Book: Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861




Elsie had none of the still, wicked light in her eyes, that morning.
She looked gentle, but dreamy; played with her books; did not trouble
herself with any of the exercises,--which in itself was not very
remarkable, as she was always allowed, under some pretext or other, to
have her own way.

The school-hours were over at length. The girls went out, but she
lingered to the last. She then came up to Mr. Bernard, with a book in
her hand, as if to ask a question.

"Will you walk towards my home with me to-day?" she said, in a very low
voice, little more than a whisper.

Mr. Bernard was startled by the request, put in such a way. He had a
presentiment of some painful scene or other. But there was nothing to be
done but to assure her that it would give him great pleasure.

So they walked along together on their way toward the Dudley mansion.

"I have no friend," Elsie said, all at once. "Nothing loves me but one
old woman. I cannot love anybody. They tell me there is something in my
eyes that draws people to me and makes them faint. Look into them, will
you?"

She turned her face toward him. It was very pale, and the diamond eyes
were glittering with a film, such as beneath other lids would have
rounded into a tear.

"Beautiful eyes, Elsie," he said,--"sometimes very piercing,--but soft
now, and looking as if there were something beneath them that friendship
might draw out. I am your friend, Elsie. Tell me what I can do to render
your life happier."

"_Love me!_" said Elsie Venner.

What shall a man do, when a woman makes such a demand, involving such
an avowal? It was the tenderest, cruellest, humblest moment of Mr.
Bernard's life. He turned pale, he trembled almost, as if he had been a
woman listening to her lover's declaration.

"Elsie," he said, presently, "I so long to be of some use to you, to
have your confidence and sympathy, that I must not let you say or do
anything to put us in false relations. I do love you, Elsie, as a
suffering sister with sorrows of her own,--as one whom I would save at
the risk of my happiness and life,--as one who needs a true friend more
than any of all the young girls I have known. More than this you would
not ask me to say. You have been through excitement and trouble lately,
and it has made you feel such a need more than ever. Give me your hand,
dear Elsie, and trust me that I will be as true a friend to you as if we
were children of the same mother."

Elsie gave him her hand mechanically. It seemed to him that a cold
_aura_ shot from it along his arm and chilled the blood running through
his heart. He pressed it gently, looked at her with a face full of grave
kindness and sad interest, then softly relinquished it.

It was all over with poor Elsie. They walked almost in silence the rest
of the way. Mr. Bernard left her at the gate of the mansion-house, and
returned with sad forebodings. Elsie went at once to her own room, and
did not come from it at the usual hours. At last Old Sophy began to
be alarmed about her, went to her apartment, and, finding the door
unlocked, entered cautiously. She found Elsie lying on her bed, her
brows strongly contracted, her eyes dull, her whole look that of great
suffering. Her first thought was that she had been doing herself a harm
by some deadly means or other. But Elsie saw her fear, and reassured
her.

"No," she said, "there is nothing wrong, such as you are thinking of; I
am not dying. You may send for the Doctor; perhaps he can take the pain
from my head. That is all I want him to do. There is no use in the pain,
that I know of; if he can stop it, let him."

So they sent for the old Doctor. It was not long before the solid trot
of Caustic, the old bay horse, and the crashing of the gravel under the
wheels, gave notice that the physician was driving up the avenue.

The old Doctor was a model for visiting practitioners. He always
came into the sick-room with a quiet, cheerful look, as if he had a
consciousness that he was bringing some sure relief with him. The way a
patient snatches his first look at his doctor's face, to see whether
he is doomed, whether he is reprieved, whether he is unconditionally
pardoned, has really something terrible about it. It is only to be
met by an imperturbable mask of serenity, proof against anything and
everything in a patient's aspect. The physician whose face reflects his
patient's condition like a mirror may do well enough to examine people
for a life-insurance office, but does not belong to the sick-room. The
old Doctor did not keep people waiting in dread suspense, while he
stayed talking about the case,--the patient all the time thinking that
he and the friends are discussing some alarming symptom or formidable
operation which he himself is by-and-by to hear of.

He was in Elsie's room almost before she knew he was in the house. He
came to her bedside in such a natural, quiet way, that it seemed as if
he were only a friend who had dropped in for a moment to say a pleasant
word. Yet he was very uneasy about Elsie until he had seen her; he never
knew what might happen to her or those about her, and came prepared for
the worst.

"Sick, my child?" he said, in a very soft, low voice.

Elsie nodded, without speaking.

The Doctor took her hand,--whether with professional views, or only in a
friendly way, it would have been hard to tell. So he sat a few minutes,
looking at her all the time with a kind of fatherly interest, but with
it all noting how she lay, how she breathed, her color, her expression,
all that teaches the practised eye so much without a single question
being asked. He saw she was in suffering, and said presently,--

"You have pain somewhere; where is it?"

She put her hand to her head.

As she was not disposed to talk, he watched her for a while, questioned
Old Sophy shrewdly a few minutes, and so made up his mind as to the
probable cause of disturbance and the proper means to be used.

Some very silly people thought the old Doctor did not believe in
medicine, because he gave less than certain poor half-taught creatures
in the smaller neighboring towns, who took advantage of people's
sickness to disgust and disturb them with all manner of ill-smelling
and ill-behaving drugs. To tell the truth, he hated to give any thing
noxious or loathsome to those who were uncomfortable enough already,
unless he was very sure it would do good,--in which case, he never
played with drugs, but gave good, honest, efficient doses. Sometimes he
lost a family of the more boorish sort, because they did not think they
got their money's worth out of him, unless they had something more than
a taste of everything he carried in his saddle-bags.

He ordered some remedies which he thought would relieve Elsie, and left
her, saying he would call the next day, hoping to find her better.
But the next day came, and the next, and still Elsie was on her
bed,--feverish, restless, wakeful, silent. At night she tossed about
and wandered, and it became at length apparent that there was a settled
attack, something like what they called formerly a "nervous fever."

On the fourth day she was more restless than common. One of the women
of the house came in to help to take care of her; but she showed an
aversion to her presence.

"Send me Helen Darley," she said at last.

The old Doctor told them, that, if possible, they must indulge this
fancy of hers. The caprices of sick people were never to be despised,
least of all of such persons as Elsie, when rendered irritable and
exacting by pain and weakness.

So a message was sent to Mr. Silas Peckham, at the Apollinean Institute,
to know if he could not spare Miss Helen Darley for a few days, if
required to give her attention to a young lady who attended his school
and who was now lying ill,--no other person than the daughter of Dudley
Venner.

A mean man never agrees to anything without deliberately turning it
over, so that he may see its dirty side, and, if he can, sweating the
coin he pays for it. If an archangel should offer to save his soul for
sixpence, he would try to find a sixpence with a hole in it. A gentleman
says yes to a great many things without stopping to think: a shabby
fellow is known by his caution in answering questions, for fear of
compromising his pocket or himself.

Mr. Silas Peckham looked very grave at the request. The dooties of Miss
Darley at the Institoot were important, very important. He paid her
large sums of money for her time,--more than she could expect to get in
any other institootion for the education of female youth. A deduction
from her salary would be necessary, in case she should retire from the
sphere of her dooties for a season. He should be put to extra expense,
and have to perform additional labors himself. He would consider of the
matter. If any arrangement could be made, he would send word to Squire
Venner's folks.

"Miss Darley," said Silas Peckham, "the' 's a message from Squire
Venner's that his daughter wants you down at the mansion-house to see
her. She's got a fever, so they inform me. If it's any kind of ketchin'
fever, of course you won't think of goin' near the mansion-house. If
Doctor Kittredge says it's safe, perfec'ly safe, I can't objec' to your
goin', on sech conditions as seem to be fair to all concerned. You will
give up your pay for the whole time you are absent,--portions of days to
be caounted as whole days. You will be charged with board the same as
if you eat your victuals with the household. The victuals are of no use
after they're cooked but to be eat, and your bein' away is no savin' to
our folks. I shall charge you a reasonable compensation for the demage
to the school by the absence of a teacher. If Miss Crabs undertakes any
dooties belongin' to your department of instruction, she will look to
you for sech pecooniary considerations as you may agree upon between
you. On these conditions I am willin' to give my consent to your
temporary absence from the post of dooty. I will step down to Doctor
Kittredge's, myself, and make inquiries as to the nature of the
complaint."

Mr. Peckham took up a rusty and very narrow-brimmed hat, which he cocked
upon one side of his head, with an air peculiar to the rural gentry. It
was the hour when the Doctor expected to be in his office, unless he had
some special call which kept him from home.

He found the Reverend Chauncy Fairweather just taking leave of the
Doctor. His hand was on the pit of his stomach, and his countenance
expressive of inward uneasiness.

"Shake it before using," said the Doctor; "and the sooner you make up
your mind to speak right out, the better it will be for your digestion."

"Oh, Mr. Peckham! Walk in, Mr. Peckham! Nobody sick up at the school, I
hope?"

"The haalth of the school is fust-rate," replied Mr. Peckham. "The
sitooation is uncommonly favorable to saloobrity." (These last words
were from the Annual Report of the past year.) "Providence has spared
our female youth in a remarkable measure, I've come with reference to
another consideration. Dr. Kittredge. is there any ketchin' complaint
goin' about in the village?"

"Well, yes," said the Doctor, "I should say there was something of that
sort. Measles. Mumps. And Sin,--that's always catching."

The old Doctor's eye twinkled; once in a while he had his little touch
of humor. Silas Peckham slanted his eye up suspiciously at the Doctor,
as if he was getting some kind of advantage over him. That is the way
people of his constitution are apt to take a bit of pleasantry.

"I don't mean sech things, Doctor; I mean fevers. Is there any ketchin'
fevers--bilious, or nervous, or typus, or whatever you call 'em--now
goin' round this village? That's what I want to ascertain, if there's no
impropriety."

The old Doctor looked at Silas through his spectacles.

"Hard and sour as a green cider-apple," he thought to himself. "No," he
said,--"I don't know any such cases."

"What's the matter with Elsie Venner?" asked Silas, sharply, as if he
expected to have him this time.

"A mild feverish attack, I should call it in anybody else; but she has
a peculiar constitution, and I never feel so safe about her as I should
about most people."

"Anything ketchin' about it?" Silas asked, cunningly.

"No, indeed!" said the Doctor,--"catching?--no,--what put that into
your head, Mr. Peckham?"

"Well, Doctor," the conscientious Principal answered, "I naterally
feel a graat responsibility, a very graiiiit responsibility, for the
noomerous and lovely young ladies committed to my charge. It has been a
question, whether one of my assistants should go, accordin' to request,
to stop with Miss Venner for a season. Nothin' restrains my givin' my
full and free consent to her goin' but the fear lest contagious maladies
should be introdooced among those lovely female youth. I shall abide by
your opinion,--I understan' you to say distinc'ly, her complaint is
not ketchin'?--and urge upon Miss Darley to fulfil her dooties to a
sufferin' fellow-creature at any cost to myself and my establishment. We
shall miss her very much; but it is a good cause, and she shall go,--and
I shall trust that Providence will enable us to spare her without
permanent demage to the interests of the Institootion."

Saying this, the excellent Principal departed, with his rusty
narrow-brimmed hat leaning over, as if it had a six-knot breeze abeam,
and its gunwale (so to speak) was dipping into his coat-collar. He
announced the result of his inquiries to Helen, who had received a brief
note in the mean time from a poor relation of Elsie's mother, then at
the mansion-house, informing her of the critical situation of Elsie
and of her urgent desire that Helen should be with her. She could not
hesitate. She blushed as she thought of the comments that might be made;
but what were such considerations in a matter of life and death? She
could not stop to make terms with Silas Peckham. She must go. He might
fleece her, if he would; she would not complain,--not even to Bernard,
who, she knew, would bring the Principal to terms, if she gave him the
least hint of his intended extortions.

So Helen made up her bundle of clothes to be sent after her, took a book
or two with her to help her pass the time, and departed for the Dudley
mansion. It was with a great inward effort that she undertook the
sisterly task which was thus forced upon her. She had a kind of terror
of Elsie; and the thought of having charge of her, of being alone with
her, of coming under the full influence of those diamond eyes,--if,
indeed, their light were not dimmed by suffering and weariness,--was one
she shrank from. But what could she do? It might be a turning-point in
the life of the poor girl; and she must overcome all her fears, all her
repugnance, and go to her rescue.

"Is Helen come?" said Elsie, when she heard, with her fine sense
quickened by the irritability of sickness, a light footfall on the
stair, with a cadence unlike that of any inmate of the house.

"It's a strange woman's step," said Old Sophy, who, with her exclusive
love for Elsie, was naturally disposed to jealousy of a new-comer. "Lot
Ol' Sophy set at th' foot o' th' bed, if th' young missis sets by th'
piller,--won' y', darlin'? The' 's nobody that's white can love y' as
th' ol' black woman does;--don' sen' her away, now, there's a dear
soul!"

Elsie motioned her to sit in the place she had pointed to, and Helen at
that moment entered the room. Dudley Venner followed her.

"She is your patient," he said, "except while the Doctor is here. She
has been longing to have you with her, and we shall expect you to make
her well in a few days."

So Helen Darley found herself established in the most unexpected manner
as an inmate of the Dudley mansion. She sat with Elsie most of the
time, by day and by night, soothing her, and trying to enter into her
confidence and affections, if it should prove that this strange creature
was really capable of truly sympathetic emotions.

What was this unexplained something which came between her soul and
that of every other human being with whom she was in relations? Helen
perceived, or rather felt, that she had, folded up in the depths of
her being, a true womanly nature. Through the cloud that darkened her
aspect, now and then a ray would steal forth, which, like the smile of
stern and solemn people, was all the more impressive from its contrast
with the expression she wore habitually. It might well be that pain and
fatigue had changed her aspect; but, at any rate, Helen looked into
her eyes without that nervous agitation which their cold glitter had
produced on her when they were full of their natural light. She felt
sure that her mother must have been a lovely, gentle woman. There were
gleams of a beautiful nature shining through some ill-defined medium
which disturbed and made them flicker and waver, as distant images do
when seen through the rippling upward currents of heated air. She loved,
in her own way, the old black woman, and seemed to keep up a kind of
silent communication with her, as if they did not require the use of
speech. She appeared to be tranquillized by the presence of Helen, and
loved to have her seated at the bedside. Yet something, whatever it was,
prevented her from opening her heart to her kind companion; and even now
there were times when she would lie looking at her, with such a still,
watchful, almost dangerous expression, that Helen would sigh, and change
her place, as persons do whose breath some cunning orator has been
sucking out of them with his spongy eloquence, so that, when he stops,
they must get some air and stir about, or they feel as if they should be
half-smothered and palsied.

It was too much to keep guessing what was the meaning of all this. Helen
determined to ask Old Sophy some questions which might probably throw
light upon her doubts. She took the opportunity one evening when Elsie
was lying asleep and they were both sitting at some distance from her
bed.

"Tell me, Sophy," she said, "was Elsie always as shy as she seems to be
now, in talking with those to whom she is friendly?"

"Alway jes' so, Miss Darlin', ever sence she was little chil'. When she
was five, six year old, she lisp some,--call me _Thophy_; that make her
kin' o' 'shamed, perhaps: after she grow up, she never lisp, but she
kin' o' got the way o' not talkin' much. Fac' is, she don' like talkin'
as common gals do, 'xcep' jes' once in a while with some partic'lar
folks,--'n' then not much."

"How old is Elsie?"

"Eighteen year this las' September."

"How long ago did her mother die?" Helen asked, with a little trembling
in her voice.

"Eighteen year ago this October," said Old Sophy.

Helen was silent for a moment. Then she whispered, almost
inaudibly,--for her voice appeared to fail her,--

"What did her mother die of, Sophy?"

The old woman's small eyes dilated until a ring of white showed round
their beady centres. She caught Helen by the hand and clung to it, as if
in fear. She looked round at Elsie, who lay sleeping, as if she might be
listening. Then she drew Helen towards her and led her softly out of the
room.

"'Sh!--'sh!" she said, as soon as they were outside the door. "Don'
never speak in this house 'bout what Elsie's mother died of!" she said.
"Nobody never says nothin' 'bout it. Oh, God has made Ugly Things wi'
death in their mouths, Miss Darlin', an' He knows what they're for; but
my poor Elsie!--to have her blood changed in her before--It was in July
Mistress got her death, but she liv' till three week after my poor Elsie
was born."

She could speak no more. She had said enough. Helen remembered the
stories she had heard on coming to the village, and among them one
referred to in an early chapter of this narrative. All the unaccountable
looks and tastes and ways of Elsie came back to her in the light of an
ante-natal impression which had mingled an alien element in her nature.
She knew the secret of the fascination which looked out of her cold,
glittering eyes. She knew the significance of the strange repulsion
which--she felt in her own intimate consciousness underlying the
inexplicable attraction which drew her towards the young girl in
spite of this repugnance. She began to look with new feelings on the
contradictions in her moral nature,--the longing for sympathy, as shown
by her wishing for Helen's company, and the impossibility of passing
beyond the cold circle of isolation within which she had her being.
The fearful truth of that instinctive feeling of hers, that there was
something not human looking out of Elsie's eyes, came upon her with
a sudden flash of penetrating conviction. There were two warring
principles in that superb organization and proud soul. One made her a
woman, with all a woman's powers and longings. The other chilled all the
currents of outlet for her emotions. It made her tearless and mute, when
another woman would have wept and pleaded. And it infused into her soul
something--it was cruel now to call it malice--which was still and
watchful and dangerous,--which waited its opportunity, and then shot
like an arrow from its bow out of the coil of brooding premeditation.
Even those who had never seen the white scars on Dick Venner's wrist,
or heard the half-told story of her supposed attempt to do a graver
mischief, knew well enough by looking at her that she was one of the
creatures not to be tampered with,--silent in anger and swift in
vengeance.

Helen could not return to the bedside at once after this communication.
It was with altered eyes that she must look on the poor girl, the victim
of such an unheard-of fatality. All was explained to her now. But it
opened such depths of solemn thought in her awakened consciousness, that
it seemed as if the whole mystery of human life were coming up again
before her for trial and judgment. "Oh," she thought, "if, while the
will lies sealed in its fountain, it may be poisoned at its very source,
so that it shall flow dark and deadly through its whole course, who are
we that we should judge our fellow-creatures by ourselves?" Then came
the terrible question, how far the elements themselves are capable of
perverting the moral nature: if valor, and justice, and truth, the
strength of man and the virtue of woman, may not be poisoned out of a
race by the food of the Australian in his forest,--by the foul air and
darkness of the Christians cooped up in the "tenement-houses close by
those who live in the palaces of the great cities?"

She walked out into the garden, lost in thought upon these dark and deep
matters. Presently she heard a step behind her, and Elsie's father came
up and joined her. Since his introduction to Helen at the distinguished
tea-party given by the Widow Rowens, and before her coming to sit with
Elsie, Mr. Dudley Venner had in the most accidental way in the world met
her on several occasions: once after church, when she happened to be
caught in a slight shower and he insisted on holding his umbrella
over her on her way home;--once at a small party at one of the
mansion-houses, where the quick-eyed lady of the house had a wonderful
knack of bringing people together who liked to see each other;--perhaps
at other times and places; but of this there is no certain evidence.

They naturally spoke of Elsie, her illness, and the aspect it had taken.
But Helen noticed in all that Dudley Venner said about his daughter a
morbid sensitiveness, as it seemed to her, an aversion to saying much
about her physical condition or her peculiarities,--a wish to feel
and speak as a parent should, and yet a shrinking, as if there were
something about Elsie which he could not bear to dwell upon. She thought
she saw through all this, and she could interpret it all charitably.
There were circumstances about his daughter which recalled the great
sorrow of his life; it was not strange that this perpetual reminder
should in some degree have modified his feelings as a father. But what
a life he must have been leading for so many years, with this perpetual
source of distress which he could not name! Helen knew well enough, now,
the meaning of the sadness which had left such traces in his features
and tones, and it made her feel very kindly and compassionate towards
him.

So they walked over the crackling leaves in the garden, between the
lines of box breathing its fragrance of eternity;--for this is one of
the odors which carry us out of time into the abysses of the unbeginning
past; if we ever lived on another ball of stone than this, it must be
that there was box growing on it. So they walked, finding their way
softly to each other's sorrows and sympathies, each meeting some
counterpart to the other's experience of life, and startled to see how
the different, yet parallel, lessons they had been taught by suffering
had led them step by step to the same serene acquiescence in the
orderings of that Supreme Wisdom which they both devoutly recognized.

Old Sophy was at the window and saw them walking up and down the
garden-alleys. She watched them as her grandfather the savage watched
the figures that moved among the trees when a hostile tribe was lurking
about his mountain.

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