The Morgesons Part 12

It was sunset when we arrived in Rosville, and found Mr. Morgeson waiting for us with his carriage at the station. From its open sides I looked out on a tranquil, agreeable landscape; there was nothing saline in the atmosphere. The western breeze, which blew in our faces, had an earthy scent, with fluctuating streams of odors from trees and flowers. As we pa.s.sed through the town, Cousin Charles pointed to the Academy, which stood at the head of a green. Pretty houses stood round it, and streets branched from it in all directions. Flower gardens, shrubbery, and trees were scattered everywhere. Rosville was larger and handsomer than Surrey.

"That is my house, on the right," he said.

We looked down the shady street through which we were going, and saw a modern cottage, with a piazza, and peaked roof, and on the side toward us a large yard, and stables.

We drove into the yard, and a woman came out on the piazza to receive us. It was Mrs. Morgeson, or "My wife, Cousin Alice," as Mr. Morgeson introduced her. Giving us a cordial welcome, she led us into a parlor where tea was waiting. A servant came in for our bonnets and baskets.

Cousin Alice begged us to take tea at once. We were hardly seated when we heard the cry of a young child; she left the table hastily, to come back in a moment with an apology, which she made to Cousin Charles rather than to us. I had never seen a table so well arranged, so fastidiously neat; it glittered with gla.s.s and French china. Cousin Charles sent away a gla.s.s and a plate, frowning at the girl who waited; there must have been a speck or a flaw in them. The viands were as pretty as the dishes, the lamb chops were fragile; the bread was delicious, but cut in transparent slices, and the b.u.t.ter pat was nearly stamped through with its bouquet of flowers. This was all the feast except sponge cake, which felt like muslin in the fingers; I could have squeezed the whole of it into my mouth. Still hungry, I observed that Cousin Charles and Alice had finished; and though she shook her spoon in the cup, feigning to continue, and he snipped crumbs in his plate, I felt constrained to end my repast. He rose then, and pus.h.i.+ng back folding-doors, we entered a large room, leaving Alice at the table. Windows extending to the floor opening on the piazza, but notwithstanding the stream of light over the carpet, I thought it somber, and out of keeping with the cottage exterior. The walls were covered with dark red velvet paper, the furniture was dark, the mantel and table tops were black marble, and the vases and candelabra were bronze. He directed mother's attention to the portraits of his children, explaining them, while I went to a table between the windows to examine the green and white sprays of some delicate flower I had never before seen. Its fragrance was intoxicating. I lifted the heavy vase which contained it; it was taken from me gently by Charles, and replaced.

"It will hardly bear touching," he said. "By to-morrow these little white bells will be dead."

I looked up at him. "What a contrast!" I said.

"Where?"

"Here, in this room, and in you."

"And between you and me?"

His face was serene, dark, and delicate, but to look at it made me s.h.i.+ver. Mother came toward us, pleading fatigue as an excuse for retiring, and Cousin Charles called Cousin Alice, who went with us to our room. In the morning, she said, we should see her three children.

She never left them, she was so afraid of their being ill, also telling mother that she would do all in her power to make my stay in Rosville pleasant and profitable. As a mother, she could appreciate her anxiety and sadness in leaving me. Mother thanked her warmly, and was sure that I should be happy; but I had an inward misgiving that I should not have enough to eat.

"I hear Edward," said Alice. "Good-night."

Presently a girl, the same who had taken our bonnets, came in with a pitcher of warm water and a plate of soda biscuit. She directed us where to find the apparel she had nicely smoothed and folded; took off the handsome counterpane, and the pillows trimmed with lace, putting others of a plainer make in their places; shook down the window curtains; asked us if we would have anything more, and quietly disappeared. I offered mother the warm water, and appropriated the biscuits. There were six. I ate every one, undressing meanwhile, and surveying the apartment.

"Ca.s.sy, Mrs. Morgeson is an excellent housekeeper."

"Yes," I said huskily, for the dry biscuit choked me.

"What would Temperance and Hepsey say to this?"

"I think they would grumble, and admire. Look at this," showing her the ta.s.sels of the inner window curtains done up in little bags. "And the gla.s.s is pinned up with nice yellow paper; and here is a damask napkin fastened to the wall behind the washstand. And everything stands on a mat. I wonder if this is to be my room?"

"It is probably the chamber for visitors. Why, these are beautiful pillow-cases, too," she exclaimed, as she put her head on the pillow.

"Come to bed; don't read."

I had taken up a red morocco-bound book, which was lying alone on the bureau. It was Byron, and turning over the leaves till I came to Don Juan, I read it through, and began Childe Harold, but the candle expired. I struck out my hands through the palpable darkness, to find the bed without disturbing mother, whose soul was calmly threading the labyrinth of sleep. I finished Childe Harold early in the morning, though, and went down to breakfast, longing to be a wreck!

The three children were in the breakfast-room, which was not the one we had taken tea in, but a small apartment, with a door opening into the garden. They were beautifully dressed, and their mother was tending and watching them. The oldest was eight years, the youngest three months. Cousin Alice gave us descriptions of their tastes and habits, dwelling with emphasis on those of the baby. I drew from her conversation the opinion that she had a tendency to the rearing of children. I was glad when Cousin Charles came in, looking at his watch. "Send off the babies, Alice, and ring the bell for breakfast."

She sent out the two youngest, put little Edward in his chair, and breakfast began.

"Mrs. Morgeson," said Charles, "the horses will be ready to take you round Rosville. We will call on Dr. Price, for you to see the kind of master Ca.s.sandra will have. I have already spoken to him about receiving a new pupil."

"Oh, I am homesick at the idea of school and a master," I said.

Mother tried in vain to look hard-hearted, and to persuade that it was good for me, but she lost her appet.i.te, with the thought of losing me, which the mention of Dr. Price brought home. The breakfast was as well adapted to a delicate taste as the preceding supper. The ham was most savory, but cut in such thin slices that it curled; and the biscuits were as white and feathery as snowflakes. I think also that the boiled eggs were smaller than any I had seen. Cousin Alice gave unremitting attention to Edward, who ate as little as the rest.

"Mother," I said afterward, "I am afraid I am an animal. Did you notice how little the Morgesons ate?"

"I noticed how elegant their table appointments were, and I shall buy new china in Boston to-morrow. I wish Hepsey would not load our table as she does."

"Hepsey is a good woman, mother; do give my love to her. Now that I think of it, she was always making up some nice dish; tell her I remember it, will you?"

When Cousin Charles put us into the carriage, and hoisted little Edward on the front seat, mother noticed that two men held the horses, and that they were not the same he had driven the night before. She said she was afraid to go, they looked ungovernable; but he rea.s.sured her, and one of the men averring that Mr. Morgeson could drive anything, she repressed her fears, and we drove out of the yard behind a pair of horses that stood on their hind legs as often as that position was compatible with the necessity they were under of getting on, for they evidently understood that they were guided by a firm hand. Edward was delighted with their behavior, and for the first time I saw his father smile on him.

"These are fine brutes," he said, not taking his eyes from them; "but they are not equal to my mare, Nell. Alice is afraid of her; but I hope that you, Ca.s.sandra, will ride with me sometimes when I drive her."

"Oh!" exclaimed mother, grasping my arm.

"You would, would you?" he said, taking out the whip, as the horses recoiled from a man who lay by the roadside, leaping so high that the harness seemed rattling from their backs. He struck them, and said, "Go on now, go on, devils." There was no further trouble. He encouraged mother not to be afraid, looking keenly at me. I looked back at him.

"How much worse is the mare, cousin Charles?"

"You shall see."

After driving round the town we stopped at the Academy. Morning prayers were over, and the scholars, some sixty boys and girls, were coming downstairs from the hall, to go into the rooms, each side of a great door. Dr. Price was behind them. He stopped when he saw us, an introduction took place, and he inquired for Dr. Snell, as an old college friend. Locke Morgeson sounded familiarly, he said; a member of his mother's family named Somers had married a gentleman of that name. He remembered it from an old ivory miniature which his mother had shown him, telling him it was the likeness of her cousin Rachel's husband. I replied we knew that grandfather had married a Rachel Somers. Cousin Charles was surprised and a little vexed that the doctor had never told him, when he must have known that he had been anxiously looking up the Morgeson pedigree; but the doctor declared he had not thought of it before, and that only the name of Locke had recalled it to his mind. He then proposed our going to Miss Prior, the lady who had charge of the girls' department, and we followed him to her school-room.

I was at once interested and impressed by the appearance of my teacher that was to be. She was a dignified, kind-looking woman, who asked me a few questions in such a pleasant, direct manner that I frankly told her I was eighteen years old, very ignorant, and averse from learning; but I did not speak loud enough for anybody beside herself to hear.

"Now," said mother, when we came away, "think how much greater your advantages are than mine have ever been. How miserable was my youth!

It is too late for me to make any attempt at cultivation. I have no wish that way. Yet now I feel sometimes as if I were leaving the confines of my old life to go I know not whither, to do I know not what."

But her countenance fell when she heard that Dr. Price had been a Unitarian minister, and that there was no Congregational church in Rosville.

She went to Boston that Friday afternoon, anxious to get safely home with Veronica. We parted with many a kiss and shake of the hand and last words. I cried when I went up to my room, for I found a present there--a beautiful workbox, and in it was a small Bible with my name and hers written on the fly-leaf in large print-like, but tremulous letters. I composed my feelings by putting it away carefully and unpacking my trunk.

CHAPTER XV.

Rosville was a county town. The courts were held there, and its society was adorned with several lawyers of note who had law students, which fact was to the lawyers' daughters the most agreeable feature of their fathers' profession. It had a weekly market day and an annual cattle show. I saw a turnout of whips and wagons about the hitching-posts round the green of a Tuesday the year through, and going to and from school met men with a bovine smell. Caucuses were prevalent, and occasionally a State Convention was held, when Rosville paid honor to some political hero of the day with banners and bra.s.s bands. It was a favorite spot for the rustication of naughty boys from Harvard or Yale. Dr. Price had one or two at present who boarded in his house so as to be immediately under his purblind eyes, and who took Greek and Latin at the Academy.

Social feuds raged in the Academy coteries between the collegians and the natives on account of the superior success of the former in flirtation. The latter were not consoled by their experience that no flirtation lasted beyond the period of rustication. Dr. Price usually had several young men fitting for college also, which fact added more piquancy to the provincial society. In the summer riding parties were fas.h.i.+onable, and in the winter county b.a.l.l.s and cotillion parties; a professor came down from Boston at this season to set up a dancing school, which was always well attended.

The secular concerns of life engaged the greatest share of the interests of its inhabitants; and although there existed social and professional dissensions, there was little sectarian spirit among them and no religious zeal. The rich and fas.h.i.+onable were Unitarians.

The society owned a tumble-down church; a mild preacher stood in its pulpit and prayed and preached, sideways and slouchy. This degree of religious vitality accorded with the habits of its generations. Surrey and Barmouth would have howled over the Total Depravity of Rosville.

There was no probationary air about it. Human Nature was the infallible theme there. At first I missed the vibration of the moral sword which poised in our atmosphere. When I felt an emotion without seeing the shadow of its edge turning toward me, I discovered my conscience, which hitherto had only been described to me.

There were churches in the town beside the Unitarian. The Universalists had a bran-new one, and there was still another frequented by the sedimentary part of the population--Methodists.

I toned down perfectly within three months. Soon after my arrival at his house I became afraid of Cousin Charles. Not that he ever said anything to justify fear of him--he was more silent at home than elsewhere; but he was imperious, fastidious, and sarcastic with me by a look, a gesture, an inflection of his voice. My perception of any defect in myself was instantaneous with his discovery of it. I fell into the habit of guessing each day whether I was to offend or please him, and then into that of intending to please. An intangible, silent, magnetic feeling existed between us, changing and developing according to its own mysterious law, remaining intact in spite of the contests between us of resistance and defiance. But my feeling died or slumbered when I was beyond the limits of his personal influence. When in his presence I was so pervaded by it that whether I went contrary to the dictates of his will or not I moved as if under a pivot; when away my natural elasticity prevailed, and I held the same relation to others that I should have held if I had not known him. This continued till the secret was divined, and then his influence was better remembered.