrance—as you and I too often do?"

"It has seemed to happen to me,"—said Dr. Harrison, as if mechanically.

"Well—George Alcott and I—do you know George?—no great loss—we were kept one Sunday in that respectable little town by a freshet. Whether it was one of those rains that bring down more things from the sky than water, I don't know,—George declared it was. If it wasn't, we made discoveries."

"If you and George both used your eyes, there must have been discoveries," said Mr. Linden. "Did you take notice how green the grass looked after the rain? and that when the clouds were blown away the sun shone?"

"You're not all theology yet!" said Mr. Motley. "Be quiet—can't you? I'm not talking to you. We were sauntering down this same road, doctor—after church,—falling in with the people, so that we could see them and be taken for churchgoers. But there wasn't much to see.—Then George declared that here was the place where Linden had secluded himself for nobody knows what,—then we fell naturally into lamenting the waste of such fine material, and conned over various particulars of his former life and prospects—the great promise of past years, the present melancholy mania to make money and be useful. Upon which points George and I fought as usual. Then we grew tired of the subject and of the mud—turned short about—and beheld—what do you suppose, doctor?"

"How far you had come for nothing?"

"Imagine," said Mr. Motley, taking out a fresh cigar and a match and proceeding to put them to their respective uses,—"Imagine the vision that appeared to Balaam's ass—and how the ass felt."

"Nay, that we cannot do," said Mr. Linden. "You tax us too far."

"In both requisitions—" added the doctor.

"There stood," said Mr. Motley, removing his cigar and waving it gracefully in one hand. "There stood close behind us on the mud—she could not have been in it—an immortal creature, in mortal merino! We—transfixed, mute—stepped aside right and left to let her pass,—I believe George had presence of mind enough to take off his hat; and she—'severe in youthful beauty', glorious in youthful blushes—walked on, looking full at us as she went. But such a look! and from such eyes!—fabulous eyes, doctor, upon my honour. Then we saw that the merino was only a disguise. Imagine a search warrant wrapped up in moonbeams—imagine the blending of the softest sunset reflection with a keen lightning flash,—and after all you have only words—not those eyes. Linden!—seems to me your imagination serves you better here,—your own eyes are worth looking at!"