Part 20

I went off to my room, bathed, and dressed for a round of calls. This I proceeded to make, keeping on the shady side of the street. I called at three houses, and found everybody out. The sun was setting when I stood in front of my mirror on my return, and laid aside bonnet and mantle (we called it a “visite”). The red light from the west shot across me while I was brushing up the hair the hot dampness had laid flat. It struck me suddenly that I was looking rather well. I wore what we knew as a “spencer” of thin, dotted white muslin. It would be a “shirt-waist” to-day. It was belted at what was then a slim waist above a skirt of “changeable” silk. Herbert had said it “reminded him of a pale sunrise,” but there were faint green reflections among shimmering pinks. There must be somebody in the immediate neighborhood upon whom I might call while I was dressed to go out. A dart of self-reproach followed swiftly upon the thought.

My old and favorite tutor, Mr. Howison, had broken down in health two years after accepting a call to his first parish. An obstinate affection of the throat made preaching impracticable. At the end of a year of compulsory inaction, he resumed the practice of law in Richmond, and within another twelve months married the woman he had sought and won before his illness. They lived in a pleasant house upon the next street, so near that we often “ran around” to see each other. “Mary’s” younger sister had died during my absence from home, and as I reminded myself, now, I ought to have called before this.

Half a square from her door, I recalled that the young clergyman who was supplying Doctor Hoge’s pulpit while he was abroad, and whom I had heard preach last Sunday, was staying at the Howison’s. It was not right, in the eyes of the church, that he should go to a hotel, and since he would go nowhere except as a boarder, the Howisons had opened door and hearts to make him at home in his temporary charge. He had given us an interesting sermon on Sunday, and made a pleasing impression generally. I had not thought of him since, until almost at the gate of my friends’ house. Then I said, inly:

“Should the youthful divine be hanging about the porch or yard, I’ll walk on unconcernedly and postpone the call.”

Being familiar with the ways of young sprigs of divinity, and having over twenty blood-relatives who had the right to prefix their baptismal names by “The Reverend,” I had no especial fondness for the brand. Furthermore, three callow clerics and one full-fledged had already invited me to share parsonage and poverty with them. For all I had one and the same reply. It might be my predestined lot, as certain anxious friends began to hint, to live out my earthly days in single blessedness; and, if the ancient anti-race-suicide apostles were to be credited, then to lead apes in Hades for an indefinite period. I would risk the terrors of both states sooner than take upon me the duties and liabilities of a minister’s wife. Upon that I was determined.

The youthful divine was nowhere in sight. Nor did he show up during the half-hour I passed with the Howisons. They proposed walking home with me when I arose to go. Just outside the gate we espied a tall figure striding up the street, swinging his cane in very unclerical style. Mr. Howison stopped.

“Ah, Mr. Terhune! I was hoping you might join us.”

Then he introduced him to me. Of course, he asked permission to accompany us, and we four strolled abreast through the twilight of the embowered street. I had known the sister of Mr. Terhune, who, as the widow of Doctor Hoge’s most intimate friend, was a frequent visitor to Richmond. I asked civilly after her, and was answered as civilly. We remarked upon the heat of the day and the fine sunset; then we were at our gate, where my father and brother were looking out for me.

My escorts declined the invitation to enter garden and house; Mr. Howison passed over to me a big bunch of roses he had gathered from his garden and brought with him, and, having exchanged “Good-evenings,” we three lingered at the gate to admire the flowers. There was no finer collection of roses in any private garden in town than those which were the lawyer’s pets and pride. My face was buried in the cool deliciousness of my bouquet when, through the perfect stillness of the evening, we heard our new acquaintance say:

“Your friend, Miss Hawes, walks well.”

He had, as we had noticed on Sunday, a voice of marvellous compass, with peculiar “carrying” qualities. He had not spoken more loudly than his companions, and, having reached the corner of the street, he fancied himself beyond earshot. Every word floated back to us.

We laughed—all three of us. Then I said, deliberately:

“If that man ever asks me to marry him, I shall have to do it! I vowed solemnly, long ago, to marry the first man who thinks me handsome, if he should give me the chance. Let us hope this one won’t!”

“Amen!” responded my hearers, my father adding, “His cloth rules him out.”

It may have been a week later in the season that I was strolling down Broad Street in company with “Tom” Baxter, Mr. Rhodes’s chummiest crony. He had overtaken me a few squares farther up-town, and was begging me, in the naïve way most girls found bewitching, to take a turning that would lead us by an office where he was to leave a paper he had promised to deliver at that hour.

“Then,” he pursued, with the same refreshing simplicity of tone and look, “there will be nothing to hinder me from going all the way home with you.”

I refused point-blank, and he detained me for a minute at the parting of the ways, entreating and arguing, until I cut the nonsense short by saying that _I_ had an engagement which I must keep without regard to _his_ convenience, and walked on. Tom was an amusing fellow, and handsome enough to win forgiveness for his absurdities. I was smiling to myself in the recollection of the little farce, when I met, face to face, but not eye to eye—for we were both looking at the pavement—the man who had said that I walked well. He stepped aside hurriedly; the hand that swung the cane went up to his hat, and we went our separate ways.

That evening I was surprised to receive a call from our pastor _pro tempore_. He told me, months afterward, that he was homesick and lonely on that particular afternoon. At least two-thirds of the best people in the parish were out of town, and he found little to interest him in those he met socially.

“You smiled in such a genial fashion when we met on that blesséd corner that I felt better at once. The recollection of that friendly look gave me courage to call, out of hand.”

Whereupon, I brought sentimentality down on the run by asking if he had ever heard the negro proverb, “Fired at the blackbird and hit the crow”?

“That was Tom Baxter’s smile—not yours!”

XXVI

LITERARY WELL-WISHERS—GEORGE D. PRENTICE—MRS. SIGOURNEY—GRACE GREENWOOD—H. W. LONGFELLOW—JAMES REDPATH—“THE WANDERING JEW”

AUTHORS were not so plentiful then as to attract no attention in a crowd of non-literary people. Men and women who had climbed the heights had leisure to glance down at those nearer the foot of the hill, and to send back a cheering hail. I had twenty letters from George D. Prentice, known of all men as the friend and helper of youthful writers. All were kind and encouraging. By-and-by, they were fatherly and familiar. As when I lamented that I had never been able to make my head work without my heart, he responded, “Hearts without heads are too impulsive, sometimes too hot. Heads without hearts are too cold. Suppose you settle the matter by giving the heart into my keeping, in trust for the happy man who will call for it some day?”

His letters during the war were tinged with sadness. In one he wrote: “My whole heart is one throbbing prayer to the God of Nations that He will have mercy upon my beloved country.”

In reply to a letter of sympathy after the death of a gallant young son, who fell on the battle-field, he said:

“My dear boy never gave me a pang except by entering the army (in obedience to what he felt was the call of duty), and in dying. A nobler, more dutiful son never gladdened a father’s heart.”

Our correspondence was continued as long as the poet-editor lived. I owe him much. I wish I had made him comprehend how much.

Mrs. Sigourney, then on “the retired list” of American authors, sent me a copy of her latest volume of poems—_A Western Home_—and three or four letters of motherly counsel, one of which advised me to take certain epochs of American history as foundation-stones for any novels I might write in future, and bidding me “God-speed!”

Grace Greenwood opened a correspondence with the younger woman who had admired her afar off, and we kept up the friendship until she went abroad to live, resuming our intercourse upon her return to New York in the early eighties.

From Mr. Longfellow I had two letters. One told me that Mrs. Longfellow was “reading _Alone_ in her turn.”

“I am pleased to note upon the title-page of my copy, ‘_Sixth Edition_.’ That looks very like a guide-board pointing to Fame. I should think you would feel as does the traveller in the Tyrol who sees, at a turn in the rocky pass, a finger-post with the inscription—‘TO ROME.’ Hoping that you will not be molested by the bandits who sometimes infest that route, I am sincerely yours,

HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.”

I have carried the letter, word for word, in my heart for more than half a century. A patent of nobility would not have brought me keener and more exquisite pleasure.

Not that I deceived myself, for one mad hour, with the fancy that I could ever gain the right to stand for one beatific moment on a level with the immortals whom I worshipped. In the first flush of my petty triumph, I felt my limitations. The appreciation of these has grown upon me with each succeeding year. “Fred” Cozzens, the “Sparrowgrass” of humorous literature, said to me once when I expressed something of this conviction:

“Yet you occupy an important niche.”

I replied in all sincerity: “I know my place. But the niche is small, and it is not high up. All that I can hope is to fill it worthily, such as it is.”

The history of one bulky packet of letters takes me back to the orderly progress of my story, and to the most singular and romantic episode of that first year of confessedly literary life.

_Alone_ had been out in the world about three months, when I received a letter from a stranger, postmarked “Baltimore,” and bearing the letter-head of a daily paper published in that city. The signature was “James Redpath.” The writer related briefly that, chancing to go into Morris’s book-store while on a visit to Richmond, he had had from the publisher a copy of my book, and read it. He went on to say:

“It is full of faults, as you will discover for yourself in time. Personally, I may remark, that I detest both your politics and your theology. All the same, you will make your mark upon the age. In the full persuasion of this, I write to pledge myself to do all in my power to forward your literary interests. I am not on the staff of the Baltimore paper, although now visiting the editor-in-chief. But I have influence in more than one quarter, and you will hear from me again.”

I laid the queer epistle before my father, and we agreed that my outspoken critic was slightly demented. I was already used to odd communications from odd people, some from anonymous admirers, some from reviewers, professional and amateur, who sought to “do me good,” after the disinterested style of the guild.

I was therefore unprepared for the strenuous manner in which Mr. James Redpath proceeded to keep his pledge. Not a week passed in which he did not send me a clipping from some paper, containing a direct or incidental notice of my book, or work, or personality. Now he was in New Orleans, writing fiery Southern editorials, and insinuating into the body of the same, adroit mention of the rising Southern author. Now he slipped into a Cincinnati paper a poem taken from _Alone_, with a line or two, calling attention to the novel and the author; then a fierce attack upon the “detested politics and theology” flamed among book-notices in a Buffalo journal, tempered by regrets that “real talent should be grossly perverted by sectional prejudice and superstition.” Anon, a clever review in a Boston paper pleased my friends in the classic city so much that they sent a marked copy to me, not dreaming that I had already had the critique, with the now familiar “J. R.” scrawled in the margin. The climax of the melodrama was gained during the struggle over “bleeding Kansas” in 1855. A hurried note from the near neighborhood of Leavenworth informed me that a pro-slavery force, double the size of the abolitionist militia gathered to resist it, was advancing upon the position held by the latter. My dauntless knight wrote:

“Farewell, dear and noble lady! If I am not killed in the fight, you will hear from me again and again. Should I be translated to another sphere, I shall still (if possible) rap back notices of your work through the Fox sisters or other mediums.”

Hearing nothing more of or from him for two months, I was really unhappy in the apprehension that his worst fears had been realized. I had grown to like him, and my gratitude for his disinterested championship was warm and deep. My father expressed his conviction that the eccentric was the Wandering Jew, and predicted his safe deliverance from the pro-slavery hordes, and reappearance in somebody’s editorial columns. His prophecy was fulfilled in a long report in a Philadelphia sheet of a meeting with the “new star of the South,” in the vestibule of the church attended by the aforesaid. Nothing that escaped my lips was set down, but my dress and appearance, my conversational powers and deportment were painted in glowing colors, the veracious portraiture concluding with the intelligence that I would shortly be married to the son of a former Governor of Virginia—“a man, who, despite his youth, has already distinguished himself in the political arena, and we are glad to say, in the Democratic ranks.”

I thought my father would have an apoplectic fit when he got to that!

“See here, my child! I don’t presume to interfere with Salathiel, or by what other name your friend may choose to call himself, and there are all manner of tricks in the trade editorial, but this is going a little too far. He sha’n’t marry you off, without your consent—and to a Democrat!”

I had the same idea, and hearing directly from Mr. Redpath soon afterward, I said as much, as kindly as I could. The remonstrance elicited a gentlemanly rejoinder. While the style of the “report” was “mere newspaper lingo,” he claimed that the framework was built by an _attaché_ of the Philadelphia daily, whom he (Redpath) had commissioned to glean all he could of my appearance, etc., during a flying trip to Richmond. The young fellow had written the article and sent it to press without submitting it to Salathiel. The like should not occur again. In my answer to the apology, I expressed my profound sense of gratitude to my advocate, and confessed my inability to divine the motive power of benefactions so numerous and unsolicited. His reply deepened the mystery:

“Your book held me back from infidelity. Chapter Sixteenth saved my life. Now that you know thus much, we will, if you please, have no more talk on your part of gratitude.”

Five years elapsed between the receipt of that first note signed “James Redpath,” and the explanation of what followed. I may relate here, in a few sentences, what he wrote to me at length, and what was published in an appreciative biographical sketch written by a personal friend after his death.

He was born in Scotland; emigrated in early manhood to America, and took up journalistic work. Although successful for a while, a series of misfortunes made of him a misanthropic wanderer. His brilliant talents and experience found work and friends wherever he went, and he remained nowhere long. Disappointed in certain enterprises upon which he had fixed his mind and expended his best energies, he found himself in Richmond, with but one purpose in his soul. He would be lost to all who knew him, and leave no trace of the failure he believed himself to be. He put a pistol in his pocket and set out for Hollywood Cemetery. There were sequestered glens there, then, and lonely thickets into which a world-beaten man could crawl to die. On the way up-town, he stopped at the book-store and fell into talk with the proprietor, who, on learning the stranger’s profession, handed him the lately-published novel. Arrived at the cemetery, Redpath was disappointed to see the roads and paths gay with carriages, pedestrians, and riding-parties. He would wait until twilight sent them back to town. He lay down upon the turf on a knoll commanding a view of the beautiful city and the river, took out his book and began reading to while away the hours that would bring quiet and solitude. The sun was high, still. He had the editorial knack of rapid reading. The dew was beginning to fall as he finished the narrative of the interrupted duel in the sixteenth chapter.

I believed then, and I am yet more sure, now, that other influences than the crude story told by one whose experience of life was that of a child by comparison with his, wrought upon the lonely exile during the still hours of that perfect autumnal day. It suited his whim to think that the book turned his thoughts from his design of self-destruction.

Before he slept that night he registered a vow—thus he phrased it in his explanatory letter—to write and publish one thousand notices of the book that had saved his life.

When the vow was fulfilled—and not until then—did I get the key to conduct that had puzzled me, and baffled the conjectures of the few friends to whom I had told the tale.

I met James Redpath, face to face, but once, and that was—if my memory serves me aright—in 1874. He was in Newark, New Jersey, in the capacity of adviser-in-chief, or backer, of a friend who brought a party of Indians from the West on a peaceful mission to Washington and some of the principal cities, in the hope of exciting philanthropic interest in their advancement in civilization.

“He is as enthusiastic in faith in the future of the redman as I was once in the belief that the negro would arise to higher levels,” remarked Salathiel, with a smile that ended in a sigh. “Heigho! youth is prone to ideals as the sparks to fly upward.”

Learning that I was in the opera-house where the “show” was held, he had invited me into his private stage-box, and there, out of sight of the audience, and indifferent to the speech-making and singing going on, on the stage, we talked for an hour with the cordial ease of old friends. My erst knight-errant was a well-mannered gentleman, still in the prime of manhood, with never a sign of the eccentric “stray” in feature, deportment, or the agreeable modulations of his voice. He told me of his wife. He had written to me of his marriage some years before. She was his balance-wheel, he said. I recollect that he likened her to Madam Guyon. At the close of the entertainment, we shook hands cordially and exchanged expressions of mutual regard. We never met again.

How much or how little I was indebted to him for the success of my first book, I am unable to determine. I shall ever cherish the recollection of his generous spirit and steadfast adherence to his vow of service, as one of the most interesting and gratifying episodes of my authorly career.

XXVII

MY NORTHERN KINSPEOPLE—“QUELQU’UN” AND A LIFELONG FRIENDSHIP

I REWROTE the new book that winter, reading it, chapter by chapter, aloud to my father, in the evening. He was a judicious critic, and I need not repeat here how earnest and rapt a listener. I had received proposals for the publication of my “next book” from six Northern publishers. In the spring my father went to New York and arranged for the preliminaries with the, then, flourishing firm of Derby & Jackson.

It was brought out while I was in Boston that summer, under the title of _The Hidden Path_. I anticipate dates in jotting down here that I had my first taste of professional envy in connection with this book.

My journeying homeward in September was broken by a fortnight’s stay at the hospitable abode of the Derbys in Yonkers. I was at a reception in New York one evening, when my unfortunately acute hearing brought to me a fragment of a conversation, not intended for my edification, between my publisher and a literary woman of note. Mr. Derby was telling her, after the tactless manner of men, how well _The Hidden Path_ had “done” at the Trade Sales just concluded.

“Ah!” said the famous woman, icily. “And I suppose she is naturally greatly elated?”

Mr. Derby laughed.

“She hides it well if she is. Have you read the book?”

“Yes. You were good enough to send me a copy, you know. It is quite a creditable school-girl production.”

I moved clean out of hearing. I told Mr. Derby, afterward, what I had heard, adding that my chief regret was at the lowering of my ideal of professional generosity. Up to that moment I had met with indulgent sympathy and such noble freedom from envious hypercriticism, as to foster the fondly-cherished idea that the expression of lofty sentiment presupposes the ever-present dwelling of the same within the soul. In simpler phrase, that the proverb—“Higher than himself can no man think,” had its converse in—“Lower than himself can no man be.”

In this I erred. I grant it, in this one instance. I had judged correctly of the grand Guild to which I aspired, with yearnings unutterable, to belong.

It was an eventful summer. My father and I had gone on to Boston from New York, setting out, the same week, for a tour through the White Mountains. I was the only woman in the party. Our friend, Ned Rhodes, a distant cousin, Henry Field, of Boston, and my father completed the quartette. Ten days afterward, we two—my father and I—met a larger travelling party in New York. Mr. and Mrs. William Terhune, Mrs. Greenleaf, the widow of Doctor Hoge’s friend; “Staff” Little, the brother of Mrs. William Terhune, and Edward Terhune, now the pastor of a church at Charlotte C. H., Virginia, composed the company which joined itself to us, and set forth merrily for Niagara and the Lakes.

The trip accomplished, I settled down comfortably and happily in Boston and the charming environs thereof for the rest of the season.

Another halcyon summer!

If I have made scant mention of my father’s kindred in the land of his birth, it is because this is a story of the Old South and of a life that has ceased to be, except in the hearts of the very few who may take up the boast of the Grecian historian—“Of which I was a part.”

I should be an ingrate of a despicable type were I to pass by as matters of no moment, the influences brought to bear upon my life at that date, and through succeeding years, by my association with the several households who made up the family connection in that vicinity.

My grandmother’s brother, Uncle Lewis Pierce, owned and occupied the ancient homestead in Dorchester. He was “a character” in his way. Handsome in his youth, he was still a man of imposing presence, especially when, attired in black broadcloth, and clean shaven, he sat on Sunday in the pew owned by the Pierces for eight generations in the old church on “Meeting House Hill.” He did not always approve of the doctrine and politics of the officiating clergyman. He opened his mind to me to this effect one Sunday that summer, as we jogged along in his low-hung phaeton, drawn by a horse as portly and as well-set-up as his master.