Chapter 16

"How well appaid she was her bird to find!" SIDNEY.

Fleda counted the minutes till it wanted an hour of sundown, and then, avoiding Mrs. Pritchard, made her escape out of the house. A long walk was before her, and the latter part of it through a region which she wished to pass while the light was good. And she was utterly unable to travel at any but a very gentle rate; so she gave herself plenty of time.

It was a very bright afternoon, and all the world was astir. Fleda shielded herself with a thick veil, and went up one of the narrow streets, not daring to venture into Broadway, and passing Waverly Place, which was almost as bright, turned down Eighth Street. A few blocks now, and she would be out of all danger of meeting any one that knew her. She drew her veil close, and hurried on. But the proverb saith, "A miss is as good as a mile," and with reason; for if fate wills, the chances make nothing. As Fleda set her foot down to cross Fifth Avenue, she saw Mr. Carleton on the other side coming up from Waverly Place. She went as slowly as she dared, hoping that he would pass without looking her way, or be unable to recognize her through her thick wrapper. In vain — she soon saw that she was known — he was waiting for her, and she must put up her veil and speak to him.

"Why, I thought you had left New York," said he — "I was told so."

"I had left it — I have left it, Sir," said Fleda — "I have only come back for a day or two." —

"Have you been ill?" he said, with a sudden change of tone, the light in his eye, and smile, giving place to a very marked gravity.

Fleda would have answered with a half smile, but such a sickness of heart came over her, that speech failed, and she was very near bursting into tears. Mr. Carleton looked at her earnestly a moment, and then put the hand which Fleda had forgotten he still held upon his arm, and began to walk forward gently with her. Something in the grave tenderness with which this was done, reminded Fleda irresistibly of the times when she had been a child under his care; and, somehow, her thoughts went off on a tangent back to the further days of her mother, and father, and grandfather, the other friends from whom she had had the same gentle protection, which now there was no one in the world to give her. And their images did never seem more winning fair than just then — when their place was left most especially empty. Her uncle she had never looked up to in the same way, and whatever stay he had been was cut down. Her aunt leaned upon _her;_ and Hugh had always been more of a younger than an elder brother. The quick contrast of those old happy childish days was too strong; the glance back at what she had had, made her feel the want. Fleda blamed herself, reasoned and fought with herself; but she was weak in mind and body, her nerves were unsteady yet, her spirits unprepared for any encounter or reminder of pleasure; and though vexed and ashamed, she _could_ not hold her head up, and she could not prevent tear after tear from falling as they went along; she could only hope that nobody saw them.

Nobody spoke of them. But then nobody said anything; and the silence at last frightened her into rousing herself. She checked her tears and raised her head; she ventured no more; she dared not turn her face towards her companion. He looked at her once or twice, as if in doubt whether to speak or not.

"Are you not going beyond your strength?" he said at length, gently.

Fleda said, "No," although in a tone that half confessed his suspicion. He was silent again, however, and she cast about in vain for something to speak of; it seemed to her that all subjects of conversation in general had been packed up for exportation; neither eye nor memory could light upon a single one. Block after block was passed, the pace at which he walked, and the manner of his care for her, alone showing that he knew what a very light hand was resting upon his arm.

"How pretty the curl of blue smoke is from that chimney," he said.

It was said with a tone so carelessly easy, that Fleda's heart jumped for one instant in the persuasion that he had seen and noticed nothing peculiar about her.

"I know it," she said, eagerly — "I have often thought of it — especially here in the city —"

"Why is it? what is it?"

Fleda's eye gave one of its exploratory looks at his, such as he remembered from years ago, before she spoke.

"Isn't it contrast? — or at least I think that helps the effect here."

"What do you make the contrast?" he said, quietly.

"Isn't it," said Fleda, with another glance, "the contrast of something pure and free and upward-tending, with what is below it? I did not mean the mere painter's contrast. In the country, smoke is more picturesque, but in the city I think it has more character."

"To how many people do you suppose it ever occurred that smoke had a character?" said he, smiling.

"You are laughing at me, Mr. Carleton; perhaps I deserve it."

"You do not think that," said he, with a look that forbade her to think it. "But I see you are of Lavater's mind, that everything has a physiognomy?"

"I think he was perfectly right," said Fleda. "Don't you, Mr. Carleton?"

"To some people, yes! — But the expression is so subtle, that only very nice sensibilities, with fine training, can hope to catch it; therefore, to the mass of the world Lavater would talk nonsense."

"That is a gentle hint to me. But if I talk nonsense, I wish you would set me right, Mr. Carleton; I am very apt to amuse myself with tracing out fancied analogies in almost everything, and I may carry it too far — too far to be spoken of wisely. I think it enlarges the field of pleasure very much. Where one eye is stopped, another is but invited on."

"So," said Mr. Carleton, "while that puff of smoke would lead one person's imagination only down the chimney to the kitchen fire, it would take another's — where did yours go?" said he, suddenly turning round upon her.

Fleda met his eye again, without speaking; but her look had, perhaps, more than half revealed her thought, for she was answered with a smile so intelligent and sympathetic, that she was abashed.

"How very much religion heightens the enjoyments of life!" Mr. Carleton said, after a while.

Fleda's heart throbbed an answer — she did not speak.

"Both in its direct and indirect action. The mind is set free from influences that narrowed its range and dimmed its vision, and refined to a keener sensibility, a juster perception, a higher power of appreciation, by far, than it had before. And then, to say nothing of religion's own peculiar sphere of enjoyment, technically religious — what a field of pleasure it opens to its possessor in the world of moral beauty, most partially known to any other — and the fine but exquisite analogies of things material with things spiritual — those _harmonies of Nature_, to which, talk as they will, all other ears are deaf."

"You know," said Fleda, with full eyes that she dared not show, "how Henry Martyn said that he found he enjoyed painting and music so much more after he became a Christian."

"I remember. It is the substituting a just medium for a false one — it is putting nature within and nature without in tune with each other, so that the chords are perfect now which were jarring before."

"And yet how far people would be from believing you, Mr. Carleton."

"Yes, they are possessed with the contrary notion. But in all the creation nothing has a one-sided usefulness. What a reflection it would be upon the wisdom of its Author, if godliness alone were the exception — if it were not 'profitable for the life that now is, as well as for that which is to come!' "

"They make that work the other way, don't they?" said Fleda; "not being able to see how thorough religion should be for anybody's happiness, they make use of your argument to conclude that it is not what the Bible requires. How I have heard that urged — that God intended his creatures to be happy — as a reason why they should disobey him! They lay hold on the wrong end of the argument, and work backwards."

"Precisely.

" 'God intended his creatures to be happy. " 'Strict obedience would make them unhappy. " 'Therefore, he does not intend them to obey.' "

"They never put it before them quite so clearly," said Fleda.

"They would startle at it a little. But so they would at the right stating of the case."

"And how would that be, Mr. Carleton?"

"It might be somewhat after this fashion —

" 'God requires nothing that is not for the happiness of his people. " 'He requires perfect obedience. " 'Therefore, perfect obedience is for their happiness.'

"But unbelief will not understand that. Did it ever strike you how much there is in those words, 'Come and see?' All that argument can do, after all, is but to persuade to that. Only faith will submit to terms, and enter the narrow gate; and only obedience knows what the prospect is on the other side."

"But isn't it true, Mr. Carleton, that the world have some cause for their opinion — judging as they do by the outside? The peculiar pleasures of religion, as you say, are out of sight, and they do not always find in religious people that enlargement and refinement of which you were speaking."

"Because they make unequal comparisons. Recollect that, as God has declared, the ranks of religion are not for the most part filled from the wise and the great. In making your estimate, you must measure things equal in other respects. Compare the same man with himself before he was a Christian, or with his unchristianized fellows, and you will find invariably the refining, dignifying, ennobling, influence of true religion — the enlarged intelligence, and the greater power of enjoyment."

"And besides those causes of pleasure-giving that your mentioned," said Fleda, "there is a mind at ease; and how much that is, alone! If I may judge others by myself, the mere fact of being unpoised, unresting, disables the mind from a thousand things that are joyfully relished by one entirely at ease."

"Yes," said he; "do you remember that word, — 'The stones of the field shall be at peace with thee?' "

"I am afraid people would understand you as little as they would me, Mr. Carleton," said Fleda, laughing.

He smiled, rather a prolonged smile, the expression of which Fleda could not make out; she felt that _she_ did not quite understand him.

"I have thought," said he, after a pause, "that much of the beauty we find in many things is owing to a hidden analogy — the harmony they make with some unknown string of the mind's harp which they have set a-vibrating. But the music of that is so low and soft, that one must listen very closely to find out what it is."

"Why, that is the very theory of which I gave you a smoky illustration a little while ago," said Fleda. "I thought I was on safe ground, after what you said about the characters of flowers, for that was a little —"

"Fanciful?" said he, smiling.

"What you please,"' said Fleda, colouring a little — "I am sure it is true. The theory, I mean. I have many a time felt it, though I never put it in words. I shall think of that."

"Did you ever happen to see the very early dawn of a winter's morning?" said he.

But he laughed the next instant at the comical expression of Fleda's face as it was turned to him.

"Forgive me for supposing you as ignorant as myself. I have seen it —once."

"Appreciated it, I hope, that time?" said Fleda.

"I shall never forget it."

"And it never wrought in you a desire to see it again?"

"I might see many a dawn," said he, smiling, "without what I saw then. It was very early, and a cloudy morning, so that night had still almost undisturbed possession of earth and sky; but in the south-eastern quarter, between two clouds, there was a space of fair white promise, hardly making any impression upon the darkness, but only set off by it. And upon this one bright spot in earth or heaven, rode the planet of the morning — the sun's forerunner — bright upon the brightness. All else was dusky, except where overhead the clouds had parted again and showed a faint old moon, glimmering down upon the night it could no longer be said to 'rule.' "

"Beautiful!" said Fleda. "There is hardly any time I like so well as the dawn of a winter morning, with an old moon in the sky. Summer weather has no beauty like it — in some things."

"Once," continued Mr. Carleton, "I should have seen no more than I have told you — the beauty that every cultivated eye must take in. But now, methought I saw the dayspring that has come upon a longer night; and from out of the midst of it there was the fair face of the morning star looking at me with its sweet reminder and invitation; looking over the world with its aspect of triumphant expectancy: there was its calm assurance of the coming day — its promise that the star of hope, which now there were only a few watching eyes to see, should presently be followed by the full beams of the Sun of Righteousness making the kingdoms of the world His own. Your memory may bring to you the words that came to mine, the promise 'to him that overcometh,' and the beauty of the lips that made it: the encouragement to 'patient continuance in well doing,' 'till the day break, and the shadows flee away.' And there, on the other hand, was the substituted light of earth's wisdom and inventions, dominant yet, but waning, and soon to be put out for ever."

Fleda was crying again, and perhaps that was the reason why Mr. Carleton was silent for some time. She was very sorry to show herself so weak, but she could not help it; part of his words had come too close. And when she had recovered again, she was absolutely silent too, for they were nearing Sloman- street, and she could not take him there with her. She did not know what to say, nor what he would think; and she said not another word till they came to the corner. There she must stop and speak.

"I am very much obliged to you, Mr. Carleton," she said, drawing her hand from his arm, "for taking care of me all this disagreeable way; I will not give you any more trouble."

"You are not going to dismiss me?" said he, looking at her with a countenance of serious anxiety.

"I must," said Fleda, ingenuously — "I have business to attend to here —"

"But you will let me have the pleasure of waiting for you?"

"O no," said Fleda, hesitating and flushing — "thank you, Mr. Carleton; but pray do not — I don't know at all how long I may be detained."

He bowed, she thought gravely, and turned away; and she entered the little wretched street, with a strange feeling of pain that she could not analyze. She did not know where it came from, but she thought if there only had been a hiding- place for her, she could have sat down and wept a whole heartful. The feeling must be kept back now, and it was soon forgotten in the throbbing of her heart at another thought which took entire possession.

The sun was not down — there was time enough — but it was with a step and eye of hurried anxiety that Fleda passed along the little street, for fear of missing her quest, or lest Dinah should have changed her domicile. Yet would her uncle have named it for their meeting if he had not been sure of it? It was very odd he should have appointed that place at all, and Fleda was inclined to think he must have seen Dinah by some chance, or it never would have come into his head. Still her eye passed unheeding over all the varieties of dinginess and misery in her way, intent only upon finding that particular dingy cellar-way which used to admit her to Dinah's premises. It was found at last, and she went in.

The old woman, herself most unchanged, did not know the young lady, but well remembered the little girl whom Fleda brought to her mind. And then she was overjoyed to see her, and asked a multitude of questions, and told a long story of her having met Mr. Rossitur in the street the other day, "in the last place where she'd have looked to see him;" and how old he had grown, and how surprised she had been to see the gray hairs in his head. Fleda at last gave her to understand that she expected him to meet her there, and would like to see him alone; and the good woman immediately took her work into another apartment, made up the fire, and set up the chairs, and leaving her, assured Fleda she would lock up the doors, "and not let no one come through."

It was sundown, and later, Fleda thought, and she felt as if every pulse was doing double duty. No matter, if she were shattered and the work done. But what work! Oh, the needlessness, the cruelty, the folly of it! And how much of the ill consequences she might be unable, after all, to ward off. She took off her hat, to relieve a nervous smothered feeling; and walked, and sat down; and then sat still, from trembling inability to do anything else. Dinah's poor little room, clean though it was, looked to her the most dismal place in the world, from its association with her errand; she hid her face on her knees, that she might have no disagreeableness to contend with, but that which could not be shut out.

It had lain there some time, till a sudden feeling of terror at the growing lateness made her raise it to look at the window. Mr. Rossitur was standings still before her — he must have come in very softly — and looking — oh, Fleda had not imagined him looking so changed. All was forgotten — the wrong, and the needlessness, and the indignation with which she had sometimes thought of it; Fleda remembered nothing but love and pity, and threw herself upon his neck with such tears of tenderness and sympathy, such kisses of forgiveness and comfort-speaking, as might have broken a stouter heart than Mr. Rossitur's. He held her in his arms for a few minutes, passively suffering her caresses, and then gently unloosing her hold, placed her on a seat, sat down a little way off, covered his face and groaned aloud.

Fleda could not recover herself at once. Then shaking off her agitation, she came and knelt down by his side, and putting one arm over his shoulders, laid her cheek against his forehead. Words were beyond reach, but his forehead was wet with her tears; and kisses, of soft entreaty, of winning assurance, said all she could say.

"What did you come here for, Fleda?" said Mr. Rossitur, at length, without changing his position.

"To bring you home, uncle Rolf."

"Home!" said he, with an accent between bitterness and despair.

"Yes, for it's all over, it's all forgotten — there is no more to be said about it at all," said Fleda, getting her words out she didn't know how.

What is forgotten?" said he, harshly.

"All that you would wish, Sir," replied Fleda, softly and gently; "there is no more to be done about it; and I came to tell you, if possible, before it was too late. Oh, I'm so glad!" and her arms and her cheek pressed closer, as fresh tears stopped her voice.

"How do you know, Fleda?" said Mr. Rossitur, raising his head, and bringing hers to his shoulder, while his arms in turn enclosed her.

Fleda whispered, "He told me so himself."

"Who?"

"Mr. Thorn."

The words were but just spoken above her breath. Mr. Rossitur was silent for some time.

"Are you sure you understood him?"

"Yes, Sir; it could not have been spoken plainer."

"Are you quite sure he meant what he said, Fleda?"

"Perfectly sure, uncle Rolf! I know he did."

"What stipulation did he make beforehand?"

"He did it without any stipulation, Sir."

"What was his inducement, then? If I know him, he is not a man to act without any."

Fleda's cheek was dyed, but except that, she gave no other answer.

"Why has it been left so long?" said her uncle, presently.

"I don't know, Sir — he said nothing about that. He promised that neither we nor the world should hear anything more of it."

"The world!" said Mr. Rossitur.

"No, Sir; he said that only one or two persons had any notion of it, and that their secrecy he had the means of securing."

"Did he tell you anything more?"

"Only that he had the matter entirely under his control, and that never a whisper of it should be heard again. No promise could be given more fully and absolutely."

Mr. Rossitur drew a long breath, speaking to Fleda's ear very great relief, and was silent.

"And what reward is he to have for this, Fleda?" he said, after some musing.

"All that my hearty thanks and gratitude can give, as far as I am concerned, Sir."

"Is that what he expects, Fleda?"

"I cannot help what he expects," said Fleda, in some distress.

"What have you engaged yourself to, my child?"

"Nothing in the world, uncle Rolf!" said Fleda, earnestly — "nothing in the world. I haven't engaged myself to anything. The promise was made freely, without any sort of stipulation."

Mr. Rossitur looked thoughtful and disquieted. Fleda's tears were pouring again.

"I will not trust him," he said; "I will not stay in the country!"

"But you will come home, uncle?" said Fleda, terrified.

"Yes, my dear child — yes, my dear child!" he said, tenderly, putting his arms round Fleda again, and kissing, with an earnestness of acknowledgment that went to her heart, her lips and brow; "you shall do what you will with me; and when I go, we will all go together."

From Queechy? from America? But she had no time for that thought now.

"You said, 'for Hugh's sake,' " Mr. Rossitur observed, after a pause, and with some apparent difficulty; "what of him?"

"He is not well, uncle Rolf," said Fleda; "and I think the best medicine will be the sight of you again."

Mr. Rossitur looked pale, and was silent a moment.

"And my wife?" he said.

His face, and the thought of those faces at home, were too much for Fleda; she could not help it. "Oh, uncle Rolf," she said, hiding her face, "they only want to see you again now!"

Mr. Rossitur leaned his head in his hands and groaned; and Fleda could but cry; she felt there was nothing to say.

"It was for Marion," he said at length; "it was when I was hard pressed, and I was fearful if it were known that it might ruin her prospects. I wanted that miserable sum — only four thousand dollars — that fellow Schwiden asked to borrow it of me for a few days, and to refuse would have been to confess all. I dared not try my credit, and I just madly took that step that proved irretrievable. I counted at the moment upon funds that were coming to me only the next week — sure, I thought, as possible — but the man cheated me, and our embarrassments thickened from that time; that thing has been a weight — oh, a weight of deadening power! — round my neck ever since. I have died a living death these six years!"

"I know it, dear uncle — I know it all!" said Fleda, bringing the sympathizing touch of her cheek to his again. "The good that it did has been unspeakably overbalanced by the evil. Even long ago I knew that."

"The good that it did!" It was no time then to moralize, but he must know that Marion was at home, or he might incautiously reveal to her what happily there was no necessity for her ever knowing. And the story must give him great and fresh pain.

"Dear uncle Rolf," said Fleda, pressing closer to him "we may be happier than we have been in a long time, if you will only take it so. The cloud upon you has been a cloud upon us."

"I know it!" he exclaimed — "a cloud that served to show me that my jewels were diamonds!"

"You have an accession to your jewels, uncle Rolf."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," said Fleda, trembling, "that there are two more at home."

He held her back to look at her.

"Can't you guess who?"

"No!" said he. "What do you mean?"

"I must tell you, because they know nothing, and needn't know, of all this matter."

"What are you talking about?"

"Marion is there!"

"Marion!" exclaimed Mr. Rossitur, with quick changes of expression — "Marion! At Queechy! — and her husband?"

"No, Sir — a dear little child."

"Marion! — and her husband — where is he?"

Fleda hesitated.

"I don't know — I don't know whether she knows."

"Is he dead?"

"No, Sir."

Mr. Rossitur put her away, and got up and walked, or strode up and down the little apartment. Fleda dared not look at him, even by the faint glimmer that came from the chimney.

But abroad it was perfectly dark — the stars were shining, the only lamps that illumined the poor little street, and for a long time there had been no light in the room but that of the tiny wood fire. Dinah never could be persuaded of the superior cheapness of coal. Fleda came at last to her uncle's side, and putting her arm within his, said —

"How soon will you set off for home, uncle Rolf?"

"To-morrow morning."

"You must take the boat to Bridgeport now — you know the river is fast."

"Yes, I know."

"Then I will meet you at the wharf, uncle Rolf — at what o'clock?"

"My dear child," said he, stopping and passing his hand tenderly over her cheek, "are you fit for it to-morrow? You had better stay where you are quietly for a few days — you want rest."

"No, I will go home with you," said Fleda, "and rest there. But hadn't we better let Dinah in, and bid her good-bye? for I ought to be somewhere else to get ready."

Dinah was called, and a few kind words spoken, and with a more substantial remembrance, or reward, from Fleda's hand, they left her.

Fleda had the support of her uncle's arm till they came within sight of the house, and then he stood and watched her while she went the rest of the way alone.

Anything more white and spirit-looking, and more spirit-like, in its purity and peacefulness surely did not walk that night. There was music in her ear, and abroad in the star-light, more ethereal than Ariel's; but she knew where it came from — it was the chimes of her heart that were ringing; and never a happier peal, nor ever had the mental atmosphere been more clear for their sounding. Thankfulness — that was the oftenest note — swelling thankfulness for her success — joy for herself and for the dear ones at home — generous delight at having been the instrument of their relief — the harmonies of pure affections, without any grating now — the hope, well grounded she thought, of improvement in her uncle, and better times for them all — a childlike peace that was at rest with itself and the world — these were mingling and interchanging their music, and again and again, in the midst of it all, faith rang the last chime in heaven.