Chapter 37

A snake bedded himself under the threshold of a country house.

L'Estrange.

To Fleda's very great satisfaction Mr. Thorn was not seen again for several days. It would have been to her very great comfort too if he could have been permitted to die out of mind as well as out of sight; but he was brought up before her "lots of times," till poor Fleda almost felt as if she was really in the moral neighbourhood of the Dead Sea, every natural growth of pleasure was so withered under the barren spirit of raillery. Sea-breezes were never so disagreeable since winds blew; and nervous and fidgety again whenever Mr. Carleton was present, Fleda retreated to her work and the table and withdrew herself as much as she could from notice and conversation; feeling humbled,--feeling sorry and vexed and ashamed, that such ideas should have been put into her head, the absurdity of which, she thought, was only equalled by their needlessness. "As much as she could" she withdrew; but that was not entirely; now and then interest made her forget herself, and quitting her needle she would give eyes and attention to the principal speaker as frankly as he could have desired. Bad weather and bad roads for those days put riding out of the question.

One morning she was called down to see a gentleman, and came eschewing in advance the expected image of Mr. Thorn. It was a very different person.

"Charlton Rossitur! My dear Charlton, how do you do? Where did you come from?"

"You had better ask me what I have come for," he said laughing as he shook hands with her.

"What have you come for?"

"To carry you home."

"Home!" said Fleda.

"I am going up there for a day or two, and mamma wrote me I had better act as your escort, which of course I am most willing to do. See what mamma says to you."

"When are you going, Charlton?" said Fleda as she broke the seal of the note he gave her.

"To-morrow morning."

"That is too sudden a notice, Capt. Rossitur," said Mrs. Evelyn. "Fleda will hurry herself out of her colour, and then your mother will say there is something in sea-breezes that isn't good for her; and then she will never trust her within reach of them again,--which I am sure Miss Ringgan would be sorry for."

Fleda took her note to the window, half angry with herself that a kind of banter in which certainly there was very little wit should have power enough to disturb her. But though the shaft might be a slight one it was winged with a will; the intensity of Mrs. Evelyn's enjoyment in her own mischief gave it all the force that was wanting. Fleda's head was in confusion; she read her aunt's note three times over before she had made up her mind on any point respecting it.

"My Dearest Fleda,

Charlton is coming home for a day or two--hadn't you better take the opportunity to return with him? I feel as if you had been long away, my dear child--don't you feel so too? Your uncle is very desirous of seeing you; and as for Hugh and me we are but half ourselves. I would not still say a word about your coming home if it were for your good to stay; but I fancy from something in Mrs. Evelyn's letter that Queechy air will by this time do you good again; and opportunities of making the journey are very uncertain. My heart has grown lighter since I gave it leave to expect you. Yours, my darling,

L. R.

"P.S. I will write to Mrs. E. soon."

"What string has pulled these wires that are twitching me home?" thought Fleda, as her eyes went over and over the words which the feeling of the lines of her face would alone have told her were unwelcome. And why unwelcome?--"One likes to be moved by fair means and not by foul," was the immediate answer. "And besides, it is very disagreeable to be taken by surprise. Whenever, in any matter of my staying or going, did aunt Lucy have any wish but my pleasure?" Fleda mused a little while; and then with a perfect understanding of the machinery that had been at work, though an extremely vague and repulsed notion of the spring that had moved it, she came quietly out from her window and told Charlton she would go with him.

"But not to-morrow?" said Mrs. Evelyn composedly. "You will not hurry her off so soon as that, Capt. Rossitur?"

"Furloughs are the stubbornest things in the world, Mrs. Evelyn; there is no spirit of accommodation about them. Mine lies between to-morrow morning and one other morning some two days thereafter; and you might as soon persuade Atlas to change his place. Will you be ready, coz?"

"I will be ready," said Fleda; and her cousin departed.

"Now my dear Fleda" said Mrs. Evelyn, but it was with that funny face, as she saw Fleda standing thoughtfully before the fire,--you must be very careful in getting your things together--"

"Why, Mrs. Evelyn?"

"I am afraid you will leave something behind you, my love."

"I will take care of that, ma'am, and that I may I will go and see about it at once."

Very busy till dinner-time; she would not let herself stop to think about anything. At dinner Mr. Evelyn openly expressed his regrets for her going and his earnest wishes that she would at least stay till the holidays were over.

"Don't you know Fleda better, papa," said Florence, "than to try to make her alter her mind? When she says a thing is determined upon, I know there is nothing to do but to submit, with as good a grace as you can."

"I tried to make Capt. Rossitur leave her a little longer," said Mrs. Evelyn; "but he says furloughs are immovable, and his begins to-morrow morning--so he was immovable too. I should keep her notwithstanding, though, if her aunt Lucy hadn't sent for her."

"Well see what she wants, and come back again," said Mr. Evelyn.

"Thank you, sir," said Fleda smiling gratefully,--"I think not this winter."

"There are two or three of my friends that will be confoundedly taken aback," said Mr. Evelyn, carefully helping himself to gravy.

"I expect that an immediate depopulation of New York will commence," said Constance,--"and go on till the heights about Queechy are all thickly settled with elegant country-seats,--which is the conventional term for a species of mouse trap!"

"Hush, you baggage!" said her father. "Fleda, I wish you could spare her a little of your common-sense, to go through the world with."

"Papa thinks, you see, my dear, that you have _more than enough_--which is not perhaps precisely the compliment he intended."

"I take the full benefit of his and yours," said Fleda smiling.

After dinner she had just time to run down to the library to bid Dr. Gregory good-bye; her last walk in the city. It wasn't a walk she enjoyed much.

"Going to-morrow," said he. "Why I am going to Boston in a week--you had better stay and go with me."

"I can't now, uncle Orrin--I am dislodged--and you know there is nothing to do then but to go."

"Come and stay with me till next week."

But Fleda said it was best not, and went home to finish her preparations.

She had no chance till late, for several gentlemen spent the evening with them. Mr. Carleton was there part of the time, but he was one of the first to go; and Fleda could not find an opportunity to say that she should not see him again. Her timidity would not allow her to make one. But it grieved her.

At last she escaped to her own room, where most of her packing was still to do. By the time half the floor and all the bed was strewn with neat-looking piles of things, the varieties of her modest wardrobe, Florence and Constance came in to see and talk with her, and sat down on the floor too; partly perhaps because the chairs were all bespoken in the service of boxes and baskets, and partly to follow what seemed to be the prevailing style of things.

"What do you suppose has become of Mr. Thorn?" said Constance. "I have a presentiment that you will find him cracking nuts sociably with Mr. Rossitur or drinking one of aunt Lucy's excellent cups of coffee--in comfortable expectation of your return."

"If I thought that I should stay here," said Fleda. "My dear, those were _my_ cups of coffee!"

"I wish I could make you think it then," said Constance.

"But you are glad to go home, aren't you, Fleda?" said Florence.

"She isn't!" said her sister. "She knows mamma contemplates making a grand entertainment of all the Jews as soon as she is gone. What _does_ mamma mean by that, Fleda?--I observe you comprehend her with most invariable quickness."

"I should be puzzled to explain all that your mother means," said Fleda gently, as she went on bestowing her things in the trunk. "No--I am not particularly glad to go home--but I fancy it is time. I am afraid I have grown too accustomed to your luxury of life, and want knocking about to harden me a little."

"Harden you!" said Constance. "My dear Fleda, you are under a delusion. Why should any one go through an indurating process?--will you inform me?"

"I don't say that every one should," said Fleda,--"but isn't it well for those whose lot does not lie among soft things?"

There was extreme sweetness and a touching insinuation in her manner, and both the young ladies were silent for sometime thereafter watching somewhat wistfully the gentle hands and face that were so quietly busy; till the room was cleared again and looked remarkably empty with Fleda's trunk standing in the middle of it. And then reminding them that she wanted some sleep to fit her for the hardening process and must therefore send them away, she was left alone.

One thing Fleda had put off till then--the care of her bunch of flowers. They were beautiful still. They had given her a very great deal of pleasure; and she was determined they should be left to no servant's hands to be flung into the street. If it had been summer she was sure she could have got buds from them; as it was, perhaps she might strike some cuttings; at all events they should go home with her. So carefully taking them out of the water and wrapping the ends in some fresh earth she had got that very afternoon from her uncle's garden, Fleda bestowed them in the corner of her trunk that she had left for them, and went to bed, feeling weary in body, and in mind to the last degree quiet.

In the same mind and mood she reached Queechy the next afternoon. It was a little before January--just the same time that she had come home last year. As then, it was a bright day, and the country was again covered thick with the unspotted snow; but Fleda forgot to think how bright and fresh it was. Somehow she did not feel this time quite so glad to find herself there. It had never occurred to her so strongly before that Queechy could want anything.

This feeling flew away before the first glimpse of her aunt's smile, and for half an hour after Fleda would have certified that Queechy wanted nothing. At the end of that time came in Mr. Rossitur. His greeting of Charlton was sufficiently unmarked; but eye and lip wakened when he turned to Fleda.

"My dear child," he said, holding her face in both his hands,--how lovely you have grown!"

"That's only because you have forgotten her, father," said Hugh laughing.

It was a very lovely face just then. Mr. Rossitur gazed into it a moment and again kissed first one cheek and then the other, and then suddenly withdrew his hands and turned away, with an air--Fleda could not tell what to make of it--an air that struck her with an immediate feeling of pain; somewhat as if for some cause or other he had nothing to do with her or her loveliness. And she needed not to see him walk the room for three minutes to know that Michigan agencies had done nothing to lighten his brow or uncloud his character. If this had wanted confirmation Fleda would have found it in her aunt's face. She soon discovered, even in the course of the pleasant talkative hours before supper, that it was not brightened as she had expected to find it by her uncle's coming home; and her ears now caught painfully the occasional long breath, but half smothered, which told of a burden upon the heart but half concealed. Fleda supposed that Mr. Rossitur's business affairs at the West must have disappointed him; and resolved not to remember that Michigan was in the map of North America.

Still they talked on, through the afternoon and evening, all of them except him; he was moody and silent. Fleda felt the cloud overshadow sadly her own gayety; but Mrs. Rossitur and Hugh were accustomed to it, and Charlton was much too tall a light to come under any external obscuration whatever. He was descanting brilliantly upon the doings and prospects at Fort Hamilton where he was stationed, much to the entertainment of his mother and brother. Fleda could not listen to him while his father was sitting lost in something not half so pleasant as sleep in the corner of the sofa. Her eyes watched him stealthily till she could not bear it any longer. She resolved to bring the power of her sunbeam to bear, and going round seated herself on the sofa close by him and laid her hand on his arm. He felt it immediately. The arm was instantly drawn away to be put around her and Fleda was pressed nearer to his side, while the other hand took hers; and his lips were again on her forehead.

"And how do you like me for a farmer, uncle Rolf?" she said looking up at him laughingly, and then fearing immediately that she had chosen her subject ill. Not from any change in his countenance however,--that decidedly brightened up. He did not answer at once.

"My child--you make me ashamed of mankind!"

"Of the dominant half of them, sir, do you mean?" said Charlton,--"or is your observation a sweeping one?"

"It would sweep the greatest part of the world into the background, sir," answered his father dryly, "if its sense were the general rule."

"And what has Fleda done to be such a besom of desolation?"

Fleda's laugh set everybody else a going, and there was immediately more life and common feeling in the society than had been all day. They all seemed willing to shake off a weight, and even Fleda, in the endeavour to chase the gloom that hung over others, as it had often happened, lost half of her own.

"But still I am not answered," said Charlton when they were grave again. "What has Fleda done to put such a libel upon mankind?"

"You should call it a _label_, as Dr. Quackenboss does," said Fleda in a fresh burst,--"he says he never would stand being labelled!"--

"But come back to the point," said Charlton,--"I want to know what is the _label_ in this case, that Fleda's doings put upon those of other people?"

"Insignificance," said his father dryly.

"I should like to know how bestowed," said Charlton.

"Don't enlighten him, uncle Rolf," said Fleda laughing,--"let my doings remain in safe obscurity,--please!"

"I stand as a representative of mankind," said Charlton, "and I demand an explanation."

"Look at what this slight frame and delicate nerves have been found equal to, and then tell me if the broad shoulders of all your mess would have borne half the burden or their united heads accomplished a quarter the results."

He spoke with sufficient depth of meaning, though now with no unpleasant expression. But Charlton notwithstanding rather gathered himself up.

"O uncle Rolf," said Fleda gently,--"nerves and muscles haven't much to do with it--after all you know I have just served the place of a mouth-piece. Seth was the head, and good Earl Douglass the hand."

"I am ashamed of myself and of mankind," Mr. Rossitur repeated, "when I see what mere weakness can do, and how proudly valueless strength is contended to be. You are looking, Capt. Rossitur,--but after all a cap and plume really makes a man taller only to the eye."

"When I have flung my plume in anybody's face, sir," said Charlton rather hotly, "it will be time enough to throw it back again."

Mrs. Rossitur put her hand on his arm and looked her remonstrance.

"Are you glad to be home again, dear Fleda?" she said turning to her.

But Fleda was making some smiling communications to her uncle and did not seem to hear.

"Fleda does it seem pleasant to be here again?"

"Very pleasant, dear aunt Lucy--though I have had a very pleasant visit too."

"On the whole you do not wish you were at this moment driving out of town in Mr. Thorn's cabriolet?" said her cousin.

"Not in the least," said Fleda coolly. "How did you know I ever did such a thing?"

"I wonder what should bring Mr. Thorn to Queechy at this time of year," said Hugh.

Fleda started at this confirmation of Constance's words; and what was very odd, she could not get rid of the impression that Mr. Rossitur had started too. Perhaps it was only her own nerves, but he had certainly taken away the arm that was round her.

"I suppose he has followed Miss Ringgan," said Charlton gravely.

"No," said Hugh, "he has been here some little time."

"Then he preceded her, I suppose, to see and get the sleighs in order."

"He did not know I was coming," said Fleda.

"Didn't!"

"No--I have not seen him for several days."

"My dear little cousin," said Charlton laughing,--"you are not a witch in your own affairs, whatever you may be in those of other people."

"Why, Charlton?"

"You are no adept in the art of concealment."

"I have nothing to conceal," said Fleda. "How do you know he is here, Hugh?"

"I was anxiously asked the other day," said Hugh with a slight smile, "whether you had come home; and then told that Mr. Thorn was in Queechy. There is no mistake about it, for my imformant had actually seen him, and given him the direction to Mr. Plumfield's, for which he was inquiring."

"The direction to Mr. Plumfield's!" said Fleda.

"What's your old friend Mr. Carleton doing in New York?" said Charlton.

"Is he there still?" said Mrs. Rossitur.

"As large as life," answered her son.

"Which, though you might not suppose it, aunt Lucy, is about the height of Capt. Rossitur, with--I should judge--a trifle less weight."

"Your eyes are observant!" said Charlton.

"Of a good many things," said Fleda lightly.

"He is _not_ my height by half an inch," said Charlton;--"I am just six feet without my boots."

"An excellent height!" said Fleda,--"'your six feet was ever the only height.'"

"Who said that?" said Charlton.

"Isn't it enough that I say it?"

"What's he staying here for?"

"I don't know really," said Fleda. "It's very difficult to tell what people do things for."

"Have you seen much of him?" said Mrs. Rossitur.

"Yes ma'am--a good deal--he was often at Mrs. Evelyn's."

"Is he going to marry one of her daughters?"

"Oh no!" said Fleda smiling,--"he isn't thinking of such a thing;--not in America--I don't know what he may do in England."

"No!" said Charlton.--"I suppose he would think himself contaminated by matching with any blood in this hemisphere."

"You do him injustice," said Fleda, colouring;--"you do not know him, Charlton."

"You do?"

"Much better than that."

"And he is not one of the most touch-me-not pieces of English birth and wealth that ever stood upon their own dignity?"

"Not at all!" said Fleda;--"how people may be misunderstood!--he is one of the most gentle and kind persons I ever saw."

"To you!"

"To everybody that deserves it."

"Humph!--And not proud?"

"No, not as you understand it,"--and she felt it was very difficult to make him understand it, as the discovery involved a very offensive implication;--"he is too fine a character to be proud."

"That _is_ arguing in a circle with a vengeance!" said Charlton.

"I know what you are thinking of," said Fleda, "and I suppose it passes for pride with a great many people who cannot comprehend it--he has a singular power of quietly rebuking wrong, and keeping impertinence at a distance--where Capt. Rossitur, for instance, I suppose, would throw his cap in a man's face, Mr. Carleton's mere silence would make the offender doff his and ask pardon."

The manner in which this was said precluded all taking offence.

"Well," said Charlton shrugging his shoulders,--"then I don't know what pride is--that's all!"

"Take care, Capt. Rossitur," said Fleda laughing,--"I have heard of such a thing as American pride before now."

"Certainly!" said Charlton, "and I'm quite willing--but it never reaches quite such a towering height on our side the water."

"I am sure I don't know how that may be," said Fleda, "but I know I have heard a lady, an enlightened, gentle-tempered American lady, so called,--I have heard her talk to a poor Irish woman with whom she had nothing in the world to do, in a style that moved my indignation--it stirred my blood!--and there was nothing whatever to call it out. 'All the blood of all the Howards,' I hope would not have disgraced itself so."

"What business have you to 'hope' anything about it?"

"None--except from the natural desire to find what one has a right to look for. But indeed I wouldn't take the blood of all the Howards for any security--pride as well as high-breeding is a thing of natural not adventitious growth--it belongs to character, not circumstance."

"Do you know that your favourite Mr. Carleton is nearly connected with those same Howards, and quarters their arms with his own?"

"I have a very vague idea of the dignity implied in that expression of 'quartering arms,' which comes so roundly out of your mouth, Charlton," said Fleda laughing. "No, I didn't know it. But in general I am apt to think that pride is a thing which reverses the usual rules of architecture, and builds highest on the narrowest foundations."

"What do you mean?"

"Never mind," said Fleda,--"if a meaning isn't plain it isn't worth looking after. But it will not do to measure pride by its supposed materials. It does not depend on them but on the individual. You everywhere see people assert that most of which they feel least sure, and then it is easy for them to conclude that where there is so much more of the reality there must be proportionably more of the assertion. I wish some of our gentlemen, and ladies, who talk of pride where they see and can see nothing but the habit of wealth--I wish they could see the universal politeness with which Mr. Carleton returns the salutes of his inferiors. Not more respectfully they lift their hats to him than he lifts his to them--unless when he speaks."

"You have seen it?"

"Often."

"Where?"

"In England--at his own place--among his own servants and dependents. I remember very well--it struck even my childish eyes."

"Well, after all, that is nothing still but a refined kind of haughtiness."

"It is a kind that I wish some of our Americans would copy," said Fleda.

"But dear Fleda," said Mrs. Rossitur, "all Americans are not like that lady you were talking of--it would be very unfair to make her a sample. I don't think I ever heard any one speak so in my life--you never heard me speak so."

"Dear aunt Lucy!--no,--I was only giving instance for instance. I have no idea that Mr. Carleton is a type of Englishmen in general--I wish he were. But I think it is the very people that cry out against superiority, who are the most happy to assert their own where they can; the same jealous feeling that repines on the one hand, revenges itself on the other."

"Superiority of what kind?" said Charlton stiffly.

"Of any kind--superiority of wealth, or refinement, or name, or standing. Now it does not follow that an Englishman is proud because he keeps liveried servants, and it by no means follows that an American lacks the essence of haughtiness because he finds fault with him for doing so."

"I dare say some of our neighbours think we are proud," said Hugh, "Because we use silver forks instead of steel."

"Because we're _too good for steel forks_, you ought to say," said Fleda. "I am sure they think so. I have been given to understand as much. Barby, I believe, has a good opinion of us and charitably concludes that we mean right; but some other of our country friends would think I was far gone in uppishness if they knew that I never touch fish with a steel knife; and it wouldn't mend the matter much to tell them that the combination of flavours is disagreeable to me--it hardly suits the doctrine of liberty and equality that my palate should be so much nicer than theirs."

"Absurd!" said Charlton.

"Very," said Fleda; "but on which side, in all probability, is the pride?"

"It wasn't for liveried servants that I charged Mr. Carleton," said her cousin. "How do the Evelyns like this paragon of yours?"

"O everybody likes him," said Fleda smiling,--"except you and your friend Mr. Thorn."

"Thorn don't like him, eh?"

"I think not."

"What do you suppose is the reason?" said Charlton gravely.

"I don't think Mr. Thorn is particularly apt to like anybody," said Fleda, who knew very well the original cause of both exceptions but did not like to advert to it.

"Apparently you don't like Mr. Thorn?" said Mr. Rossitur, speaking for the first time.

"I don't know who does, sir, much,--except his mother."

"What is he?"

"A man not wanting in parts, sir, and with considerable force of character,--but I am afraid more for ill than for good. I should be very sorry to trust him with anything dear to me."

"How long were you in forming that opinion?" said Charlton looking at her curiously.

"It was formed, substantially, the first evening I saw him, and I hare never seen cause to alter it since."

The several members of the family therewith fell into a general muse, with the single exception of Hugh, whose eyes and thoughts seemed to be occupied with Fleda's living presence. Mr. Rossitur then requested that breakfast might be ready very early--at six o'clock.

"Six o'clock!" exclaimed Mrs. Rossitur.

"I have to take a long ride, on business, which must be done early in the day."

"When will you be back?"

"Not before night-fall."

"But going on _another_ business journey!" said Mrs. Rossitur. "You have but just these few hours come home from one."

"Cannot breakfast be ready?"

"Yes, uncle Rolf," said Fleda bringing her bright face before him,--"ready at half-past five if you like--now that _I_ am to the fore, you know."

He clasped her to his breast and kissed her again; but with a face so very grave that Fleda was glad nobody else saw it.

Then Charlton went, averring that he wanted at least a night and a half of sleep between two such journeys as the one of that day and the one before him on the next,--especially as he must resign himself to going without anything to eat. Him also Fleda laughingly promised that precisely half an hour before the stage time a cup of coffee and a roll should be smoking on the table, with whatever substantial appendages might be within the bounds of possibility, or the house.

"I will pay you for that beforehand with a kiss," said he.

"You will do nothing of the kind," said Fleda stepping back;--"a kiss is a favour taken, not given; and I am entirely ignorant what you have done to deserve it."

"You make a curious difference between me and Hugh," said Charlton, half in jest, half in earnest.

"Hugh is my brother, Capt. Rossitur," said Fleda smiling,--and that is an honour you never made any pretensions to."

"Come, you shall not say that any more," said he, taking the kiss that Fleda had no mind to give him.

Half laughing, but with eyes that were all too ready for something else, she turned again to Hugh when his brother had left the room and looked wistfully in his face, stroking back the hair from his temples with a caressing hand.

"You are just as you were when I left you!--" she said, with lips that seemed too unsteady to say more, and remained parted.

"I am afraid so are you," he replied;--"not a bit fatter. I hoped you would be."

"What have you been smiling at so this evening?"

"I was thinking how well you talked."

"Why Hugh!--You should have helped me--I talked too much."

"I would much rather listen," said Hugh. "Dear Fleda, what a different thing the house is with you in it!"

Fleda said nothing, except an inexplicable little shake of her head which said a great many things; and then she and her aunt were left alone. Mrs. Rossitur drew her to her bosom with a look so exceeding fond that its sadness was hardly discernible. It was mingled however with an expression of some doubt.

"What has made you keep so thin?"

"I have been very well, aunt Lucy,--thinness agrees with me."

"Are you glad to be home again, dear Fleda?"

"I am very glad to be with you, dear aunt Lucy!"

"But not glad to be home?"

"Yes I am," said Fleda,--"but somehow--I don't know--I believe I have got a little spoiled--it is time I was at home I am sure.--I shall be quite glad after a day or two, when I have got into the works again. I am glad now, aunt Lucy."

Mrs. Rossitur seemed unsatisfied, and stroked the hair from Fleda's forehead with an absent look.

"What was there in New York that you were so sorry to leave?"

"Nothing ma'am, in particular,"--said Fleda brightly,--"and I am not sorry, aunt Lucy--I tell you I am a little spoiled with company and easy living--I am glad to be with you again."

Mrs. Rossitur was silent.

"Don't you get up to uncle Rolf's breakfast to-morrow, aunt Lucy."

"Nor you."

"I sha'n't unless I want to--but there'll be nothing for you to do, and you must just lie still. We will all have our breakfast together when Charlton has his."

"You are the veriest sunbeam that ever came into a house," said her aunt kissing her.