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Morgesons

<h1 id="id02873" style="margin-top: 6em">CHAPTER XL.</h1> I looked across the bay from my window. "The snow is making 'Pawshee's Land' white again, and I remain this year the same. No change, no growth or development! The fulfillment of duty avails me nothing; and self-discipline has passed the necessary point." I struck the sash with my closed hand, for I would now give my life a new direction, and it was fettered. But I would be resolute, and break the fetters; had I not endured a "mute case" long enough? Manuel, who had been throwing snowballs against the house, stopped, and looked toward the gate, and then ran toward it. A pair of tired, splashed horses dashed down the drive. Manuel had the reins, and Ben was beside him, reeling slightly on the seat of the wagon. I ran down to meet him; he had been on a trip to Belem, where he never went except when he wanted money. "I have some news for you," he said, putting his arm in mine, as he jumped from the wagon. "Come in, and pull off my boots, Manuel." I brought a chair for him, and waited till his boots were off. "Bring me a glass of brandy." I stamped my foot. Verry entered with a book. "Ah, Verry, darling, come here." "Why do you drink brandy? Have you over-driven the horses?" He drank the brandy. She nodded kindly to him, shut her book, and slipped out, without approaching him. "That's her way," he said, staring hard at me. "She always says in the same unmoved voice, 'Why do you drink brandy?'" "And then—she will not come to kiss you." "The child is dead, for the first thing. (Cigar, Manuel.) Second, I was possessed to come home by the way of Rosville. When did your father go away, Cass?" I felt faint, and sat down. "Ah, we all have a weakness; does yours overcome you?" "He went three days ago." "I saw him at Alice Morgeson's." "Arthur?" "He didn't go to see Arthur. He will marry Alice, and I must build my house now." A devil ripped open my heart; its fragments flew all over me, blinding and deafening me. "He will be home to-night." "Very well." "What shall you say, Cassy?" "Expose that little weakness to him." "When will you learn real life?" "Please ask him, when he comes, if he will see me in my room." I waited there. My cup was filled at last. My sin swam on the top. Father came in smoking, and taking a chair between his legs, sat opposite me, and tapped softly the back of it with his fingers. "You sent for me?" "I wanted to tell you that Charles Morgeson loved me from the first, and you remember that I stayed by him to the last." "What more is there?" knocking over the chair, and seizing me; "tell me." His eyes, that were bloodshot with anger, fastened on my mouth. "I know, though, damn him! I know his cunning. Was Alice aware of this?" And he pushed me backward. "All." An expression of pain and disappointment crossed his face; he ground his teeth fiercely. "Don't marry her, father; you will kill me if you do!" "Must you alone have license?" He resumed his cigar, which he picked up from the floor. "It would seem that we have not known each other. What evasiveness there is in our natures! Your mother was the soul of candor, yet I am convinced I never knew her." "If you bring Alice here, I must go. We cannot live together." "I understand why she would not come here. She said that she must see you first. She is in Milford." He knocked the ashes from his cigar, looked round the room, and then at me, who wept bitterly. His face contracted with a spasm. "We were married two days ago." And turning from me quickly, he left the room. I was never so near groveling on the face of the earth as then; let me but fall, and I was sure that I never should rise. Ben knew it, but left it to me to tell Veronica. My grief broke all bounds, and we changed places; she tried to comfort me, forgetting herself. "Let us go away to the world's end with Ben." But suddenly recollecting that she liked Alice, she cried, "What shall I do?" What could she do, but offer an unreasoning opposition? Aunt Merce cried herself sick, fond as she was of Alice, and Temperance declared that if she hadn't married a widower herself, she would put in an oar. Anyhow, she hadn't married a man with grown-up daughters. "What ails Fanny?" she asked me the next day. "She looks like a froze pullet." "Where is she now?" "Making the beds." Temperance knew well what was the matter, but was too wise to interfere. I found her, not bed-making, but in a spare room, staring at the wall. She looked at me with dry eyes, bit her lips, and folded her hands across her chest, after her old, defiant fashion. I did not speak. "It is so," she said; "you need not tear me to pieces with your eyes, I can confess it to you, for you are as I am. I love him!" And she got up to shake her fist in my face. "My heart and brain and soul are as good as hers, and he knows it." I could not utter a word. "I know him as you never knew him, and have for years, since I was that starved, poor-house brat your mother took. Don't trouble yourself to make a speech about ingratitude. I know that your mother was good and merciful, and that I should have worshiped her; but I never did. Do you suppose I ever thought he was perfect, as the rest of you thought? He is full of faults. I thought he was dependant on me. He knows how I feel. Oh, what shall I do?" She threw up her arms, and dropped on the floor in a hysteric fit. I locked the door, and picked her up. "Come out of it, Fanny; I shall stay here till you do." By dint of shaking her, and opening the window, she began to come to. After two or three fearful laughs and shudders, she opened her eyes. She saw my compassion, and tears fell in torrents; I cried too. The poor girl kissed my hands; a new soul came into her face. "Oh, Fanny, bear it as well as you can! You and I will be friends." "Forgive me! I was always bad; I am now. If that woman comes here, I'll stab her with Manuel's knife." "Pooh! The knife is too rusty; it would give her the lockjaw. Besides, she will never come. I know her. She is already more than half-way to meet me; but I shall not perform my part of the journey, and she will return." "You don't say so!" her ancient curiosity reviving. "Manuel keeps it sharp," she said presently, relapsing into jealousy. "You are a fool. Have you eaten anything to-day?" "I can't eat." "That's the matter with you—an empty stomach is the cause of most distressing pangs." Ben urged me to go to Milford to meet Alice, and to ask her to come to our house. But father said no more to me on the subject. Neither did Veronica. In the afternoon they drove over to Milford, returning at dusk. She refused to come with them, Ben said, and never would probably. "You have thrown out your father terribly." "You notice it, do you?" "It is pretty evident." "What is your opinion?" He was about to condemn, when he recollected his own interference in my life. "Ah! you have me. I think you are right, as far as the past which relates to Alice is concerned. But if she chooses to forget, why don't you? We do much that is contrary to our moral ideas, to make people comfortable. Besides, if we do not lay our ghosts, our closets will be overcrowded." "We may determine some things for ourselves, irrespective of consequences." "Well, there is a mess of it." Fanny had watched for their return, counting on an access of misery, for she believed that Alice would come also. It was what she would have done. Rage took possession of her when she saw father alone. She planted herself before him, in my presence, in a contemptuous attitude. He changed color, and then her mood changed. "What shall I do?" she asked piteously. I tried to get away before she made any further progress; but he checked me, dreading the scene which he foreboded, without comprehending. "Fanny," he said harshly, but with a confused face, "you mistake me." "Not I; it was your wife and children who mistook you." "What is it you would say?" "You have let me be your slave." "It is not true, I hope—what your behavior indicates?" I forgave him everything then. Fanny had made a mistake. He had only behaved very selfishly toward her, without having any perception of her—that was all! She was confounded, stared at him a moment, and rushed out. That interview settled her; she was a different girl from that day. "Father, you will go to Rosville, and be rich again. Can you buy this house from Ben, for me? A very small income will suffice me and Fanny, for you may be sure that I shall keep her. Temperance will live with Verry; Ben will build, now that his share of his grandfather's estate will come to him." "Very well," he said with a sigh, "I will bring it about." "It is useless for us to disguise the fact—I have lost you. You are more dead to me than mother is." "You say so." It was the truth. I was the only one of the family who never went to Rosville. Aunt Merce took up her abode with Alice, on account of Arthur, whom she idolized. When father was married again, the Morgeson family denounced him for it, and for leaving Surrey; but they accepted his invitations to Rosville, and returned with glowing accounts of his new house and his hospitality. By the next June, Ben's house was completed and they moved. Its site was a knoll to the east of our house, which Veronica had chosen. Her rooms were toward the orchard, and Ben's commanded a view of the sea. He had not ventured to intrude, he told her, upon the Northern Lights, and she must not bother him about his boat-house or his pier. They were both delighted with the change, and kept house like children. Temperance indulged their whims to the utmost, though she thought Ben's new-fangled notions were silly; but they might keep him from something worse. This something was a shadow which frightened me, though I fought it off. I was weary of trouble, and shut my eyes as long as possible. Whenever Ben went from home, and he often drove to Milford, or to some of the towns near, he came back disordered with drink. At the sight my hopes would sink. But they rose again, he was so genial, so loving, so calmly contented afterward. As Verry never spoke of it either to Temperance or me, I imagined she was not troubled much. She could not feel as I felt, for she knew nothing of the Bellevue Pickersgill family history. The day they moved was a happy one for me. I was at last left alone in my own house, and I regained an absolute self-possession, and a sense of occupation I had long been a stranger to. My ownership oppressed me, almost, there was so much liberty to realize. I had an annoyance, soon after I came into sole possession. Father's business was not yet settled, and he came to Surrey. He was paying his debts in full, he told me, eking out what he lacked himself with the property of Alice. He could not have used much of it, however, for the vessels that were out at the time of the failure came home with good cargoes. I fancied that he had more than one regret while settling his affairs; that he missed the excitement and vicissitudes of a maritime business. Nothing disagreeable arose between us, till I happened to ask him what were the contents of a box which had arrived the day before. "Something Alice sent you; shall we open it?" "I made no answer; but it was opened, and he took out a sea-green and white velvet carpet, with a scarlet leaf on it, and a piece of sea-green and white brocade for curtains. Had she sought the world over, she could have found nothing to suit me so well. "She thought that Verry might have a fancy for some of the old furniture, and that you would accept these in its place." "There's nothing here to match this splendor, and I cannot bear to make a change. Verry must have them, for she took nothing from me." "Just as you please." <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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