"Rose is late," he remarked again.
"That's nothing new," said Elizabeth. "Late is her time."
Mr. Haye drunk his cold cupful.
"You're very fond of her, Lizzie, aren't you?"
"No," said Elizabeth. "I don't think I am."
"Not fond of her!" said Mr. Haye in a very surprised tone.
"No," said Elizabeth, — "I don't think I am."
"I thought you were," said her father, in a voice that spoke both chagrin and displeasure.
"What made you think so?"
"You always seemed fond of her," said Mr. Haye.
"I can't have seemed so, for I never was so. There isn't enough of her to be fond of. I talk to her, and like her after a fashion, because she is the only person near me that I can talk to — that's all."
"I am fond of her," said Mr. Haye.
"It takes more to make me fond of anybody," said his daughter.
"I know you are."
"What does Rose want, to have the honour of your good opinion?"
"O don't talk in that tone!" said Elizabeth. "I had rather you would not talk at all. You have chosen an unhappy subject. It takes a good deal to make me like anybody much, father."
"What does Rose want?"
"As near as possible, everything," said Elizabeth, — "if you will have the answer."
"What?"
"Why father, she has nothing in the world but a very pretty face."
"You grant her that," said Mr. Haye.
"Yes, I grant her that, though it is a great while since I saw it pretty. Father, I care nothing at all for any face which has nothing beneath the outside. It's a barren prospect to me, however fair the outside may be — I don't care to let my eye dwell on it."
"How do you like the prospect of your own, in the glass?"
"I should be very sorry if I didn't think it had infinitely more in it than the face we have been speaking of. It is not so beautifully tinted, nor so regularly cut; but I like it better."
"I am afraid few people will agree with you," said her father dryly.
"There's one thing," said Elizabeth, — "I sha'n't know it if they don't. But then I see my face at a disadvantage, looking stupidly at itself in the glass — I hope it does better to other people."
"I didn't know you thought quite so much of yourself," said
Mr. Haye.
"I haven't told you the half," said Elizabeth, looking at him. "I am afraid I think more of myself than anybody else does, or ever will."
"If you do it so well for yourself, I'm afraid other people won't save you the trouble," said her father.
"I'm afraid you will not, by the tone in which you speak, father."
"What has set you against Rose?"
"Nothing in the world! I am not set against her. Nothing in the world but her own emptiness and impossibility of being anything like a companion to me."
"Elizabeth! —"
"Father! — What's the matter?"
"How dare you talk in that manner?"
"Why father," said Elizabeth, her tone somewhat quieting as his was roused, — "I never saw the thing yet I didn't dare say, if I thought it. Why shouldn't I?"
"Because it is not true — a word of it."
"I'm sure I wish it wasn't true," said Elizabeth. "What I said was true. It's a sorrowful truth to me, too, for I haven't a soul to talk to that can understand me — not even you, father, it seems."
"I wish I didn't understand you," said Mr. Haye.
"It's nothing very dreadful to understand," said Elizabeth, — "what I have been saying now. I wonder how you can think so much of it. I know you love Rose better than I do."
"I love her so well —" said Mr. Haye, and stopped.
"So well that what?"
"That I can hardly talk to you with temper."
"Then don't let us talk about it at all," said Elizabeth, whose own heightened colour shewed that her temper was moving.
"Unhappily it is necessary," said Mr. Haye dryly.
"Why in the world is it necessary? You can't alter the matter, father, by talking; — it must stand so."
"Stand how?"
"Why, as it does stand — Rose and I as near as possible nothing to each other."
"Things can hardly stand so," said Mr. Haye. "You must be either less or more."
Elizabeth sat silent and looked at him. He looked at nothing but what was on his plate.
"How would you like to have Rose take your place?"
"My place?" said Elizabeth.
"Yes," said Mr. Haye laconically.
"No place that I fill, could be filled by Rose," said Elizabeth, with the slightest perceptible lifting of her head and raising of her brow.
"We will try that," said Mr. Haye bitterly; "for I will put her over your head, and we will see."
"Put her where?" said Elizabeth.
"Over this house — over my establishment — at this table — in your place as the head of this family."
"You will take her for your daughter, and discard me?" said
Elizabeth.
"No — I will not, —" said Mr. Haye, cutting a piece of beefsteak in a way that shewed him indifferent to its fate. "I will not! — I will make her my wife! —"
Elizabeth had risen from the table and now she stood on the rug before the fire, with her arms behind her, looking down at the breakfast-table and her father. Literally, looking down upon them. Her cheeks were very pale, but fires that were not heaven-lit were burning somewhere within her, shining out at her eye and now and then colouring her face with a sudden flare. There was a pause. Mr. Haye tried what he could do with his beefsteak; and his daughter's countenance shewed the cloud and the flame of the volcano by turns. For awhile the father and daughter held off from each other. But Mr. Haye's breakfast gave symptoms of coming to an end.
"Father," said Elizabeth, bringing her hands in front of her and clasping them, — "say you did not mean that!"
"Ha! —" said Mr. Haye without looking at her, and brushing the crumbs from his pantaloons.
Elizabeth waited.
"What did you mean?"
"I spoke plain enough," said he.
"Do you mean to say that you meant that?" said Elizabeth, the volcanic fires leaping up bright.
"Meant it?" said Mr. Haye, looking at her. "Yes, I meant it."
"Father, you did not! —"
Mr. Haye looked again at her hands and her face, and answered coolly.
"Ask Rose whether I meant it, —"
And left the room.
Elizabeth neither saw nor heard, for some minutes; they might have been many or few. Then she became aware that the servant was asking her if he should leave the breakfast-table still for Miss Cadwallader; and her answer, "No — take it away!" — was given with startling decision. The man had known his young mistress before to speak with lips that were supreme in their expression. He only obeyed, without even wondering. Elizabeth in a whirl of feeling that like the smoke of the volcano hid everything but itself, went and stood in the window; present to nothing but herself; seeing neither the street without nor the house within. Wrapped in that smoke, she did not know when the servant went out, nor whether anybody else came in. She stood there pale, with lips set, her hands folded against her waist, and pressing there with a force the muscles never relaxed. How long she did not know. Something aroused her, and she discerned, through the smoke, another figure in the room and coming towards her. Elizabeth stepped out from the window, without altering anything but her place, and stood opposite to Winthrop Landholm. If it had been Queen Elizabeth of old and one of her courtiers, it would have been all one; the young man's respectful greeting could not have been met with more superb regality of head and brow.
"I have a letter for Mr. Haye," said Winthrop, "which my brother left in my charge. That brought me here this morning, and I ventured to make business an excuse for pleasure."
"It may lie on the table till he comes," said Elizabeth with the slightest bend of her stately little head. She might have meant the letter or the pleasure or the business, or all three.
"You are well, Miss Haye?" said Winthrop doubtfully.
"No — I am well enough," said Elizabeth. A revulsion of feeling had very nearly brought down her head in a flood of tears; but she kept that back carefully and perfectly; and the next instant she started with another change, for Rose came in. She gave Winthrop a very smiling and bright salutation; which he acknowledged silently, gravely, and even distantly.
"Aren't you well, Mr. Landholm?" was Rose's next instant question, most sweetly given.
"Very well," he said with another bow.
"What have you been talking about, to get so melancholy?
Lizzie —"
But Rose caught sight of the gathered blackness of that face, and stopped short. Elizabeth bestowed one glance upon her; and as she then turned to the other person of the party the revulsion came over her again, so strong that it was overcoming. For a minute her hands went to her face, and it was with extreme difficulty that the rising heart was kept down. Will had the mastery, however, and her face looked up again more dark than ever.
"We have talked of nothing at all," she said. "Mr. Landholm only came to bring a letter."
Mr. Landholm could not stay after that, for anything. He bowed himself out; and left Elizabeth standing in the middle of the floor, looking as if the crust of the earth had given way under her and 'chaos was come again.' She stood there as she had stood in the window, still and cold; and Rose afar off by the chimney corner stood watching her, as one would a wild beast or a venomous creature in the room, not a little fear mingled with a shadow of something else in her face.
Elizabeth's first movement was to walk a few steps up and down, swinging one clenched hand, but half the breadth of the room was all she went. She sunk down there beside a chair and hid her face, exclaiming or rather groaning out, one after the other, — "Oh! — oh!" — in such tones as are dragged from very far down in the heart; careless of Rose's hearing her.
"What is the matter, Lizzie?" — her companion ventured timidly. But Elizabeth gave no answer; and neither of them stirred for many minutes, an occasional uneasy flutter of Rose's being the exception. The question at last was asked over again, and responded to.
"That my father has disgraced himself, and that you are the cause!"
"There's no disgrace," said Rose.
"Don't say he has not!" said Elizabeth, looking up with an eye that glared upon her adversary. "And before he had done it, I wish you had never been born, — or I."
"It's no harm, —" said Rose confusedly.
"Harm! — harm, —" repeated Elizabeth; then putting her face down again; "Oh! — what's the use of living, in such a world!"
"I don't see what harm it does to you," said Rose, muttering her words.
"Harm?" repeated Elizabeth. "If it was right to wish it, — which I believe it isn't, — I could wish that I was dead. It almost seems to me I wish I were!"
"You're not sure about it," said Rose.
"No, I am not," said Elizabeth looking up at her again with eyes of fire and a face from which pain and passion had driven all but livid colour, — but looking at her steadily, — "because there is something after death; and I am not sure that I am ready for it. I dare not say I wish I was dead, Rose Cadwallader, or you would drive me to it!"
"I'm sure, I've done nothing," — said Rose whimpering.
"Done nothing!" said Elizabeth with a concentrated power of expression. "Oh I wish you had done anything, before my father had lowered himself in my eyes and you had been the cause! —"
"I'm not the cause of anything," said Rose.
Elizabeth did not answer; she was crouching by the side of the chair in an uneasy position that said how far from ease the spirit was.
"And he hasn't lowered himself," Rose went on pouting.
"It is done!" — said Elizabeth, getting up from the floor and standing, not unlike a lightning-struck tree. — "I wonder what will become of me! —"
"What are you going to do?"
"I would find a way out of this house, if I knew how."
"That's easy enough," said Rose with a slight sneer. "There are plenty of ways."
"Easy enough, —if one could find the right one."
"Why you've had me in the house a great while, already," said
Rose.
"I have had —" said Elizabeth. — "I wonder if I shall ever have anything again!"
"Why what have you lost?"
"Everything — except myself."
"You have a great respect for Mr. Haye," said Rose.
"I had."
Rose at this point thought fit to burst into a great fit of tears. Elizabeth stood by the table, taking up and putting down one book after another, as if the touch of them gave her fingers pain; and looking as if, as she said, she had lost everything. Then stood with folded arms eyeing something that was not before her; and then slowly walked out of the room.
"Lizzie —" said Rose.
"What?" said Elizabeth stopping at the door.
"What's the use of taking things so?"
"The use of necessity."
"But we can be just as we were before."
Elizabeth went on and gained her own room; and there she and pain had a fight that lasted the rest of the day.
The fight was not over, and weary traces of it were upon her face, when late in the afternoon she went out to try the change of a walk. The walk made no change whatever. As she was coming up the Parade, she was met by Winthrop going down. If he had seen only the gravity and reserve of the morning, it is probable he would not have stopped to speak to her; but though those were in her face still, there was beside a weary set of the brow and sorrowful line of the lips, very unwonted there, and the cheeks were pale; and instead of passing with a mere bow he came up and offered his hand. Elizabeth took it, but without the least brightening of face.
"Are you out for a walk?" said he.
"No — I am for home — I have had a walk."
"It is a very fine afternoon," said he, turning and beginning to walk along slowly with her.
"Is it?"
"Haven't you found out that it is?"
"No."
"Where have you been, not to know it?"
"Hum —" said Elizabeth, — "if you mean where my mind has been, that is one question; as for my bodily self, I have been on the Castle Green."
"You have lost your walk," said he. "Don't you feel inclined to turn about with me and try to pick up what you came out for?"
"Better there than at home," thought Elizabeth, and she turned about accordingly.
"People come out for a variety of things," she remarked however.
"That is true," said Winthrop smiling. "I am afraid I was hasty in presuming I could help you to find your object. I was thinking only of mine."
"I don't know but you could, as well as anybody," said Elizabeth. "If you could give me your mother's secret for not minding disagreeable things."
"I am afraid I cannot say she does not mind them," he answered.
"What then? — I thought you said so."
"I do not remember what I said. I might have said that she does not struggle with them — those at least which cannot be removed by struggling."
"Not struggle with them?" said Elizabeth. "Sit down quietly with them!"
"Yes," he said gravely. "Not at first, but at last."
"I don't believe in it," said Elizabeth. "That is, I don't believe in it as a general thing. It may be possible for her. I am sure it never could be for me."
Winthrop was silent, and they walked so for the space of half a block.
"Would she say that it is possible for everybody?" inquired
Elizabeth then.
"I believe she would say that it is not temperament, nor circumstance, nor stoical philosophy."
"What then?"
"A drop of some pacifying oil out of a heaven-wrought chalice."
"I don't think figures are the easiest mode of getting at things, Mr. Landholm. You don't make this clear."
He smiled a little, as he pushed open the little wicket gate of the Green, and without saying anything more they sauntered in, along the broad gravel walk sweeping round the enclosure; slowly, till they had passed the fortifications and stood looking upon the bay over towards Blue Point. The sun was almost on the low ruddied horizon; a stirring north breeze came down from the up country, roughening the bay, and the sunbeams leapt across from the opposite western shore giving a touch of light to every wave. The air was very fine; the sky without a cloud, except some waiting flecks of vapour around the sun. The two friends stood still some little time, to look or to think; looking especially at the fair glowing western heaven, and the tossing water between, every roll of which was with a dance and a sparkle.
"Does this make anything clear?" asked Winthrop, when some time had gone by without speech or movement from either of them.
He spoke lightly enough; but the answer was given in a tone that bespoke its truth.
"Oh no! —"
And Elizabeth's face was turned away so that he could see nothing but her bonnet, beside the tremulous swell of the throat; that he did see.
"It has very often such an effect for me," — he went on in the same tone. "And I often come here for the very purpose of trying it; when my head gets thick over law-papers."
"That may do for some things," said Elizabeth. "It won't for others."
"This would work well along with my mother's recipe," he said.
"What is that?" said Elizabeth harshly. "You didn't tell me."
"I am hardly fit to tell you," he answered, "for I do not thoroughly know it myself. But I know she would send you to the Bible, —and tell you of a hand that she trusts to do everything for her, and that she knows will do all things well, and kindly."
"But does that hinder disagreeables from being disagreeables?" said Elizabeth with some impatience of tone. "Does that hinder aches from being pain?"
"Hardly. But I believe it stops or soothes the aching. I believe it, because I have seen it."
Elizabeth stood still, her bosom swelling, and that fluttering of her throat growing more fluttering. It got beyond her command. The mixed passions and vexations, and with them a certain softer and more undefined regret, reached a point where she had no control over them. The tears would come, and once arrived at that, they took their own way; with such a rush of passionate indulgence, that a thought of the time and the place and the witness, made nothing, or came in only to swell the rush. The flood poured over the barrier with such joy at being set free, that it carried all before it. Elizabeth was just conscious of being placed on a seat, near to which it happened that she was standing; and she knew nothing more. She did not even know how completely she was left to herself. Not till the fever of passion was brought a little down, and recollection and shame began to take their turn, and she checked her tears and stole a secret glance around to see what part of the gravel walk supported a certain pair of feet, for higher than the ground she dared not look. Her surprise was a good deal to find that her glance must take quite a wide range to meet with them; and then venturing a single upward look, she saw that her companion standing at a little distance was not watching her, nor apparently had been; his attitude bespoke him quietly fixed upon something else and awaiting her leisure. Elizabeth brought her eyes home again.
"What a strange young man!" was her quick thought; — "to have been brought up a farmer's boy, and to know enough and to dare enough to put me on this seat, and then to have the wit to go off and stand there in that manner!"
But this tribute of respect to Winthrop was instantly followed by an endeavour to do herself honour, in the way of gaining self-possession and her ordinary looks as speedily as possible. She commanded herself well after once she got the reins in hand; yet however it was with a grave consciousness of swollen eyes and flushed cheeks that she presently rose from her place and went forward to the side of the quiet figure that stood there with folded arms watching the rolling waters of the bay. Elizabeth stood at his elbow a minute in hesitation.
"I am ready now, Mr. Landholm. I am sorry I have kept you by my ridiculousness."
"I have not been kept beyond my pleasure," he said.
"I lost command of myself," Elizabeth went on. "That happens to me once in a while."
"You will feel better for it," he said, as they turned and began to walk homewards.
"He takes things coolly!" thought Elizabeth.
"Do you men ever lose command of yourselves?"
"Sometimes — I am afraid," he said with a smile.
"I suppose your greater power of nerve and of guarding appearances, is one secret of the triumphant sort of pride you wear upon occasion. There —I see it in your face now."
"I hope not," said Winthrop laughing. "The best instance of self-control that I ever saw, was most unaccompanied with any arrogance of merit or power."
"He means his mother again," thought Elizabeth.
"Was that instance in a man or a woman, Mr. Landholm?"
"It was in a woman — unfortunately for your ground."
"Not at all," said Elizabeth. "Exceptions prove nothing."
Winthrop said nothing, for his thoughts were busy with that image of sweet self-guidance which he had never known to be unsteady or fail; and which, he knew, referred all its strength and all its stableness to the keeping of another hand. Most feminine, most humble, and most sure.
"Mr. Winthrop, your mother puzzles me," said Elizabeth. "I wish I knew some of her secrets."
"I wish I did," he answered with half a sigh.
"Why, don't you!"
"No."
"I thought you did."
"No; for she says they can only be arrived at through a certain initiation which I have not had — after certain preliminary steps, which I have not yet taken."
Elizabeth looked at him, both surprised and curious.
"What are they?"
Winthrop's face was graver than usual, as he said,
"I wish my mother were here to answer you."
"Why, cannot you?"
"No."
"Don't you know the preliminary steps, Mr. Landholm?"
He looked very grave again.
"Not clearly enough to tell you. In general, I know she would say there is a narrow way to be passed through before the treasures of truth, or its fair prospects, can be arrived at; but I have never gone that way myself and I cannot point out the way-marks."
"Are you referring to the narrow gate spoken of in the Bible?"
"To the same."
"Then you are getting upon what I do not understand," said
Elizabeth.
They had mounted the steps of No. 11, and were waiting for the door to be opened. They waited silently till it was done, and then parted with only a 'good night.' Elizabeth did not ask him in, and it hardly occurred to Winthrop to wonder that she did not.
Mr. Landholm read no classics that night. Neither law. Neither, which may seem more strange, did he consult his Book of books at all. He busied himself, not exactly with the study of the human mind, but of two human minds, — which, though at first sight it may seem an enlargement of the subject, is in fact rather a contracted view of the same.
CHAPTER XXII.
Sir Toby. Do not our lives consist of the four elements? Sir And. 'Faith, so they say, but, I think, it rather consists of eating and drinking. TWELFTH NIGHT.
"Dear, Mr. Winthrop, — what makes all this smoke here?" exclaimed Mrs. Nettley one morning, as she opened the door of his attic.
"I suppose, the wind, Mrs. Nettley," said Winthrop looking up from the book he was studying.
"O dear! — how do you manage?"
"I can't manage the smoke, Mrs. Nettley — Its resources exceed mine."
"It's that chimney!" exclaimed the good lady, standing and eyeing it in a sort of desperate concern, as if she would willingly have gone up the flue herself, so that only she could thereby have secured the smoke's doing the same. "I always knew that chimney was bad — I had it once a while myself — I'm sorry you've got it now. What do you do, Mr. Winthrop?"
"The smoke and I take turns in going out, Mrs. Nettley."
"Eh? — Does it often come in so? Can't you help it?"
"It generally takes advice with the wind, not with me, ma'am."
"But the chimney might have better advice. I'll get George to fetch a doctor — I had forgotten it was so bad, I had quite forgotten it, and you never say a word — Mr. Landholm, you never come to see us."
"I have so much else to see," he said, glancing at his book.
"Yes, and that reminds me — Have you heard the news?"
"I have heard none to-day."
"Then you heard it yesterday, — of course you did; but I hear so little, when anything comes to me that's new I always think it must be new to everybody else. But of course you must know it, as it is about friends of yours; I dare say you knew it long ago; — though such things are kept close sometimes, even from friends; and I somehow was surprised to hear this, though I had no right to be, for I suppose I had no reason for my fancy. I think a good many things I have no reason for, George thinks. Maybe I do. I cant help it."
"But what is the thing in this case, Mrs. Nettley?" said
Winthrop smiling.
"Why George told me — don't you know? I was a little disappointed, Mr. Winthrop."
"Why?"
"Why, I had a fancy things were going another way."
"I don't know what you are talking about."
"That's because I talk so ill — It's this piece of news George brought home yesterday — he was dining out, for a wonder, with this gentleman who is going to sit to him; I forget his name, — Mr. — I don't know what it is! — but I am foolish to talk about it. Won't you come down and take a cup of tea with us to-night, Mr. Landholm? that's what I came up to ask, and not to stand interrupting you. But you've quite forgotten us lately."
"Thank you, Mrs. Nettley, I'll come with great pleasure — on condition that you tell me your news."
"The news? O it's no news to you — it's only this about Miss
Haye."
"What about Miss Haye?"
"They say that she is going to get married, to a Mr. Cadwallader, George said. Her cousin I suppose; there is a cousinship of that name, isn't there, Mr. Landholm?"
Mr. Landholm bowed.
"And had you heard of it before?"
"No, I had not."
"And is it a good match? She is a fine girl, isn't she?"
"I know really nothing of the matter, Mrs. Nettley — I have never seen the gentleman."
"Really! Haven't you? — then it was news," said the lady. "I thought you were accustomed to see them so often — I didn't think I was telling you anything. George and I — you must forgive us, Mr. Winthrop, people will have such thoughts; they will come in, and you cannot help it — I don't know what's to keep 'em out, unless one could put bars and gates upon one's minds, and you can't well do that; — but George and I used to have suspicions of you, Mr. Landholm. Well, I have interrupted you long enough. Dear! what windows! I'm ashamed. I'll send the girl up, the first chance you are out of the house. I told her to come up too; but she is heedless. I haven't been to see 'em myself in I don't know how many days; but you're always so terribly busy — and now I've staid twice too long!" —
And away she hurried, softly closing the door after her.
Mr. Landholm's quiet study was remarkably quiet for a good while after she went out. No leaf of his book rustled over; not a foot of his chair grated on the floor, — for though the floor did boast a bit of carpet, it lay not where he sat, by the window; and the coals and firebrands fell noiselessly down into the ashes and nobody was reminded that the fire would burn itself out in time if it was let alone. The morning light grew stronger, and the sunbeams that never got there till between nine and ten o'clock, walked into the room; and they found Winthrop Landholm with his elbow on the table and his head in his hand, where they often were; but with his eyes where they not often were — on the floor. The sunbeams said very softly that it was time to be at the office, but they said it very softly, and Winthrop did not hear them.
He heard however presently a footstep on the stair, in the next story at first, and then mounting the uppermost flight that led to the attic. A heavy brisk energetic footstep, — not Mrs. Nettley's soft and slow tread, nor the more deliberate one of her brother. Winthrop listened a moment, and then as the last impatient creak of the boot stopped at his threshold he knew who would open the door. It was Rufus.
"Here you are. Why I expected to find you at the office!" was the first cheery exclamation, after the brothers had clasped hands.
"What did you come here to find, then?" said Winthrop.
"Room for my carpet-bag, in the first place; and a pair of slippers, and comfort. It's stinging weather, Governor!"
"I know it. I came down the river the night before last."
"I shouldn't think you knew it, for you've let your fire go down confoundedly. Why Winthrop! there's hardly a spark here! What have you been thinking about?"
"I was kindling the fire, mentally," said Winthrop.
"Mentally! — where's your kindling? — I can tell you! — if you had been out in this air you'd want some breath of material flame, before you could set any other agoing. And I am afraid this isn't enough — or won't be, — I want some fuel for another sort of internal combustion — some of my Scotchman's haggis."
And Rufus stopped to laugh, with a very funny face, in the midst of his piling chips and brands together.
"Haggis?" said Winthrop.
"Yes. — There was a good fellow of a Scotchman in the stage with me last night — he had the seat just behind me — and he and a brother Scotchman were discoursing valiantly of old world things; warming themselves up with the recollection. — Winthrop, have you got a bit of paper here? — And I heard the word 'haggis' over and over again, —'haggis' and 'parritch.' At last I turned round gravely — 'Pray sir,' said I, 'what is a haggis?' 'Weel, sir,' said he good-humouredly, — 'I don't just know the ingredients — it's made of meal, — and onions, I believe, —and other combustibles!!' — Winthrop, have you got any breakfast in the house?"
"Not much in the combustible line, I am afraid," said
Winthrop, putting up his books and going to the closet.
"Well if you can enact Mother Hubbard and 'give a poor dog a bone,' I shall be thankful, — for anything."
"I am afraid hunger has perverted your memory," said Winthrop.
"How?"
"If the cupboard should play its part now, the dog would go without any."
"O you'll do better for me than that, I hope," said Rufus; "for I couldn't go on enacting the dog's part long; he took to laughing, if I remember, and I should be beyond that directly."
"Does that ever happen?" said Winthrop, as he brought out of the cupboard his bits of stores; a plate with the end of a loaf of bread, a little pitcher of milk, and another plate with some remains of cold beefsteak. For all reply, Rufus seized upon a piece of bread, to begin with, and thrusting a fork into the beefsteak, he held it in front of the just- burning firebrands. Winthrop stood looking on, while Rufus, the beefsteak, and the smoke, seemed mutually intent upon each other. It was a question of time, and patience; not to speak of fortitude.
"Winthrop," said Rufus changing hands with his fork, — "have you any coffee?"
"No sir."
"Tea?"
"No."
"Out of both?"
"For some time."
"Do you live without it?"
"I live without it."
"Without either of them?"
"Without either of them."
"Then how in the world do you live?" said Rufus turning his beefsteak in a very gingerly manner and not daring to take his eyes from it.
"Without combustibles — as I told you."
"I should think so!" exclaimed his brother. "You are the coolest, toughest, most stubborn and unimpressible piece of sensibility, that ever lived in a garret and deserved to live — somewhere else."
"Doubtful strain of commendation," said Winthrop. "What has brought you to Mannahatta?"
"But Winthrop, this is a new fancy of yours?"
"No, not very."
"How long since?"
"Since what?"
"Since you gave up all the good things of this life?"
"A man can only give up what he has," said Winthrop. "Those I delivered into your hands some ten minutes ago."
"But tea and coffee — You used to drink them?"
"Yes."
"Why don't you?"
"For a variety of reasons, satisfactory to my own mind."
"And have you abjured butter too?"
"I am sorry, Will," said Winthrop smiling a little, — "I will try to have some butter for you to-morrow."
"Don't you eat it in ordinary?"
"Always, when I can get it. What has brought you to
Mannahatta?"
"What do you think?"
"Some rash scheme or resolution."
"Why?"
"From my judgment of your character, which might be stated as the converse of that just now so happily applied to me."
"And do natures the opposite of that never act otherwise than rashly?"
"I hope so; for as the coolest are sometimes excited, so the hot may be sometimes cool."
"And don't I look cool?"
"You did when you came in," said Winthrop.
"I should think living on bread and milk might help that, in ordinary," said Rufus. "Just in my present condition it has rather a different effect. Well Governor, I've come to Mannahatta —"
"I see that," said Winthrop.
"I'll thank you not to interrupt me. I've come to Mannahatta — on a piece of business."
Winthrop waited, and Rufus after another cut of the bread and meat, went on.
"Governor, I'm going to quit engineering and take to another mode of making money."
"Have you done with your last piece of work at the West?"
"No — I'm going back there to finish it. O, I'm going back there — I've only come here now to sign some papers and make some arrangements; I shall come finally, I suppose, about May, or April. I've been corresponding with Haye lately."
"About what?"
"About this! What should I correspond with him about? By the way, what an infernal piece of folly this marriage is!"
"Not mixed up with your business, is it?"
"No, of course; how should it? but I am tremendously surprised. Aren't you?"
"People of my temperament never are, you know."
"People of your temperament — have a corner for their thoughts," said Rufus. "Well, there's one chance gone for you, Governor."
"Which it does not appear that I ever had."
"No indeed, that's very true. Well, about my business. — Haye has advocated my leaving the country and coming here. And he knows what he is about, Winthrop; he is a capital man of business. He says he can put me in a way of doing well for myself in a very short time here, and he recommended my coming."
"What's his object?" said Winthrop.
"What's his object?"
"Yes."
"How should I know! He wants to serve me, I suppose; and I believe he has kindliness enough for me, to be not unwilling to get me in the same place of business with himself."
"What will he do for you?"
"This, to begin with. He has a quantity of cotton lying in his stores, which he offers to make over to me, upon a certain valuation. And I shall ship it to Liverpool, as he recommends."
"Have you got your money from the North Lyttleton company?"
"No, nor from anybody else; — not yet; but it's coming."
"Is this purchase of cotton to be executed immediately?"
"Immediately. That's what I have come down for."
"How are you to pay Mr. Haye?"
"By bills upon the consignees."
"Does the purchase swallow up all your means?"
"None of them," said Rufus impatiently. "I tell you, it is to be consummated by drawing bills in Haye's favour upon the consignees — Fleet, Norton & Co."
"Suppose the consignment don't pay?"
"It will pay, of course! Don't you suppose Haye knows what he is about?"
"Yes; but that don't satisfy me, unless I know it too."
"I do," said Rufus. "He takes an interest in me for my father's sake; and I think I may say without vanity, for my own; and he is willing to do me a kindness, which he can do without hurting himself. That is all; and very simple."
"Too simple," said Winthrop.
"What do you mean?"
"What are you going to do when you come here?"
"Look after my in-comings; and I shall probably go into Haye's office and rub up my arithmetic in the earlier branches. What are you going to do?"
"I am going to the office, — Mr. De Wort's."
"What to do there, Governor?"
"Read, write, and record, law and lawpapers."
"Always at the same thing!"
"Always."
"Seems a slow way of getting ahead."
"It's sure," said Winthrop.
"You are sure, I believe, of whatever you undertake. By the way — have you undertaken the other adventure yet?"
"I don't know what you mean."
"The adventure we were talking about. — The heiress."
"I can adventure nothing upon speculation," said Winthrop.
"Then you have not had a chance to carry out your favourite idea of obligation. Do you know, I never should have suspected you of having such an idea."
"Shews how much we go upon speculation even with our nearest friends," said Winthrop.
"And how speculation fails there as elsewhere. What a fool
Haye has made of himself!"
"In what?"
"Why, in this match."
"What has he done?"
"Done! why he has done it. Enough, I should think. I wish his folly stood alone."
"How do you know he has done it?"
"He told me so himself. I met him as I came along just now; and he told me he was to be married to-morrow and would attend to my business next day."
"Told you who would?"
"He. Himself. Haye."
"Told you he was to be married?"
"Yes. Who else?"
"To whom?"
"Why! — to his niece — ward — what is she? Rose Cadwallader."
"Mr. Haye and Miss Cadwallader!" said Winthrop.
"To be sure. What are you thinking of? What have we been talking about?"
"You know best," said Winthrop. "My informant had brought another person upon the stage."
"Who?"
"A Mr. Cadwallader."
"There's no such thing as a Mr. Cadwallader. It's Haye himself; and it only shews how all a man's wisdom may be located in one quarter of his brain and leave the other empty."
"To-morrow?" said Winthrop.
"Yes; and you and I are invited to pay our respects at eleven.
Haven't you had an invitation?"
"I don't know — I have been out of town — and for the present
I must pay my respects in another direction. I must leave you,
Will."
"Look here. What's the matter with you, Winthrop?"
"Nothing at all," said Winthrop facing round upon his brother.
"Well I believe there isn't," said Rufus, taking a prolonged look at him, — "but somehow I was thinking — You're a fine- looking fellow, Winthrop!"
"You'll find wood in the further end of the closet," said Winthrop smiling. "I am afraid Mother Hubbard's shelves are in classical order —that is, with nothing on them."
"I sha'n't want anything more till dinner," said Rufus. "Where do you dine?"
"At the chop-house to-day."
"I'll meet you there. Won't you be home till night?"
"I never am."
"Well —till dinner," said Rufus waving his hand. And his brother left him.
Turning away from the table and his emptied dishes and fragmentary beef-bone, Rufus sat before the little fireplace, gazing into it at the red coals, and taking casual and then wistful note of various things about his brother's apartment that told of the man that lived there.
"Spare!" — said Rufus to himself, as his eye marked the scanty carpet, the unpainted few wooden chairs, the curtainless bed, the rough deal shelves of the closet which shewed at the open door, and the very economical chimney place, which now, the wind having gone down, did no longer smoke; — "Spare! — but he'll have a better place to live in, one of these days, and will furnish it." — And visions of mahogany and of mirrors glanced across Rufus's imagination, how unlike the images around him and before his bodily eye. — "Spare! — poor fellow! — he's working hard just now; but pay-time will come. And orderly, —just like him; his books piled in order on the window-sill — his papers held down by one on the table, the clean floor, — yes," — and rising Rufus even went and looked into the closet. There was the little stack of wood and parcel of kindling, likewise in order; there stood Winthrop's broom in a corner; and there hung Winthrop's few clothes that were not folded away in his trunk. Mother Hubbard's department was in the same spare and thoroughly kept style; and Rufus came back thoughtfully to his seat before the fire.
"Like him, every bit of it, from the books to the broom. Like him; — his own mind is just as free from dust or confusion; rather more richly furnished. What a mind it is! and what wealth he'll make out of it, for pocket and for name both. And I —"
Here Rufus's lucubrations left his brother and went off upon a sea of calculations, landing at Fleet, Norton & Co. and then coming back to Mannahatta and Mr. Haye's counting-room. He had plenty of time for them, as no business obviously could be done till the day after to-morrow.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Touch. All your writers do consent that ipso is he; now you are not ipse, for I am he. Well. Which he, sir? AS YOU LIKE IT.
In due course of time the morrow brought round eleven o'clock; and the two brothers took their way, whither all the world severally were taking theirs, to Mr. Haye's house. The wedding was over and the guests were pouring in.
For some reason or other the walk was taken in grave silence, by both parties, till they were mounting the steps to the hall door.
"How do you suppose Elizabeth will like this?" Rufus whispered.
Winthrop did not say, nor indeed answer at all; and his brother's attention was caught the next minute by Mr. Herder whom they encountered in the hall.
"How do you do?" said the naturalist grasping both his young friends' hands, — "when did you come? and how is all wiz you? I hope you are not going to be married!"
"Why, Mr. Herder?" said Rufus laughing.
"It is very perplexing, and does not satisfy nobody," said the naturalist. "So quick as a man thinks of somebody else a leetle too hard, he forgets himself altogezer; and then, he does not be sure what he is doing. Now — dis man —"
"Isn't he sure what he has done?" said Rufus much amused.
"No, he does not know," said Mr. Herder.
"What does his daughter think of it?"
"She looks black at it. I do not know what she is thinking. I do not want to know."
"Ha! What does she say?"
"She says nozing at all; she looks black," said the naturalist shrugging his shoulders. "Don't you go to get married. You will not satisfy nobody."
"Except myself," said Rufus.
"Maybe. I do not know," said the naturalist. "A man has not no right to satisfy himself wizout he can satisfy ozer people too. I am sorry for poor Miss Elisabet'."
"I wonder how many matches would be made upon that rule!" said Rufus, as they parted and Mr. Herder joined the company within.
"They would be all matches made by other people," said
Winthrop.
"And on the principle that 'to-morrow never comes' — the world would come to an end."
So they entered the drawing-rooms.
There were many people there, and certainly for the present there were few unsatisfied faces; for the bride was lovely enough and the bridegroom of consequence enough, to make compliments to them a matter of pleasure to the giver. The room was blooming with beauty and brightness. But Miss Haye was not there; and as soon as they could withdraw from the principal group the two brothers made their way to an inner room, where she stood, holding as it were a court of her own; and an unpropitious monarch she would have looked to her courtiers had they been real ones. Her face was as lowering as Mr. Herder had described it; settled in pain and pride; though now and then a quick change would pass over it, very like the play of lightning on a distant cloud; — fitful, sharp, and traceless. Just as Rufus and Winthrop had made their bow, and before they had time to speak, another bow claimed Elizabeth's return, and the tongue that went therewith was beforehand with theirs. The speaker was a well dressed and easy mannered man of the world; but with a very javelin of an eye, as ready for a throw as a knight's lance of old, and as careless what it met in its passage through humanity.
"You have wandered out of your sphere, Miss Elizabeth."
"What do you mean, sir?" — was given with sufficient keenness.
"The bright constellation of beauty and happiness is in the other room. Stars set off one another."
"I shine best alone," said Elizabeth.
"You disdain the effect of commingled and reflected light?"
"Yes I do, heartily, in this case. I wish for no glory that does not belong to me."
"But does not the glory of your father and mother belong to you?" said the gentleman. He spoke with the most smooth deference of manner, that all but covered his intent; but the flush and fire started into Elizabeth's face reminding one of the volcano again. Her eye watered with pain too, and she hesitated; she was evidently not ready with an answer. Perhaps for that reason it was given with added haughtiness.
"You need not trouble yourself to reckon what does or what does not belong to me. I know my belongings, and will take care of them."
"You are satisfied with them," said the gentleman, "and willing they should stand alone?"
"I am willing they should take their chance, sir."
"I know no one who can better say that," remarked Rufus.
"With better confidence, or better grounds do you mean?"
"I hope you do not need to be told!" said Rufus, his eye sparkling half with fun and half with admiration at the face and manner with which Elizabeth turned upon him.
"Which leaves the lady at liberty to suppose what she pleases," said the first speaker.
"It leaves her at liberty to suppose nothing of the kind!"
Rufus rejoined, with a little dilating of the nostril.
"Nothing can constrain my liberty in that respect," said the lady in question.
"Except your knowledge of human nature?" said Rufus.
"I have no hindrance in that," said Elizabeth.
"To supposing what you please?"
"Or what pleases you, perhaps," said the first speaker.
"Anything but that, Mr. Archibald!"
"Then it was no surprise to you that your father should set a young and lovely Mrs. Haye at the head of his establishment, even though he found her in the person of your playmate?"
Elizabeth hesitated; she drew in her under lip, and her eye darkened and lightened; but she hesitated. Then she spoke, looking down.
"I was surprised."
"Not a pleasant surprise?" said Mr. Archibald.
The girl's face literally flashed at him; from her two eyes the fire flew, as if the one would confound the other.
"How dare you ask me the question, sir!"
"Pardon me — I had no idea there was any harm in it," said the person at whom the fire flew.
"Your ideas want correcting, sir, sadly! — and your tongue."
"I will never offend again!" said Mr. Archibald bowing, and smiling a little.
"You never shall, with my good leave."
Mr. Archibald bowed again.
"Good morning! You will forgive me; and when I think time enough has elapsed, and I may with safety, I will come again."
"To visit my father, sir! —"
Not Queen Elizabeth, with ruff and farthingale, could have said it with more consciousness of her own dignity, or more superb dismission of that of another. But probably Queen Elizabeth would not have cast upon her courtiers the look, half asking for sympathy and half for approval, with which Elizabeth Haye turned to her companions. Her eye fell first upon Winthrop. But his did not meet her, and the expression of his face was very grave. Elizabeth's look went from it to Rufus. His was beaming.
"Capital!" he said. "That was admirable!"
"No," said Elizabeth after a slight hesitation, — "it was not."
"I thought it was," said Rufus, — "admirably done. Why was it not, Miss Haye? — if I am not as impertinent as another? — I thought he richly deserved his punishment."
"Yes," said Elizabeth in a dissatisfied kind of way, — "enough of that, — but I deserved better of myself than to give it to him."
"You are too hard upon yourself."
"Circumstances are sometimes."
"Will it do to say that?" said Winthrop looking up.
"Why not?"
"Will it do to confess oneself — one's freedom of mind —under the power of circumstance, and so not one's own?"
"I must confess it," said Elizabeth, "for it's true, of me. I suppose, not of every one."
"Then you cannot depend upon yourself."
"Well, — I can't."
He smiled.
"On whom then?"
"On no one! —"
And the blood sprung to her cheeks and the water to her eyes, with a sudden rush. It seemed that circumstance was not the only thing too hard for her; feeling had so far the mastery, for the minute, that her head bent down and she could not at once raise it up. Rufus walked off to the window, where he gave his attention to some greenhouse plants; Winthrop stood still.
"I would give anything in the world," said Elizabeth, lifting her head and at first humbly and then proudly wiping her tears away, — "if I could learn self-control — to command myself. Can one do it, Mr. Landholm? — one with whom it is not born?"
"I believe so."
"After all, you can't tell much about it," said Elizabeth, "for it belongs to your nature."
"No credit to him," said Rufus returning; — "it comes of the stock. An inch of self-control in one not accustomed to it, is worth more honour than all Governor's, which he can't help."
"I wouldn't give a pin for self-control in one not accustomed to it!" said Elizabeth; "it is the habitual command over oneself, that I value."
"No let-up to it?" said Rufus.
"No; — or only so much as to shew in what strength it exists. I am glad, for instance, that Washington for once forgot himself — or no, he didn't forget himself; but I am glad that passion got the better of him once. I respect the rest of his life infinitely more."
"Than that instance?"
"No, no! — for that instance."
"I am afraid you have a little tendency to hero-worship, Miss
Elizabeth."
"A very safe tendency," said the young lady. "There aren't many heroes to call it out."
"Living heroes?"
"No, nor dead ones, — if one could get at more than the great facts of their lives, which don't shew us the men."
"Then you are of opinion that 'trifles make the sum of human things?'"
"I don't know what are trifles," said Elizabeth.
"Dere is nozing is no trifle," said Mr. Herder, coming in from the other room. "Dere is no such thing as trifle. Miss Elisabet' hang her head a little one side and go softly, — and people say, 'Miss Elisabet' is sad in her spirit — what is the matter?' — and you hold up your head straight and look bright out of your eyes, and they say, 'Miss Elisabet' is fière — she feels herself goot; she do not fear nozing, she do not care for nozing.'"
"I am sure it is a trifle whether I look one way or another,
Mr. Herder," said Elizabeth, laughing a little.
"Ozer people do not think so," said the naturalist.
"Besides, it is not true, that I fear nothing and care for nothing."
"But then you do not want to tell everybody what you do think," said the naturalist.
"I don't care much about it!" said Elizabeth. "I think that is a trifle, Mr. Herder."
"Which is?" — said the naturalist.
"What people think about me."
"You do not think so?"
"I do."
"I am sorry," said the naturalist.
"Why?"
"It is not goot, for people to not care what ozer people thinks about them."
"Why isn't it good? I think it is. I am sure it is comfortable."
"It shews they have a mind to do something what ozer people will not like."
"Very well! —"
"Dat is not goot."
"Maybe it is good, Mr. Herder. People are not always right in their expectations."
"It is better to go smooth wiz people," said the naturalist shaking his head a little.
"Or without them," said Elizabeth.
"Question, can you do that?" said Rufus.
"What?" said his brother.
"Live smoothly, or live at all, without regard to other people."
"It is of the world at large I was speaking," said Elizabeth. "Of course there are some few, a very few, whose word — and whose thought — one would care for and strive for, — that is not what I mean."
"And who are those few fine persons?" said Mr. Herder significantly.
"He is unhappy that doesn't know one or two," Elizabeth answered with infinite gravity.
"And the opinions of the rest of men you would despise?" said
Rufus.
"Utterly! — so far as they trenched upon my freedom of action."
"You can't live so," said Rufus shaking his head.
"I will live so, if I live at all."
"Wint'rop, you do not say nozing," said the naturalist.
"What need, sir?"
"Dere is always need for everybody to say what he thinks," said Mr. Herder. "Here we have all got ourselves in a puzzle, and we don't know which way we stand."
"I am afraid every man must get out of that puzzle for himself, sir."
"Is it a puzzle at all?" said Elizabeth facing round upon him.
"Not when you have got out of it."
"Well, what's the right road out of it?"
"Break through everything in the way," said Rufus. "That seems to be the method in favour."
"What do you think is the right way?" Elizabeth repeated without looking at the last speaker.
"If you set your face in the right quarter, there is always a straight road out in that direction," Winthrop answered with a little bit of a smile.
"Doesn't that come pretty near my rule?" said Elizabeth with a smile much broader.
"I think not. If I understood, your rule was to make a straight road out for yourself in any direction."
Elizabeth laughed and coloured a little, with no displeased expression. The laugh subsided and her face became very grave again as the gentlemen made their parting bows.