XX The Flower of Eden
PHOEBE, coming so suddenly from the sunny daylight, was altogetherbedimmed in such density of shadow as lurked in most of the passages ofthe old house. She was not at first aware by whom she had beenadmitted. Before her eyes had adapted themselves to the obscurity, ahand grasped her own with a firm but gentle and warm pressure, thusimparting a welcome which caused her heart to leap and thrill with anindefinable shiver of enjoyment. She felt herself drawn along, nottowards the parlor, but into a large and unoccupied apartment, whichhad formerly been the grand reception-room of the Seven Gables. Thesunshine came freely into all the uncurtained windows of this room, andfell upon the dusty floor; so that Phoebe now clearly saw--what,indeed, had been no secret, after the encounter of a warm hand withhers--that it was not Hepzibah nor Clifford, but Holgrave, to whom sheowed her reception. The subtile, intuitive communication, or, rather,the vague and formless impression of something to be told, had made heryield unresistingly to his impulse. Without taking away her hand, shelooked eagerly in his face, not quick to forebode evil, but unavoidablyconscious that the state of the family had changed since her departure,and therefore anxious for an explanation.
The artist looked paler than ordinary; there was a thoughtful andsevere contraction of his forehead, tracing a deep, vertical linebetween the eyebrows. His smile, however, was full of genuine warmth,and had in it a joy, by far the most vivid expression that Phoebe hadever witnessed, shining out of the New England reserve with whichHolgrave habitually masked whatever lay near his heart. It was thelook wherewith a man, brooding alone over some fearful object, in adreary forest or illimitable desert, would recognize the familiaraspect of his dearest friend, bringing up all the peaceful ideas thatbelong to home, and the gentle current of every-day affairs. And yet,as he felt the necessity of responding to her look of inquiry, thesmile disappeared.
"I ought not to rejoice that you have come, Phoebe," said he. "We meetat a strange moment!"
"What has happened!" she exclaimed. "Why is the house so deserted?Where are Hepzibah and Clifford?"
"Gone! I cannot imagine where they are!" answered Holgrave. "We arealone in the house!"
"Hepzibah and Clifford gone?" cried Phoebe. "It is not possible! Andwhy have you brought me into this room, instead of the parlor? Ah,something terrible has happened! I must run and see!"
"No, no, Phoebe!" said Holgrave holding her back. "It is as I havetold you. They are gone, and I know not whither. A terrible eventhas, indeed happened, but not to them, nor, as I undoubtingly believe,through any agency of theirs. If I read your character rightly,Phoebe," he continued, fixing his eyes on hers with stern anxiety,intermixed with tenderness, "gentle as you are, and seeming to haveyour sphere among common things, you yet possess remarkable strength.You have wonderful poise, and a faculty which, when tested, will proveitself capable of dealing with matters that fall far out of theordinary rule."
"Oh, no, I am very weak!" replied Phoebe, trembling. "But tell me whathas happened!"
"You are strong!" persisted Holgrave. "You must be both strong andwise; for I am all astray, and need your counsel. It may be you cansuggest the one right thing to do!"
"Tell me!--tell me!" said Phoebe, all in a tremble. "It oppresses,--itterrifies me,--this mystery! Anything else I can bear!"
The artist hesitated. Notwithstanding what he had just said, and mostsincerely, in regard to the self-balancing power with which Phoebeimpressed him, it still seemed almost wicked to bring the awful secretof yesterday to her knowledge. It was like dragging a hideous shape ofdeath into the cleanly and cheerful space before a household fire,where it would present all the uglier aspect, amid the decorousness ofeverything about it. Yet it could not be concealed from her; she mustneeds know it.
"Phoebe," said he, "do you remember this?" He put into her hand adaguerreotype; the same that he had shown her at their first interviewin the garden, and which so strikingly brought out the hard andrelentless traits of the original.
"What has this to do with Hepzibah and Clifford?" asked Phoebe, withimpatient surprise that Holgrave should so trifle with her at such amoment. "It is Judge Pyncheon! You have shown it to me before!"
"But here is the same face, taken within this half-hour" said theartist, presenting her with another miniature. "I had just finished itwhen I heard you at the door."
"This is death!" shuddered Phoebe, turning very pale. "Judge Pyncheondead!"
"Such as there represented," said Holgrave, "he sits in the next room.The Judge is dead, and Clifford and Hepzibah have vanished! I know nomore. All beyond is conjecture. On returning to my solitary chamber,last evening, I noticed no light, either in the parlor, or Hepzibah'sroom, or Clifford's; no stir nor footstep about the house. Thismorning, there was the same death-like quiet. From my window, Ioverheard the testimony of a neighbor, that your relatives were seenleaving the house in the midst of yesterday's storm. A rumor reachedme, too, of Judge Pyncheon being missed. A feeling which I cannotdescribe--an indefinite sense of some catastrophe, orconsummation--impelled me to make my way into this part of the house,where I discovered what you see. As a point of evidence that may beuseful to Clifford, and also as a memorial valuable to myself,--for,Phoebe, there are hereditary reasons that connect me strangely withthat man's fate,--I used the means at my disposal to preserve thispictorial record of Judge Pyncheon's death."
Even in her agitation, Phoebe could not help remarking the calmness ofHolgrave's demeanor. He appeared, it is true, to feel the wholeawfulness of the Judge's death, yet had received the fact into his mindwithout any mixture of surprise, but as an event preordained, happeninginevitably, and so fitting itself into past occurrences that it couldalmost have been prophesied.
"Why have you not thrown open the doors, and called in witnesses?"inquired she with a painful shudder. "It is terrible to be here alone!"
"But Clifford!" suggested the artist. "Clifford and Hepzibah! We mustconsider what is best to be done in their behalf. It is a wretchedfatality that they should have disappeared! Their flight will throw theworst coloring over this event of which it is susceptible. Yet howeasy is the explanation, to those who know them! Bewildered andterror-stricken by the similarity of this death to a former one, whichwas attended with such disastrous consequences to Clifford, they havehad no idea but of removing themselves from the scene. How miserablyunfortunate! Had Hepzibah but shrieked aloud,--had Clifford flung widethe door, and proclaimed Judge Pyncheon's death,--it would have been,however awful in itself, an event fruitful of good consequences tothem. As I view it, it would have gone far towards obliterating theblack stain on Clifford's character."
"And how," asked Phoebe, "could any good come from what is so verydreadful?"
"Because," said the artist, "if the matter can be fairly considered andcandidly interpreted, it must be evident that Judge Pyncheon could nothave come unfairly to his end. This mode of death had been anidiosyncrasy with his family, for generations past; not oftenoccurring, indeed, but, when it does occur, usually attackingindividuals about the Judge's time of life, and generally in thetension of some mental crisis, or, perhaps, in an access of wrath. OldMaule's prophecy was probably founded on a knowledge of this physicalpredisposition in the Pyncheon race. Now, there is a minute and almostexact similarity in the appearances connected with the death thatoccurred yesterday and those recorded of the death of Clifford's unclethirty years ago. It is true, there was a certain arrangement ofcircumstances, unnecessary to be recounted, which made it possible nay,as men look at these things, probable, or even certain--that oldJaffrey Pyncheon came to a violent death, and by Clifford's hands."
"Whence came those circumstances?" exclaimed Phoebe. "He beinginnocent, as we know him to be!"
"They were arranged," said Holgrave,--"at least such has long been myconviction,--they were arranged after the uncle's death, and before itwas made public, by the man who sits in yonder parlor. His own death,so like
that former one, yet attended by none of those suspiciouscircumstances, seems the stroke of God upon him, at once a punishmentfor his wickedness, and making plain the innocence of Clifford. Butthis flight,--it distorts everything! He may be in concealment, near athand. Could we but bring him back before the discovery of the Judge'sdeath, the evil might be rectified."
"We must not hide this thing a moment longer!" said Phoebe. "It isdreadful to keep it so closely in our hearts. Clifford is innocent.God will make it manifest! Let us throw open the doors, and call allthe neighborhood to see the truth!"
"You are right, Phoebe," rejoined Holgrave. "Doubtless you are right."
Yet the artist did not feel the horror, which was proper to Phoebe'ssweet and order-loving character, at thus finding herself at issue withsociety, and brought in contact with an event that transcended ordinaryrules. Neither was he in haste, like her, to betake himself within theprecincts of common life. On the contrary, he gathered a wildenjoyment,--as it were, a flower of strange beauty, growing in adesolate spot, and blossoming in the wind,--such a flower of momentaryhappiness he gathered from his present position. It separated Phoebeand himself from the world, and bound them to each other, by theirexclusive knowledge of Judge Pyncheon's mysterious death, and thecounsel which they were forced to hold respecting it. The secret, solong as it should continue such, kept them within the circle of aspell, a solitude in the midst of men, a remoteness as entire as thatof an island in mid-ocean; once divulged, the ocean would flow betwixtthem, standing on its widely sundered shores. Meanwhile, all thecircumstances of their situation seemed to draw them together; theywere like two children who go hand in hand, pressing closely to oneanother's side, through a shadow-haunted passage. The image of awfulDeath, which filled the house, held them united by his stiffened grasp.
These influences hastened the development of emotions that might nototherwise have flowered so. Possibly, indeed, it had been Holgrave'spurpose to let them die in their undeveloped germs. "Why do we delayso?" asked Phoebe. "This secret takes away my breath! Let us throwopen the doors!"
"In all our lives there can never come another moment like this!" saidHolgrave. "Phoebe, is it all terror?--nothing but terror? Are youconscious of no joy, as I am, that has made this the only point of lifeworth living for?"
"It seems a sin," replied Phoebe, trembling, "to think of joy at such atime!"
"Could you but know, Phoebe, how it was with me the hour before youcame!" exclaimed the artist. "A dark, cold, miserable hour! Thepresence of yonder dead man threw a great black shadow over everything;he made the universe, so far as my perception could reach, a scene ofguilt and of retribution more dreadful than the guilt. The sense of ittook away my youth. I never hoped to feel young again! The worldlooked strange, wild, evil, hostile; my past life, so lonesome anddreary; my future, a shapeless gloom, which I must mould into gloomyshapes! But, Phoebe, you crossed the threshold; and hope, warmth, andjoy came in with you! The black moment became at once a blissful one.It must not pass without the spoken word. I love you!"
"How can you love a simple girl like me?" asked Phoebe, compelled byhis earnestness to speak. "You have many, many thoughts, with which Ishould try in vain to sympathize. And I,--I, too,--I have tendencieswith which you would sympathize as little. That is less matter. But Ihave not scope enough to make you happy."
"You are my only possibility of happiness!" answered Holgrave. "I haveno faith in it, except as you bestow it on me!"
"And then--I am afraid!" continued Phoebe, shrinking towards Holgrave,even while she told him so frankly the doubts with which he affectedher. "You will lead me out of my own quiet path. You will make mestrive to follow you where it is pathless. I cannot do so. It is notmy nature. I shall sink down and perish!"
"Ah, Phoebe!" exclaimed Holgrave, with almost a sigh, and a smile thatwas burdened with thought.
"It will be far otherwise than as you forebode. The world owes all itsonward impulses to men ill at ease. The happy man inevitably confineshimself within ancient limits. I have a presentiment that, hereafter,it will be my lot to set out trees, to make fences,--perhaps, even, indue time, to build a house for another generation,--in a word, toconform myself to laws and the peaceful practice of society. Yourpoise will be more powerful than any oscillating tendency of mine."
"I would not have it so!" said Phoebe earnestly.
"Do you love me?" asked Holgrave. "If we love one another, the momenthas room for nothing more. Let us pause upon it, and be satisfied. Doyou love me, Phoebe?"
"You look into my heart," said she, letting her eyes drop. "You know Ilove you!"
And it was in this hour, so full of doubt and awe, that the one miraclewas wrought, without which every human existence is a blank. The blisswhich makes all things true, beautiful, and holy shone around thisyouth and maiden. They were conscious of nothing sad nor old. Theytransfigured the earth, and made it Eden again, and themselves the twofirst dwellers in it. The dead man, so close beside them, wasforgotten. At such a crisis, there is no death; for immortality isrevealed anew, and embraces everything in its hallowed atmosphere.
But how soon the heavy earth-dream settled down again!
"Hark!" whispered Phoebe. "Somebody is at the street door!"
"Now let us meet the world!" said Holgrave. "No doubt, the rumor ofJudge Pyncheon's visit to this house, and the flight of Hepzibah andClifford, is about to lead to the investigation of the premises. Wehave no way but to meet it. Let us open the door at once."
But, to their surprise, before they could reach the street door,--evenbefore they quitted the room in which the foregoing interview hadpassed,--they heard footsteps in the farther passage. The door,therefore, which they supposed to be securely locked,--which Holgrave,indeed, had seen to be so, and at which Phoebe had vainly tried toenter,--must have been opened from without. The sound of footsteps wasnot harsh, bold, decided, and intrusive, as the gait of strangers wouldnaturally be, making authoritative entrance into a dwelling where theyknew themselves unwelcome. It was feeble, as of persons either weak orweary; there was the mingled murmur of two voices, familiar to both thelisteners.
"Can it be?" whispered Holgrave.
"It is they!" answered Phoebe. "Thank God!--thank God!"
And then, as if in sympathy with Phoebe's whispered ejaculation, theyheard Hepzibah's voice more distinctly.
"Thank God, my brother, we are at home!"
"Well!--Yes!--thank God!" responded Clifford. "A dreary home,Hepzibah! But you have done well to bring me hither! Stay! That parlordoor is open. I cannot pass by it! Let me go and rest me in the arbor,where I used,--oh, very long ago, it seems to me, after what hasbefallen us,--where I used to be so happy with little Phoebe!"
But the house was not altogether so dreary as Clifford imagined it.They had not made many steps,--in truth, they were lingering in theentry, with the listlessness of an accomplished purpose, uncertain whatto do next,--when Phoebe ran to meet them. On beholding her, Hepzibahburst into tears. With all her might, she had staggered onward beneaththe burden of grief and responsibility, until now that it was safe tofling it down. Indeed, she had not energy to fling it down, but hadceased to uphold it, and suffered it to press her to the earth.Clifford appeared the stronger of the two.
"It is our own little Phoebe!--Ah! and Holgrave with, her" exclaimedhe, with a glance of keen and delicate insight, and a smile, beautiful,kind, but melancholy. "I thought of you both, as we came down thestreet, and beheld Alice's Posies in full bloom. And so the flower ofEden has bloomed, likewise, in this old, darksome house to-day."
XXI The Departure
THE sudden death of so prominent a member of the social world as theHonorable Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon created a sensation (at least, in thecircles more immediately connected with the deceased) which had hardlyquite subsided in a fortnight.
It may be remarked, however, that, of all the events which constitute aperson's biograp
hy, there is scarcely one--none, certainly, of anythinglike a similar importance--to which the world so easily reconcilesitself as to his death. In most other cases and contingencies, theindividual is present among us, mixed up with the daily revolution ofaffairs, and affording a definite point for observation. At hisdecease, there is only a vacancy, and a momentary eddy,--very small, ascompared with the apparent magnitude of the ingurgitated object,--and abubble or two, ascending out of the black depth and bursting at thesurface. As regarded Judge Pyncheon, it seemed probable, at firstblush, that the mode of his final departure might give him a larger andlonger posthumous vogue than ordinarily attends the memory of adistinguished man. But when it came to be understood, on the highestprofessional authority, that the event was a natural, and--except forsome unimportant particulars, denoting a slight idiosyncrasy--by nomeans an unusual form of death, the public, with its customaryalacrity, proceeded to forget that he had ever lived. In short, thehonorable Judge was beginning to be a stale subject before half thecountry newspapers had found time to put their columns in mourning, andpublish his exceedingly eulogistic obituary.
Nevertheless, creeping darkly through the places which this excellentperson had haunted in his lifetime, there was a hidden stream ofprivate talk, such as it would have shocked all decency to speak loudlyat the street-corners. It is very singular, how the fact of a man'sdeath often seems to give people a truer idea of his character, whetherfor good or evil, than they have ever possessed while he was living andacting among them. Death is so genuine a fact that it excludesfalsehood, or betrays its emptiness; it is a touchstone that proves thegold, and dishonors the baser metal. Could the departed, whoever hemay be, return in a week after his decease, he would almost invariablyfind himself at a higher or lower point than he had formerly occupied,on the scale of public appreciation. But the talk, or scandal, towhich we now allude, had reference to matters of no less old a datethan the supposed murder, thirty or forty years ago, of the late JudgePyncheon's uncle. The medical opinion with regard to his own recentand regretted decease had almost entirely obviated the idea that amurder was committed in the former case. Yet, as the record showed,there were circumstances irrefragably indicating that some person hadgained access to old Jaffrey Pyncheon's private apartments, at or nearthe moment of his death. His desk and private drawers, in a roomcontiguous to his bedchamber, had been ransacked; money and valuablearticles were missing; there was a bloody hand-print on the old man'slinen; and, by a powerfully welded chain of deductive evidence, theguilt of the robbery and apparent murder had been fixed on Clifford,then residing with his uncle in the House of the Seven Gables.
Whencesoever originating, there now arose a theory that undertook so toaccount for these circumstances as to exclude the idea of Clifford'sagency. Many persons affirmed that the history and elucidation of thefacts, long so mysterious, had been obtained by the daguerreotypistfrom one of those mesmerical seers who, nowadays, so strangely perplexthe aspect of human affairs, and put everybody's natural vision to theblush, by the marvels which they see with their eyes shut.
According to this version of the story, Judge Pyncheon, exemplary as wehave portrayed him in our narrative, was, in his youth, an apparentlyirreclaimable scapegrace. The brutish, the animal instincts, as isoften the case, had been developed earlier than the intellectualqualities, and the force of character, for which he was afterwardsremarkable. He had shown himself wild, dissipated, addicted to lowpleasures, little short of ruffianly in his propensities, andrecklessly expensive, with no other resources than the bounty of hisuncle. This course of conduct had alienated the old bachelor'saffection, once strongly fixed upon him. Now it is averred,--butwhether on authority available in a court of justice, we do not pretendto have investigated,--that the young man was tempted by the devil, onenight, to search his uncle's private drawers, to which he hadunsuspected means of access. While thus criminally occupied, he wasstartled by the opening of the chamber-door. There stood old JaffreyPyncheon, in his nightclothes! The surprise of such a discovery, hisagitation, alarm, and horror, brought on the crisis of a disorder towhich the old bachelor had an hereditary liability; he seemed to chokewith blood, and fell upon the floor, striking his temple a heavy blowagainst the corner of a table. What was to be done? The old man wassurely dead! Assistance would come too late! What a misfortune, indeed,should it come too soon, since his reviving consciousness would bringthe recollection of the ignominious offence which he had beheld hisnephew in the very act of committing!
But he never did revive. With the cool hardihood that always pertainedto him, the young man continued his search of the drawers, and found awill, of recent date, in favor of Clifford,--which he destroyed,--andan older one, in his own favor, which he suffered to remain. Butbefore retiring, Jaffrey bethought himself of the evidence, in theseransacked drawers, that some one had visited the chamber with sinisterpurposes. Suspicion, unless averted, might fix upon the real offender.In the very presence of the dead man, therefore, he laid a scheme thatshould free himself at the expense of Clifford, his rival, for whosecharacter he had at once a contempt and a repugnance. It is notprobable, be it said, that he acted with any set purpose of involvingClifford in a charge of murder. Knowing that his uncle did not die byviolence, it may not have occurred to him, in the hurry of the crisis,that such an inference might be drawn. But, when the affair took thisdarker aspect, Jaffrey's previous steps had already pledged him tothose which remained. So craftily had he arranged the circumstances,that, at Clifford's trial, his cousin hardly found it necessary toswear to anything false, but only to withhold the one decisiveexplanation, by refraining to state what he had himself done andwitnessed.
Thus Jaffrey Pyncheon's inward criminality, as regarded Clifford, was,indeed, black and damnable; while its mere outward show and positivecommission was the smallest that could possibly consist with so great asin. This is just the sort of guilt that a man of eminentrespectability finds it easiest to dispose of. It was suffered to fadeout of sight or be reckoned a venial matter, in the Honorable JudgePyncheon's long subsequent survey of his own life. He shuffled itaside, among the forgotten and forgiven frailties of his youth, andseldom thought of it again.
We leave the Judge to his repose. He could not be styled fortunate atthe hour of death. Unknowingly, he was a childless man, while strivingto add more wealth to his only child's inheritance. Hardly a weekafter his decease, one of the Cunard steamers brought intelligence ofthe death, by cholera, of Judge Pyncheon's son, just at the point ofembarkation for his native land. By this misfortune Clifford becamerich; so did Hepzibah; so did our little village maiden, and, throughher, that sworn foe of wealth and all manner of conservatism,--the wildreformer,--Holgrave!
It was now far too late in Clifford's life for the good opinion ofsociety to be worth the trouble and anguish of a formal vindication.What he needed was the love of a very few; not the admiration, or eventhe respect, of the unknown many. The latter might probably have beenwon for him, had those on whom the guardianship of his welfare hadfallen deemed it advisable to expose Clifford to a miserableresuscitation of past ideas, when the condition of whatever comfort hemight expect lay in the calm of forgetfulness. After such wrong as hehad suffered, there is no reparation. The pitiable mockery of it,which the world might have been ready enough to offer, coming so longafter the agony had done its utmost work, would have been fit only toprovoke bitterer laughter than poor Clifford was ever capable of. Itis a truth (and it would be a very sad one but for the higher hopeswhich it suggests) that no great mistake, whether acted or endured, inour mortal sphere, is ever really set right. Time, the continualvicissitude of circumstances, and the invariable inopportunity ofdeath, render it impossible. If, after long lapse of years, the rightseems to be in our power, we find no niche to set it in. The betterremedy is for the sufferer to pass on, and leave what he once thoughthis irreparable ruin far behind him.
The shock of Judge Pyncheon's death had a permanently invigorating an
dultimately beneficial effect on Clifford. That strong and ponderousman had been Clifford's nightmare. There was no free breath to bedrawn, within the sphere of so malevolent an influence. The firsteffect of freedom, as we have witnessed in Clifford's aimless flight,was a tremulous exhilaration. Subsiding from it, he did not sink intohis former intellectual apathy. He never, it is true, attained tonearly the full measure of what might have been his faculties. But herecovered enough of them partially to light up his character, todisplay some outline of the marvellous grace that was abortive in it,and to make him the object of no less deep, although less melancholyinterest than heretofore. He was evidently happy. Could we pause togive another picture of his daily life, with all the appliances now atcommand to gratify his instinct for the Beautiful, the garden scenes,that seemed so sweet to him, would look mean and trivial in comparison.
Very soon after their change of fortune, Clifford, Hepzibah, and littlePhoebe, with the approval of the artist, concluded to remove from thedismal old House of the Seven Gables, and take up their abode, for thepresent, at the elegant country-seat of the late Judge Pyncheon.Chanticleer and his family had already been transported thither, wherethe two hens had forthwith begun an indefatigable process ofegg-laying, with an evident design, as a matter of duty and conscience,to continue their illustrious breed under better auspices than for acentury past. On the day set for their departure, the principalpersonages of our story, including good Uncle Venner, were assembled inthe parlor.
"The country-house is certainly a very fine one, so far as the plangoes," observed Holgrave, as the party were discussing their futurearrangements. "But I wonder that the late Judge--being so opulent, andwith a reasonable prospect of transmitting his wealth to descendants ofhis own--should not have felt the propriety of embodying so excellent apiece of domestic architecture in stone, rather than in wood. Then,every generation of the family might have altered the interior, to suitits own taste and convenience; while the exterior, through the lapse ofyears, might have been adding venerableness to its original beauty, andthus giving that impression of permanence which I consider essential tothe happiness of any one moment."
"Why," cried Phoebe, gazing into the artist's face with infiniteamazement, "how wonderfully your ideas are changed! A house of stone,indeed! It is but two or three weeks ago that you seemed to wish peopleto live in something as fragile and temporary as a bird's-nest!"
"Ah, Phoebe, I told you how it would be!" said the artist, with ahalf-melancholy laugh. "You find me a conservative already! Littledid I think ever to become one. It is especially unpardonable in thisdwelling of so much hereditary misfortune, and under the eye of yonderportrait of a model conservative, who, in that very character, renderedhimself so long the evil destiny of his race."
"That picture!" said Clifford, seeming to shrink from its stern glance."Whenever I look at it, there is an old dreamy recollection hauntingme, but keeping just beyond the grasp of my mind. Wealth, it seems tosay!--boundless wealth!--unimaginable wealth! I could fancy that, whenI was a child, or a youth, that portrait had spoken, and told me a richsecret, or had held forth its hand, with the written record of hiddenopulence. But those old matters are so dim with me, nowadays! Whatcould this dream have been?"
"Perhaps I can recall it," answered Holgrave. "See! There are ahundred chances to one that no person, unacquainted with the secret,would ever touch this spring."
"A secret spring!" cried Clifford. "Ah, I remember now! I did discoverit, one summer afternoon, when I was idling and dreaming about thehouse, long, long ago. But the mystery escapes me."
The artist put his finger on the contrivance to which he had referred.In former days, the effect would probably have been to cause thepicture to start forward. But, in so long a period of concealment, themachinery had been eaten through with rust; so that at Holgrave'spressure, the portrait, frame and all, tumbled suddenly from itsposition, and lay face downward on the floor. A recess in the wall wasthus brought to light, in which lay an object so covered with acentury's dust that it could not immediately be recognized as a foldedsheet of parchment. Holgrave opened it, and displayed an ancient deed,signed with the hieroglyphics of several Indian sagamores, andconveying to Colonel Pyncheon and his heirs, forever, a vast extent ofterritory at the Eastward.
"This is the very parchment, the attempt to recover which cost thebeautiful Alice Pyncheon her happiness and life," said the artist,alluding to his legend. "It is what the Pyncheons sought in vain,while it was valuable; and now that they find the treasure, it has longbeen worthless."
"Poor Cousin Jaffrey! This is what deceived him," exclaimed Hepzibah."When they were young together, Clifford probably made a kind offairy-tale of this discovery. He was always dreaming hither andthither about the house, and lighting up its dark corners withbeautiful stories. And poor Jaffrey, who took hold of everything as ifit were real, thought my brother had found out his uncle's wealth. Hedied with this delusion in his mind!"
"But," said Phoebe, apart to Holgrave, "how came you to know thesecret?"
"My dearest Phoebe," said Holgrave, "how will it please you to assumethe name of Maule? As for the secret, it is the only inheritance thathas come down to me from my ancestors. You should have known sooner(only that I was afraid of frightening you away) that, in this longdrama of wrong and retribution, I represent the old wizard, and amprobably as much a wizard as ever he was. The son of the executedMatthew Maule, while building this house, took the opportunity toconstruct that recess, and hide away the Indian deed, on which dependedthe immense land-claim of the Pyncheons. Thus they bartered theireastern territory for Maule's garden-ground."
"And now" said Uncle Venner "I suppose their whole claim is not worthone man's share in my farm yonder!"
"Uncle Venner," cried Phoebe, taking the patched philosopher's hand,"you must never talk any more about your farm! You shall never gothere, as long as you live! There is a cottage in our new garden,--theprettiest little yellowish-brown cottage you ever saw; and thesweetest-looking place, for it looks just as if it were made ofgingerbread,--and we are going to fit it up and furnish it, on purposefor you. And you shall do nothing but what you choose, and shall be ashappy as the day is long, and shall keep Cousin Clifford in spiritswith the wisdom and pleasantness which is always dropping from yourlips!"
"Ah! my dear child," quoth good Uncle Venner, quite overcome, "if youwere to speak to a young man as you do to an old one, his chance ofkeeping his heart another minute would not be worth one of the buttonson my waistcoat! And--soul alive!--that great sigh, which you made meheave, has burst off the very last of them! But, never mind! It was thehappiest sigh I ever did heave; and it seems as if I must have drawn ina gulp of heavenly breath, to make it with. Well, well, Miss Phoebe!They'll miss me in the gardens hereabouts, and round by the back doors;and Pyncheon Street, I'm afraid, will hardly look the same without oldUncle Venner, who remembers it with a mowing field on one side, and thegarden of the Seven Gables on the other. But either I must go to yourcountry-seat, or you must come to my farm,--that's one of two thingscertain; and I leave you to choose which!"
"Oh, come with us, by all means, Uncle Venner!" said Clifford, who hada remarkable enjoyment of the old man's mellow, quiet, and simplespirit. "I want you always to be within five minutes, saunter of mychair. You are the only philosopher I ever knew of whose wisdom hasnot a drop of bitter essence at the bottom!"
"Dear me!" cried Uncle Venner, beginning partly to realize what mannerof man he was. "And yet folks used to set me down among the simpleones, in my younger days! But I suppose I am like a Roxbury russet,--agreat deal the better, the longer I can be kept. Yes; and my words ofwisdom, that you and Phoebe tell me of, are like the golden dandelions,which never grow in the hot months, but may be seen glistening amongthe withered grass, and under the dry leaves, sometimes as late asDecember. And you are welcome, friends, to my mess of dandelions, ifthere were twice as many!"
A plain, but handsome, dark-green barouche
had now drawn up in front ofthe ruinous portal of the old mansion-house. The party came forth, and(with the exception of good Uncle Venner, who was to follow in a fewdays) proceeded to take their places. They were chatting and laughingvery pleasantly together; and--as proves to be often the case, atmoments when we ought to palpitate with sensibility--Clifford andHepzibah bade a final farewell to the abode of their forefathers, withhardly more emotion than if they had made it their arrangement toreturn thither at tea-time. Several children were drawn to the spot byso unusual a spectacle as the barouche and pair of gray horses.Recognizing little Ned Higgins among them, Hepzibah put her hand intoher pocket, and presented the urchin, her earliest and staunchestcustomer, with silver enough to people the Domdaniel cavern of hisinterior with as various a procession of quadrupeds as passed into theark.
Two men were passing, just as the barouche drove off.
"Well, Dixey," said one of them, "what do you think of this? My wifekept a cent-shop three months, and lost five dollars on her outlay.Old Maid Pyncheon has been in trade just about as long, and rides offin her carriage with a couple of hundred thousand,--reckoning hershare, and Clifford's, and Phoebe's,--and some say twice as much! Ifyou choose to call it luck, it is all very well; but if we are to takeit as the will of Providence, why, I can't exactly fathom it!"
"Pretty good business!" quoth the sagacious Dixey,--"pretty goodbusiness!"
Maule's well, all this time, though left in solitude, was throwing up asuccession of kaleidoscopic pictures, in which a gifted eye might haveseen foreshadowed the coming fortunes of Hepzibah and Clifford, and thedescendant of the legendary wizard, and the village maiden, over whomhe had thrown love's web of sorcery. The Pyncheon Elm, moreover, withwhat foliage the September gale had spared to it, whisperedunintelligible prophecies. And wise Uncle Venner, passing slowly fromthe ruinous porch, seemed to hear a strain of music, and fancied thatsweet Alice Pyncheon--after witnessing these deeds, this bygone woe andthis present happiness, of her kindred mortals--had given one farewelltouch of a spirit's joy upon her harpsichord, as she floated heavenwardfrom the HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES!
The House of the Seven Gables Page 22
