Part 11 (1/2)
”How long will he stay with us?”
”He could not say positively when his last letter was written, but I hope to keep him several months. You know it is possible he may be forced to go to England, in order to complete some of his studies before--oh, Regina! could we bear to have two oceans swelling between our Bishop and us?”
”Why, then, will you let him go?”
”Can I help it?”
”You are his mother, and he would never disobey you.”
”But he is a man, and I cannot tie him to my ap.r.o.n strings as I do my bunch of keys. I must not stand in the way, and prevent him from doing his duty.”
”I suppose I don't yet know everything about such matters, but I should think it was his duty first to please you. How devoted he is to 'duty'? It must be horrible to leave all one loves, and go out to India among the heathens.”
”Pray, what do you know about the heathens?” said a manly voice, and instantly two strong arms gathered the pair in a cordial embrace.
”My son! You stole a march upon me! Oh, Dougla.s.s, I never was half so glad to see you as now!”
”If you do not stop crying, I shall feel tempted to doubt you. Tears are so unusual in your eyes that I shall be disposed to regard your welcome as equivocal.”
He kissed her on cheek and lips, and added:
”Regina, can't you contrive to say you are a little glad to see me?”
There was no reply, and, turning to look for her, he found she had vanished.
”Queer little thing, she has gone without a word, though she insisted on dressing her silver cup with those flowers, which she thought would suggest to you her grat.i.tude for your numerous little acts of kindness. Have you seen your uncle?”
”Yes, mother, I stopped a few moments at the church, where he is engaged with one of the committee. Uncle Peyton is not looking well.
Has he been sick?”
”He has suffered a good deal with his throat since you left us, and now and then I notice he coughs. He is overworked, and now that you can fill his pulpit he will have an opportunity to rest. Oh, my son!
in every respect your visit is a blessing.”
Leaning her head on his breast, she looked up with proud and almost adoring tenderness, and, drawing his face down to hers, held it close, kissing him with that intense clinging fervour which only mother-love kindles.
”Does my little mother know that she is spoiling her boy by inches; making a nursery darling, instead of a hardy soldier of him? You are weaving silken bonds to fasten me more securely here, when you ought rather to aid me in snapping the fetters of affection, habit, and a.s.sociation. Come, be so good as to brush the dust out of my hair, while you tell me everything about everybody, which you have failed to write during these long months of absence.”
For some time they talked of family matters, of occurrences in V----, of some invidious and unkind remarks, some caustic personal criticisms upon the pastor's household affairs, which had emanated from Mrs. Prudence Potter, a widowed member of the congregation, who had once rashly dreamed of presiding over the clerical hearth as Mrs.
Peyton Hargrove, and having failed to possess her kingdom had become a merciless spy upon all that happened in the forbidden realm.
”Poor Mrs. Prue! what a warfare exists between her name and her character. She should pet.i.tion the legislature to allow her to be called--Mrs. Echidna! My son, I think modern civilization will remain incomplete, will not perform its mission, until it relieves society from the depredations of these scorpions, by colonizing them where they will expend their poison without dangerous results. If sting they must, let it be among themselves. If I were lunatic enough to desire to vote, I should spend my franchise in favour of a 'Gossip Reservation'--somewhere close to the Great Western Desert, to which the disappointed widows, spiteful old maids, and snarling dyspeptic bachelors of this much-suffering generation should be relegated for domiciliation and reform. Freedom serves America much as aesop's stork did the frogs: we are appallingly free to be devoured by envy, stabbed by calumny, strangled by slander. I believe if I were a painter, and desired to portray Cleopatra's death, I would a.s.suredly give to the asp the baleful features and sneering smirk of Mrs.
Prudence. Every Sunday when she twists those two curls on her forehead till they lift themselves like horns, puts up her eye-gla.s.ses and pays her respects to our pew, I catch myself whispering '_Cerastes!_' and wis.h.i.+ng that I were only the _camera_ of a photographer.”
”Take care, mother! would you accept a homestead in your contemplated 'Reservation'?”
She pinched his ear.
”Don't presume, sir, to preach to me. Really, I often wonder how Peyton can force himself to smile and parry the vinegar cruets that woman throws at him in the shape of observations upon the 'rapid decline of evangelical piety,' and the 'sadly backslidden nature' of the clergy.”
”Because he is the very best man in the world, and faithfully practises what he preaches--Christian charity. What is Mrs. Pru's latest grievance?”
”That Peyton does not admit her to his confidence, and supply her with all the particulars of Regina's history and family, which he withholds even from you and me, and about which we should never dream of catechizing him. In a better cause, her bold effrontery would be sublime. Fortunately she was absent in Vermont for some months after the child came, and curiosity had subsided into indifference until she returned,--when lo! a geyser of righteous anxiety and suspicion boiled up in the congregation, and wellnigh scalded us. What do you suppose she blandly asked me one day, in the child's presence? 'Were not Mr. Hargrove's friends mistaken in believing he had never married?' Now I contend that the law of the land should indict for just such cruel and wicked innuendoes, because these social crimes that the statutes do not reach work almost as much mischief and misery as those offences against public peace which the laws declare penal. I confess Mrs. Potter is my _bete-noire_, and I feel as no doubt Paul did when he wrote to Timothy: 'Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil; the Lord reward him according to his works.'”