THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE UNDER DIFFICULTIES; AND WHAT CAME OF IT.
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“MR. GEER!”
Mr. Geer was unquestionably asleep.
This certainly did not indicate a sufficiently
warm appreciation of Mrs. Geer's social charms; but the
enormity of the offence will be greatly modified by a brief
review of the attending circumstances. If you will but consider
that the crackling of burning wood in a huge Franklin
stove is strongly soporific in its tendencies, — that the
cushion of a capacious arm-chair, constructed and adjusted
as if with a single eye to a delicious doze, nay, to a long
succession of dozes, is a powerful temptation to a sleepy
soul, — that the regular, and, it must be confessed, somewhat
monotonous click, click, click of Mrs. Geer's knittingneedles
only served to measure, without disturbing the
silence, — and, lastly, that they had been husband and wife
for thirty years, — you will not cease to wonder that Mr.
Geer
“was glorious,
O'er all the ills of life victorious.”
To most men, an interruption at such a time would have
been particularly annoying; but when Mrs. Geer spoke in
that way, Mr. Geer, asleep or awake, always made a point
of hearing; so he roused himself, and turned his round,
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honest face and placid blue eyes on the partner of his
bosom, who went on, —
“Mr. Geer, our Ivy will be seventeen, come fall.”
“Possible?” replied Mr. Geer. “Who 'd 'a' thunk it?”
Mr. Geer, as you may infer, was eminently a free-thinker,
or rather, a free-actor, in respect of irregular verbs. In fact,
he tyrannized over all parts of speech: wrested nouns and
verbs from their original shape, till you could hardly recognize
their distorted faces; and committed that next worst
sin to murdering one's mother, namely, — murdering one's
mother-tongue, with an abandon that was absolutely fascinating.
Having delivered his opinion thus sententiously, he
at once subsided, closed his placid eyes, and retired into his
inner world of — thought, perhaps.
“Mr. Geer!”
This time he fairly jumped from his seat, and cast about
him scared, blinking eyes.
“Mr. Geer, how can you sleep away your precious time
so?”
“Sleep? I — I — am sure, I was never wider awake in
my life.”
“Well, then, tell me what I said.”
“Said? Eh, — eh, — something about Ivy, was n't it?”
And Mr. Geer nervously twitched up the skirts of his
coat, and replaced his awry cushion, and began to think
that perhaps, after all, he had been asleep. But Mrs. Geer
was too much interested in the subject of her own cogitations
to pursue her victory further; so she answered, —
“Yes, and what is a-going to become of her?”
“Lud, lud! What 's the matter?” asked Mr. Geer,
wildly.
“Matter? Why, she 'll be seventeen, come fall, and
does n't know a thing.”
“O Lud! that all? That a'n't nothin'.”
And Mr. Geer settled comfortably down into his arm-chair
once more. He felt decidedly relieved. Visions of
small-pox, cholera, and throat-distemper, the worst evils
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that he could think of and dread for his darling, had been
conjured up by his wife's words; and when he found the
real state of the case, a great burden, which had suddenly
fallen on his heart, was as suddenly lifted.
“But I tell you it is something,” continued Mrs. Geer,
energetically. “Ivy is 'most a woman, and has never been
ten miles from home in her life, and to no school but our
little district —”
“And she 's as pairk a gal,” interrupted Mr. Geer, “as
any you 'll find in all the ten miles round, be the other who
she will.”
“She 's well enough in her way,” replied Mrs. Geer, in
all the humility of motherly pride; “and so much the more
reason why she should n't be let go so. There 's Mr. Dingham
sending his great logy girls to Miss Porter's seminary.
(I wonder if he expects they 'll ever turn out anything?)
And here 's our Ivy, bright as a button, and you full well
able to maintain her like a lady, and have done nothing but
turn her out to grass all her life, till she 's fairly run wild. I
declare it 's a shame. She ought to be sent to school to-morrow.”
“Nonsense, Sally! nonsense! I a'n't a-goin' to have
no such doin's. Sha'n't go off to school. What 's the use
havin' her, if she can't stay at home with us? Let Mr.
Dingham send his gals to Chiny, if he wants to. All the
book-larnin' in the world won't make 'em equal to our Ivy
with only her own head. I don't want her to go to gettin'
up high-falutin' notions. She 's all gold now. She don't
need no improvin'. Sha'n't budge an inch. Sha'n't stir a
step.”
“But do consider, Mr. Geer, the child has got to leave us
some time. We can't have her always.”
“Why can't we?” exclaimed Mr. Geer, almost fiercely.
“Sure enough! Why can't we? There a'n't nobody besides
you and me, I suppose, that thinks she 's pairk.
What 's John Herricks and Dan Norris hangin' round for
all the time?”
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“And they may hang round till the cows come home!
Nary hair of Ivy's head shall they touch, — nary one of
'em!”
Just at this juncture of affairs, the damsel in question
bounded into the room.
“Come here, Ivy,” said the old man; “your mother 's
been a-slanderin' you; says you don't know nothin'.”
Ivy knelt before him, rested her arms on his knees, and
turned upon him a pair of palpably roguish eyes.
“Father, it is an awful slander. I do know a sight.”
“Lud, child, yes! I knew you did. No more you don't
want to marry John Herricks, do you?”
“O Daddy Geer! O — h — h!”
“Nor Dan Norris? nor none of 'em?”
“Never a one, father.”
“Nor don't you ever think of gettin' married and slavin'
yourself out for nobody. I 'm plenty well able to take care
of you, as long as I live. You 'll never live so happy as you
do at home; and you 'll break my heart to go away, Ivy.”
“I 'll never go, papa.” (She pronounced it with the accent
on the first syllable.) “Indeed, I never will. I 'll
never be married, as long as I live.”
“No more you sha'n't, good child, good child!”
And again Farmer Geer betook himself to the depths of
his arm-chair, with the complacent consciousness of having
faithfully discharged his parental duties. “She should not
go to school. She would not be married. She had said
she would not, and of course she would not.”
“Of course I shall not,” mused Ivy, as she lay in her
white bed. “What could put it into poor papa's head?
Marry John Herricks, with his everlasting smirk, and his
diddling walk, and take care of all the Herricks' sisters and
mothers and aunts, and the Herricks' cows and horses and
pigs — and — hens — and — and —”
But Ivy had kept her thoughts on her marriage longer
than ever before in her life; and ere she had finished the
inventory of John Herricks's personal property and real
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estate, the blue eyes were closed in the sweet, sound sleep
of youth and health.
Mrs. Geer, in her estimate of her daughter's attainments,
was partly right and partly wrong. Ivy had never been
“finished” at Mrs. Porter's seminary, and was consequently
in a highly unfinished condition. “Small Latin and less
Greek” jostled each other in her head. German and
French, Italian and Spanish, were strange tongues to Ivy.
She could not dance, nor play, nor draw, nor paint, nor
work little dogs on footstools.
What, then, could she do?
Imprimis, she could climb a tree like a squirrel. Secundo,
she could walk across the great beam in the barn like a
year-old kitten. In the pursuit of hens' eggs she knew no
obstacles; from scaffold to scaffold, from haymow to haymow,
she leaped defiant. She pulled out the hay from
under the very noses of the astonished cows, to see if, perchance,
some inexperienced pullet might there have deposited
her golden treasure. With all four-footed beasts she
was on the best of terms. The matronly and lazy old sheep
she unceremoniously hustled aside, to administer consolation
and caresses to the timid, quaking lamb in the corner
behind. Without saddle or bridle she could
“Ride a black horse
To Banbury Cross.”
(N. B. — I don't say she actually did. I only say she could;
and under sufficiently strong provocation, I have no doubt
she would.) She knew where the purple violets and the
white innocence first flecked the spring turf, and where the
ground-sparrows hid their mottled eggs. All the little waddling,
downy goslings, the feeble chickens, and faint-hearted,
desponding turkeys, that broke the shell too soon, and shivered
miserably because the spring sun was not high enough
in the morning to warm them, she fed with pap, and cherished
in cotton-wool, and nursed and watched with eager,
happy eyes. O blessed Ivy Geer! True Sister of Charity!
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Thrice blessed stepmother of a brood whose name was
Legion!
From the conjugal and filial conversation which I have
faithfully reported, a casual observer, particularly if young
and inexperienced, might infer that the question of Miss
Ivy's education was definitively settled, and that she was
henceforth to remain under the paternal roof. I should, myself,
have fallen into the same error, had not a long and intimate
acquaintance with the female sex generated and cherished
a profound and mournful conviction of the truth of
the maxim, that appearances are deceitful. E. g., a woman
has set her heart on something, and is refused. She pouts
and sulks: that is clouds, and will soon blow over. She
scolds, storms, and raves (I speak in a figure; I mean she
does something as much like that as a tender, delicate, angelic
woman can): that is thunder, and only clears the air.
She betakes herself to tears, sobs, and embroidered cambric:
that is a shower, and everything will be greener and
fresher after it. You may go your ways, — one to his farm,
another to his merchandise; the world will not wind up its
affairs just yet. But, put the case, she goes on the even
tenor of her way unmoved:
“Beware! beware!
Trust her not; she is fooling thee.”
Thus Mrs. Geer, who was a thorough tactician. Like
Napoleon, she was never more elated than after a defeat.
Before consulting her husband at all, she had contemplated
the subject in all its bearings, and had deliberately decided
that Ivy was to go to school. The consent of the senior
partner of the firm was a secondary matter, which time
and judicious management would infallibly secure. Consequently,
notwithstanding the unpropitious result of their
first colloquy, she the next day commenced preparations for
Ivy's departure, as unhesitatingly, as calmly, as assiduously,
as if the day of that departure had been fixed.
Mrs. Geer was right. She knew she was, all the time.
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She had a sublime faith in herself. She felt in her soul the
divine afflatus, and pressed forward gloriously to her goal.
Mr. Geer had as much firmness, not to say obstinacy, as
falls to the lot of most men; but Mrs. Geer had more; and
as Launce Outram, hard beset, so pathetically moaned, “A
woman in the very house has such deused opportunities!”
so Farmer Geer grumbled, and squirmed, and remonstrated,
and — yielded.
Mrs. Geer was not right. She had reckoned without her
host. Her affairs were gliding down the very Appian Way
of prosperity in a chariot-and-four, with footmen and outriders,
when, presto! they turned a sharp and unexpected
corner, and over went the whole establishment into a mirier
mire than ever bespattered Dr. Slop.
To speak without a parable. When her expected Hegira
was announced to Miss Mary Ives Geer, that young lady,
to the ill-concealed vexation of her mother, and the not-attempted-to-be-concealed
exultation of her father, expressed
decided disapprobation of the whole scheme. As she was
the chief dramatis persona, the very Hamlet of the play,
this unlooked-for decision somewhat interfered with Mrs.
Geer's plans. All the eloquence of that estimable woman
was brought to bear on this one point; but this one point
was invincible. Expostulation and entreaty were alike vain.
Neither ambition nor pleasure could hold out any allurements
to Ivy. Maternal authority was at length hinted at,
only hinted at, and the spoiled child declared that she had
not had her own will and way for sixteen years to give up
quietly in her seventeenth. One last resort, one forlorn
hope, — one expedient, which had never failed to overcome
her childish stubbornness: “Would she grieve her parents
so much as to oppose this their darling wish?” And Ivy
burst into tears, and begged to know if she should show her
love to her father and mother by going away from them.
This drove the nail into her old father's heart, and then the
little vixen clenched it by throwing herself into his arms,
and sobbing, “O, papa! would you turn your Ivy out of
doors and break her heart?”
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Flimsiest of fallacies! Shallowest of sophists! But she
was the only and beloved child of his old age; so the fallacy
passed unchallenged; the strong arms closed around
the naughty girl; and the soothing voice murmured, —
“There, there, Ivy! don't cry, child! Lud! lud! you
sha'n't be bothered; no more you sha'n't, lovey!” and the
status quo was restored.
“It is not in the sea nor in the strife
We feel benumbed and wish to be no more,
But in the after silence on the shore,
When all is lost, except a little life,”
said one who had breasted the stormiest sea and plunged
into the fiercest strife. Ivy, who had never read Byron, and
therefore could not be suspected of any Byronical affectations,
felt it, when, having gained her point, she sat down
alone in her own room. When her single self had been
pitted against superior numbers, age, experience, and parental
authority, all her heroism was roused, and she was
adequate to the emergency; but her end gained, the excitement
gone, the sense of disobedience alone remaining, and
she was thoroughly uncomfortable, nay, miserable.
“Mamma is right; I know I am a little goose,” sobbed
she. (The words were mental, intangible, unspoken; the
sobs physical, palpable, decided.) “I never did know anything,
and I never shall, — and I don't care if I don't. I
don't see any good in knowing so much. We don't have a
great while to stay in the world any way, and I don't see
why we can't be let alone and have a good time while we
are here, and when we get to heaven we can take a fresh
start. O, dear! I never shall go to heaven, if I am so bad
and vex mamma. But then papa did n't care. But then
he would have liked me to go to school. But there, I won't!
I won't! I will not! I 'll study at home. O, dear! I
wish papa was a great man, and knew everything, and could
teach me. Well, he is just as happy, and just as rich, and
everybody likes him just as well, as if he knew the whole
world full; and why can't I do so, too? Rebecca Dingham,
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indeed! Mercy! I hope I never shall be like her; I
would rather not know my A B C! What shall I do?
There 's Mr. Brownslow might teach me; he knows enough.
But, dear me! he is as busy as he can be, all day long;
and Squire Merrill goes out of town every day; and there 's
Dr. Mix, to be sure, but he smells so strong of paregoric,
and I don't believe he knows much, either; and there 's nobody
else in town that knows any more than anybody else;
and there 's nothing for it but I must go to school, if I am
ever to know anything.” (A renewal of sobs, uninterrupted
for several minutes.) “There 's Mr. Clerron!” (A sudden
cessation.) “I suppose he knows more than the whole
town tumbled into one; and writes books, and — mercy!
there 's no end to his knowledge; and he 's rich, and does
everything he likes, all day long. O, if I only did know
him! I would ask him straight off to teach me. I should
be scared to death. I 've a great mind to ask him, as it is.
I can tell him who I am. He never will know any other
way, for he is n't acquainted with anybody. They say he is
as proud as Lucifer. If he were ten times prouder, I would
rather ask him than go to school. He might just as well
do something as not. I am sure, if God had made me him,
and him me, I should be glad to help him. I 'll go straight
to him the first thing to-morrow morning.”
Once seeing a possible way out of her difficulties, her sorrow
vanished. Not quite so gayly as usual, it is true, did
she sing about the house that night; for she was summoning
all her powers to prepare an introductory speech to
Felix Clerron, Esq., a gentleman and a scholar. Her elocutionary
attempts were not quite satisfactory to herself, but
she was not to be daunted; and when morning came, she
took heart of grace, slung her broad-brimmed hat over her
arm, and began her march “over the hills and far away,” in
search of her — fate.
“And did her mother really let her roam away, alone, on
such an errand, to a perfect stranger?”
“Humanly speaking,” nothing was more unlikely than
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that Mrs. Geer, a prudent, modest, and sensible woman,
should give her consent to such an — to use the mildest
term — unusual undertaking. Nor did she. The fact is,
her consent was not asked. She knew nothing whatever of
the plan.
“Worse and worse! Did the wilful girl go off without
leave? without even informing her parents?”
I am sorry to say she did. In writing a story of real life,
one cannot take that liberty with facts which is quite proper,
not to say indispensable, in history, science, and belles-lettres
generally. Duty compels me to adhere closely to the truth;
and for whatever of obloquy may be heaped upon me, or
upon my Ivy, I shall find consolation in the words of the
illustrious Harrison; or perhaps it was the illustrious Taylor;
I am not quite sure, however, that it was not the illustrious
Washington: — “Do right, and let the consequences
take care of themselves.” I am therefore obliged to say,
that Ivy's departure in pursuit of knowledge was entirely
unknown to her respected and beloved parents. But you
must remember that she was an only child, and a spoiled
child, — spoiled as only stern New England Puritan parents,
somewhat advanced in years, can spoil their children. I do
not defend Ivy. On the contrary, notwithstanding my
regard for her, I hand her over to the reprobation of an
enlightened community; and I hereby entreat all young
persons into whose hands this memoir may fall to take
warning by the fate of poor Ivy, and never enter upon any
important undertaking, until they have, to say the least,
consulted those who are their natural guides, their warmest
friends, and their most experienced counsellors.
While I have been writing this, Ivy Geer, light of heart,
fleet of foot, and firm of will, has passed over hillside,
through wood-path, and across meadow-land, and drawn
near the domains of Felix Clerron, Esq. Light of heart
perhaps I scarcely ought to say. Certainly, that enterprising
organ had never before beat so furious a tattoo in Ivy's
breast, as when she stood, hat in hand, on the steps of the
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somewhat stately dwelling. To do her justice, she had intended
to do the penance of wearing her hat when she
should have reached her destination; but in her excitement
she quite forgot it. So, as I said, she stood on the doorstep,
as a royal maiden stood three hundred years before
(not in the same place), with the “wind blowing her fair
hair about her beautiful cheeks.”
There had come to Ivy from the great, gay world a vague
rumor, that, instead of knocking at a door, like a Christian,
with your own good knuckles, for such case made and provided,
modern fashion had introduced “the ringing and the
dinging of the bells.” This vague rumor found a local habitation,
when Mr. Clerron came down upon the village and
established himself, his men and women and horses and
cattle; but as Ivy stood on his doorstep, looking upward,
downward, sidewise, with earnest, peering gaze, no bell, and
no sign of bell, was visible; nothing unusual, save a little
door-knob at the right hand side of the door, — a thing
which could not be accounted for. After long and serious
deliberation, she came to the conclusion that the bell must
be inside, and that the knob was a screw attached to it. So
she tried to twist it, first one way, then the other; but twist
it would not. In despair she betook herself to her fingers
and knocked. Nobody came. Twist again. No use.
Knock again. Ditto. Then she went down to the gravelled
path, selected one of the largest pebbles, took up her
station before the door, and began to pound away. In a
moment, a gentleman in dressing-gown and smoking-cap,
with a cigar between his fingers, came round the corner.
Seeing her, he threw away his cigar, lifted his velvet cap,
bowed, and, with a gentle “allow me,” stepped to the door,
pulled the bell, and again passed out of sight. Ivy was not
so confused at being detected in her assault and battery on
the door of a respectable, peaceable, private gentleman, as
not to make the silent reflection, “Pulled the knob, instead
of twisting it. How easy it is to do a thing, if you only
know how!”
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The summons was soon answered by a black gnome, and
Ivy was ushered into a large room, which, to her dazzled,
sun-weary eyes, seemed delightfully fresh and green-looking.
Two minutes more of waiting, — then a step in the hall, a
gently opening door, and Ivy felt rather than saw herself in
the presence of the formidable Mr. Clerron. A single
glance showed her that he was the person who had rung
the bell for her, though the gay dressing-gown had been
exchanged for a soberer suit. Mr. Clerron bowed. Ivy,
hardly knowing what she did, faltered forth, “I am Ivy
Geer.” A half-curious, half-sarcastic smile glimmered
behind the heavy beard, and gleamed beneath the heavy
eyebrows, as he answered, “I am happy to make your acquaintance”;
but another glance at the trembling form, the
frightened, pale face, and quivering lips, changed the smile
into one that was very good-natured, and even kind; and
he added, playfully, —
“I am Felix Clerron, very much at your service.”
“You write books and are a very learned man,” pursued
Ivy, hurriedly, never lifting her eyes from the floor, and
never ceasing to twirl her hat-strings.
There was no possibility of supposing her guilty of committing
a little diplomatic flattery in conveying this succinct
bit of information. She made the assertion with the air of
one who has a disagreeable piece of business on hand, and
is determined to go through with it as soon as possible.
He bowed and smiled again; quite unnecessarily, — since,
as I have before remarked, Ivy's eyes were steadfastly fixed
on the carpet. A slight pause for breath and she pitched
ahead again.
“I am very ignorant, and I am growing old. I am almost
seventeen. I don't know anything to speak of. Mamma
wishes me to go to school. Papa did not, but now he does.
I won't go. I would rather be stupid all my life long than
leave home. But mamma is vexed, and I want to please
her, and I thought, — Mr. Brownslow is so busy, and you, —
if you have nothing to do, — and know so much, — I
thought” —
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She stopped short, utterly unable to proceed. Wonderfully
different did this affair seem from the one she had
planned the preceding evening. It is so much easier to
fight the battle of life in our own chimney-corner, by the
ruddy and genial firelight, than in broad day on the world's
great battle-field!
Mr. Clerron, seeing Ivy's confusion, kindly came to her
aid. “And you thought my superfluous time and wisdom
might be transferred to you, thus making a more equal
division of property?”
“If you would be so good, — I, — yes, Sir.”
“May I inquire how you propose to effect such an exchange?”
He really did not intend to be anything but kind, but the
whole matter presented itself to him in a very ludicrous
light; and in endeavoring to preserve proper gravity, he
became severe. Ivy, all-unused to the world, still had a secret
feeling that he was laughing at her. Tears, that would
not be repressed, glistened in her downcast eyes, gathered
on the long lashes, dropped silently to the floor. He saw
that she was entirely a child, ignorant, artless, and sincere.
His better feelings were roused, and he exclaimed, with real
earnestness, —
“My dear young lady, I should rejoice to serve you in
any way, I beg you to believe.”
His words only hastened the catastrophe which seems to
be always impending over the weaker sex. Ivy sobbed out-right, —
a perfect tempest. Felix Clerron looked on with a
bachelor's dismay. “What in thunder? Confound the
girl!” were his first reflections; but her utter abandonment
to sorrow melted his heart again, — not a very susceptible
heart either; but men, especially bachelors, are so — green!
(the word is found in Cowper.)
He sat down by her side, stroked the hair from her
burning forehead, as if she had been six instead of sixteen,
and again and again assured her of his willingness
to assist her.
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“I must go home,” whispered Ivy, as soon as she could
command, or rather coax her voice.
His hospitality was shocked.
“Indeed you must not, till we have at least had a consultation.
Tell me how much you know. What have you
studied?”
“O, nothing, Sir. I am very stupid.”
“Ah! we must begin with the Alphabet, then. Blocks
or a primer?”
Ivy smiled through her tears.
“Not quite so bad as that, Sir.
“You do know your letters? Perhaps you can even
count, and spell your name; maybe write it. Pray, enlighten
me.”
Ivy grew calm as he became playful.
“I can cipher pretty well. I have been through Greenleaf's
Large.”
“House or meadow? And the exact dimensions, if you
please.”
“Sir?”
“I understood you to say you had traversed Greenleaf's
large. You did not designate what.”
He was laughing at her now, indeed, but it was open and
genial, and she joined.
“My Arithmetic, of course. I supposed everybody knew
that. Everybody calls it so.”
“Time is short. Yes. Do you like Arithmetic?”
“Pretty well, some parts of it. Fractions and Partial
Payments. But I can't bear Duodecimals, Position, and
such things.”
“Positions are occasionally embarrassing. And Grammar?”
“I think it 's horrid. It 's all `indicative mood, common
noun, third person, singular number, and agrees with John.'”
“Bravissima! A comprehensive sketch! A bird's-eye
view, as one may say, — and not entertaining, certainly.
What other branches have you pursued? Drawing, for instance?”
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“O, no, Sir!”
“Nor Music?”
“No, Sir.”
“Good! excellent! An overruling Providence has saved
you and your friends from many a pitfall. Shall we proceed
to History? Be so good as to inform me who discovered
America.”
“I believe Columbus has the credit of it,” replied Ivy,
demurely.
“Non-committal, I see. Case goes strongly in his favor,
but you reserve your judgment till further evidence.”
“I think he was a wise and good and enterprising man.”
“But are rather sceptical about that San Salvador story.
A wise course. Never decide till both sides have been
fairly presented. `He that judgeth a matter before he
heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him,' said the wise
man. Occasionally his after-judgment is equally discreditable.
That is a thousand times worse. Exit Clio. Enter—
well! — Geographia. My young friend, what celebrated
city has the honor of concentrating the laws, learning, and
literature of Massachusetts, to wit, namely, is its capital?”
“Boston, Sir.”
“Your Geography has evidently been attended to. You
have learned the basis fact. You have discovered the pivot
on which the world turns. You have dug down to the
antediluvian, ante-pyrean granite, — the primitive, unfused
stratum of society. The force of learning can no farther
go. Armed with that fact, you may march fearlessly forth
to do battle with the world, the flesh, and — the — ahem —
the King of Beasts! Do you think you should like me for
a teacher?”
“I can't tell, Sir. I did not like you as anything awhile
ago.”
“But you like me better now? You think I improve on
acquaintance? You detect signs of a moral reformation?”
“No, Sir, I don't like you now. I only don't dislike you
so much as I did.”
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“Spoken like a major-general, or, better still, like a brave
little Yankee girl, as you are. I am an enthusiastic admirer
of truth. I foresee we shall get on famously. I was rather
premature in sounding the state of your affections, it must
be confessed, — but we shall be rare friends by and by.
On the whole, you are not particularly fond of books?”
“I like some books well enough, but not studying-books,”
said Ivy, with a sigh, “and I don't see any good in them.
If it was n't for mamma, I never would open one, — never!
I would just as soon be a dunce as not; I don't see anything
very horrid in it.”
“How should you, to be sure? There is a distinction,
however, which you must immediately learn to make. The
dunce subjective is a very inoffensive animal, contented,
happy, and harmless; and, as you justly remark, inspires
no horror, but rather an amiable and genial self-complacency.
The dunce objective, on the contrary, is of an entirely
different species. He is a bore of the first magnitude,—
a poisoned arrow, that not only pierces, but inflames, —
a dull knife, that not only cuts, but tears, — a cowardly little
cur, that snaps occasionally, but snarls unceasingly; whom,
which, and that, it becomes the duty of all good citizens to
sweep from the face of the earth.”
“What is the difference between them? How shall one
know which is which?”
“The dunce subjective is the dunce from his own point
of view, — the dunce with his eyes turned inward, — confining
his duncehood to the bosom of his family. The dunce
objective is the dunce butting against his neighbor's study-door, —
intruding, obtruding, protruding his insipid folly
and still more insipid wisdom at all times and seasons. He
is a creature utterly devoid of shame. He is like Milton's
angels, in one respect at least: you may thrust him through
and through with the two-edged sword of your satire, and
at the end he shall be as intact and integral as at the beginning.
Am I sufficiently obvious?” He was talking,
however, quite as much to himself as to Ivy, and with a
bitterness evidently born of suffering.
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“It is very obvious that I am both, according to your
definition.”
“It is very obvious that you are neither, but a sensible
young girl, — with no great quantity of the manufactured article,
perhaps, but plenty of raw material, capable of being
wrought into fabric of the finest quality.”
“Do you really think I can learn?” asked Ivy, with a
bright blush of pleasure.
“Can learn?”
“As much as if I went to school?”
“My dear miss, as the forest oak, `cabined, cribbed, confined'
with multitudes of its fellows, grows stunted, scrubby,
and dwarfed, but brought into the open fields alone, stretches
out its arms to the blue heavens and its roots to the kindly
earth, — so, in a word, shall you, under my fostering care,
flourish like a green bay-tree, only not quite so high and
mightily as I am flourishing now; — that is, if I am to
have the honor.”
“Yes, Sir, I mean — I meant — I was thinking as if you
were teaching me — I mean were going to teach me.”
“Which I also mean, if your parents continue to wish it.”
“O, they won't care!”
“Won't care?”
“No, Sir, they will be glad, I think. Papa, at least, will
be glad to have me stay at home.”
“Did not they direct you to come to me to-day?”
Ivy blushed deeply, and replied, in a low voice, “No, Sir;
I knew mamma would not let me come, if I asked her.”
“And to prevent any sudden temptation to disobedience,
and a consequent forfeiture of your peace of mind, you
took time by the forelock and came on your own responsibility?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Very ingenious, upon my word! But, my dear Miss
Geer, I must confess I have not this happy feminine knack
of keeping out of the way of temptation. I should prefer
to consult your friends, even at the risk of losing the pleasure
of your society.”
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“O, yes, Sir! I don't care, now it is all settled.”
And so, over hillside, along wood-path, and through
meadow-land, with light heart and smiling eyes, tripped Ivy
back again. To Mrs. Geer shelling peas in the shady
porch, and to Mr. Geer fanning himself with his straw hat
on the steps beside her, Ivy recounted the story of her adventures.
Mrs. Geer was thunderstruck at Ivy's temerity;
Mr. Geer was lost in admiration of her pluck. Mrs. Geer
termed it a wild-goose chase; Mr. Geer declared Ivy to be
as smart as a steel trap. Mrs. Geer vetoed the whole plan;
Mr. Geer did n't know. But when at sunset Mr. Clerron
rode over, and admired Mr. Geer's orchard, and praised the
points of his Durhams, and begged a root of Mrs. Geer's
scarlet verbena, and assured them he should be very glad to
refresh his own early studies, and also to form an acquaintance
with the family, — he knew very few in the village, —
and if Mrs. Geer would drive over when Ivy came to recite,—
or perhaps they would rather he should come to their
house. O, no! Mrs. Geer could not think of that. Just
as they pleased. Mrs. Simm, the housekeeper, would be
very glad to meet Mrs. Geer. By the way, Mrs. Simm was
a thrifty and sensible woman, and he was sure they would
be pleased with each other. When, in short, all this and
much more had been said, it was decided that Ivy should be
regularly installed pupil of Mr. Felix Clerron.
“Eureka!” cries the professional novel-reader, that far-sighted
and keen-scented hound that snuffs a dénouement
afar off; and anon there rises before his eyes the vision of
poor little Stella drinking in love and learning, especially
love, from the divine eyes of the anything but divine Swift,—
of Shirley, the lioness, the pantheress, the leopardess, the
beautiful, fierce creature, sitting, tamed, quiet, meek, by the
side of Louis Moore, her tutor and master, — and of all the
legends of all the ages wherein Beauty has sat at the feet of
Wisdom, and Love has crept in unawares, and spoiled the
lesson while as yet half-unlearnt; — so he cries, “She is
going the way of all heroines. The man and the girl, —
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they will fall in love, marry, and live happily all the rest of
their days.”
Of course they will. Is there any reason why they should
not? If any man can show just cause why they may not
lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter
forever hold his peace.
I repeat it, of course they will. You surely cannot suppose
I should, in cold blood, sit down to write a story in
which nobody was to fall in love or be in love! Scoff as
you may, love is the one vital principle in all romance. Not
only does your cheek flush and your eye sparkle, till heart,
brain, and soul are all on fire, over the burning words of
some Brontean Pythoness, but when you open the last
thrilling work of Maggie Marigold, and are immediately
submerged “in a weak, washy, everlasting flood” of insipidity,
and heart-rending sorrow, you do not shut the book
with a jerk. Why not? Because in the dismal distance
you dimly descry two figures swimming, floating, struggling
towards each other, and a languid curiosity detains you till
you have ascertained, that, after infinite distress, Adolphus
and Miranda have made
“One of the very best matches,
Both well mated for life:
She 's got a fool for a husband,
He 's got a fool for his wife.”
Sir, scoff as you may, love is the one sunbeam of poetry
that gilds with a softened splendor the hard, bare outline of
many a prosaic life. “Work, work, work, from weary chime
to chime”; tramp behind the plough, hammer on the lapstone,
beat the anvil, drive the plane, from morn till dewy
eve; but when the dewy eve comes, ah! Hesperus gleams
soft and golden over the far-off pine-trees, but
“The star that lightens your bosom most,
And gives to your weary feet their speed,
Abides in a cottage beyond the mead.”
It is useless to assert that the subject is worn threadbare.
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Threadbare it may be to you, enervated and blasé man of
pleasure, worn and hardened man of the world; but it is
not for you I write. The fountain which leaps up fresh and
living in every new life can never be exhausted till the
springs of all life are dry. Tell me, O lover, gazing into
those tender eyes uplifted to yours, twining the silken rings
around your bronzed finger, — does it abate one jot or tittle
of your happiness to know that eyes just as tender, curls
just as silken, have stirred the hearts of men for a thousand
years?
Love, then, is a sine qua non in stories; and if love, why
not marriage? What pleasure can a humane and benevolent
man find in separating two individuals whose chief,
perhaps whose sole happiness, consists in being together?
For certain inscrutable reasons, Divine Benevolence permits
evil to exist in the world. All who have a taste for
misery can find it there in exhaustless quantities. Johns
are every day falling in love with Katys, but marrying Isabels,
and Isabels the same, mutatis mutandis. We submit
to it because there is no alternative; and we believe that
good shall finally be wrought and wrested from evil. But
let us not in mere wantonness introduce into our novel-world
the work of our own hand, an abridged edition, a daguerrotype
copy of the world without, of which we know so
little and so much. I always do and always shall read the
last page of a novel first; and if I perceive there any indications
that matters are not coming out “shipshape,” my
reading invariably terminates with the last page.
For the rest, please to remember that I am not writing
about a princess of the blood, nor of the days of the bold
barons, but only the life of a quiet little girl in a quiet little
town in the eastern part of Massachusetts; and so far as
my experience and observation go, men and women in the
eastern part of Massachusetts are not given to thrilling adventures,
hairbreadth escapes, wonderful concatenations of
circumstances, and blood and thunder generally, — but pursue
the even tenor of their way, and of their love, with a
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sober and delightful equanimity. If you want a plot, go to
the “Children of the Abbey,” “Consuelo,” and myriads of
that kin, and help yourself. As for me, I must confess I
hate plots. I see no pleasure in stumbling blindfolded
through a story, unable to see a yard ahead, fancying every
turn to be the last, and the road to go straight on to a glorious
goal, — and, lo! we are in a more hopeless labyrinth
than ever. I have a sense of restraint. I want to breathe
freely, and cannot. I want to have leisure to observe the
style, the development of character, the author's tone of
thought, and not be galloped through on the back of a
breathless desire to know “how they are coming out.”
But, my dear plot-loving friend, be easy. I will not leave
you in the lurch. I am not going to marry my man and
woman out of hand. An obstacle, of which I suppose you
have never heard, — an obstacle entirely new, fresh, and
unhackneyed, will arise; so, I pray you, let patience have
her perfect work.
Wonderful was the new world opened to Ivy Geer. It
was as if a corse, cold, inert, lifeless, had suddenly sprung
up, warm, invigorated, informed with a spirit which led her
own spell-bound. Grammar, — Grammar, which had been
a synonyme for all that was dry, irksome, useless, — a beating
of the wind, the crackling of thorns under a pot, —
Grammar even assumed for her a charm, a wonder, a glory.
She saw how the great and wise had shrined in fitting words
their purity, and wisdom, and sorrow, and suffering, and
penitence; and how, as this generation passed away, and
another came forth which knew not God, the golden casket
became dim, and the memory of its priceless gem faded
away; but how, at the touch of a mighty wand, the obedient
lid flew back, and the long-hidden thought “sprang full-statured
in an hour.” She saw how love and beauty and
freedom lay floating vaguely and aimlessly in a million
minds till the poet came and crystallized them into clear-cut,
prismatic words, tinged for each with the color of his own
fancy, and wrought into a perfect mosaic, not for an age,
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but for all time. Led by a strong hand, she trod with awe
down the dim aisles of the Past, and saw how the soul of
man, bound in its prison-house, had ever struggled to voice
itself in words. Roaming in the dense forest with the stern
and bloody Druid, — bounding over the waves with the
fierce pirates who supplanted them, and in whose blue eyes
and beneath whose fair locks gleamed indeed the ferocity
of the savage, but lurked also, though unseen and unknown,
the tender chivalry of the English gentleman, — gazing admiringly
on the barbaric splendor of the cloth-of-gold,
whereon trod regally, to the sound of harp and viol, the
beauty and bravery of the old Norman nobility, she delighted
to see how the mother-tongue, our dear mother-tongue,
had laid all the nations under contribution to enrich
her treasury, — gathering from one its strength, from another
its stateliness, from a third its harmony, till the harsh,
crude, rugged dialect of a barbarous horde became worthy
to embody, as it does, the love, the wisdom, and the faith
of half a world.
So Grammar taught Ivy to reverence language.
History, in the light of a guiding mind, ceased to be a
bare record of slaughter and crime. Before her eyes filed,
in a statelier pageant than they knew, the long procession
of “simple great ones gone forever and ever by,” and the
countless lesser ones whose names are quenched in the
darkness of a night that shall know no dawn. She saw the
“great world spin forever down the ringing grooves of
change”; but amid all the change, the confusion, the chaos,
she saw the finger of God ever pointing, and heard the sublime
monotone of the Divine voice ever saying to the children
of men, “This is the way, walk ye in it.” And Ivy
thought she saw, and rejoiced in the thought, that, even
when this warning was unheeded, — when on the brow of
the mournful Earth “Ichabod, Ichabod,” was forever engraven, —
when the First Man with his own hand put from
him the cup of innocence, and went forth from the happy
garden, sin-stained and fallen, the whole head sick, and the
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whole heart faint, — even then she saw within him the Divine
spark, the leaven of life, which had power to vitalize
and vivify what Crime had smitten with death. Though
sea and land teemed with strange perils, though night and
day pursued him with mysterious terrors, though the now
unfriendly elements combined to check his career, still, with
unswerving purpose, undaunted courage, she saw him march
constantly forward. Spirits of evil could not drive from his
heart the prescience of greatness; and his soul dwelt calmly
under the foreshadow of a mighty future.
And as Ivy looked, she saw how the children of men became
a great nation, and possessed the land far and wide.
They delved into the bosom of the pleased earth, and brought
forth the piled-up treasures of uncounted cycles. They unfolded
the book of the skies, and sought to read the records
thereon. They plunged into the unknown and terrible
ocean, and decked their own brows with the gems they
plucked from hers. And when conquered Nature had laid
her hoards at their feet, their restless longings would not be
satisfied. Brave young spirits, with the dew of their youth
fresh upon them, set out in quest of a land beyond their ken.
Over the mountains, across the seas, through the forests,
there came to the ear of the dreaming girl the measured
tramp of marching men, the softer footfalls of loving women,
the pattering of the feet of little children. Many a day and
many a night she saw them wander on towards the setting
sun, till the Unseen Hand led them to a fair and fruitful
country that opened its bounteous arms in welcome. Broad
rivers, green fields, laughing valleys wooed them to plant
their household gods, — and the foundations of Europe were
laid. Here were sown the seeds of those heroic virtues
which have since leaped into luxuriant life, — seeds of that
irresistible power which fastened its grasp on Nature, and
forced her to unfold the secret of her creation, — seeds of
that far-reaching wisdom which in the light of the unveiled
past has read the story of the unseen future.
And still under Ivy's eye they grouped themselves.
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Some gathered on the pleasant hills of the sunny South,
and the beauty of earth and sea and sky passed into their
souls forever. They caught the evanescent gleam, the
passing shadow, and on unseemly canvas limned it for all
time in forms of unuttered and unutterable loveliness.
They shaped into glowing life the phantoms of grace that
were always flitting before their enchanted eyes, and poured
into inanimate marble their rapt and passionate souls.
They struck the lyre to wild and stirring songs whose tremulous
echoes still linger along the corridors of Time. Some
sought the ice-bound North, and grappled with dangers by
field and flood. They hunted the wild dragon to his mountain-fastnesses,
and fought him at bay, and never quailed.
Death, in its most fearful forms, they met with grim delight,
and chanted the glories of the Valhalla waiting for heroes
who should forever quaff the “foaming, pure, and shining
mead” from skulls of foes in battle slain. Some crossed
the sea, and on
“that pale, that white-faced shore,
Whose foot spurns back the ocean's swelling tide,”
they reared a sinewy and stalwart race, “whose morning
drum-beat encircles the world.”
And History taught Ivy to reverence man.
But there was one respect in which Ivy was both pupil
and teacher. Never a word of Botany had fallen upon her
ears; but through all the unconscious bliss of infancy, childhood,
and girlhood, for sixteen happy years, she had lived
among the flowers, and she knew their dear faces and their
wild-wood names. She loved them with an almost human
love. They were to her companions and friends. She knew
their likings and dislikings, their joys and sorrows, — who
among them chose the darkest nooks of the old woods, and
who bloomed only to the brightest sunlight, — who sent
their roots deep down among the mosses by the brook, and
who smiled only on the southern hillside. Around each she
wove a web of beautiful individuality, and more than one
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had received from her a new christening. It is true, that,
when she came to study from a book, she made wry faces
over the long, barbarous, Latin names which completely
disguised her favorites, and in her heart deemed a great
many of the definitions quite superfluous; but she had
strong faith in her teacher, and when the technical was laid
aside for the real, then, indeed, “her foot was on her native
heath, and her name was MacGregor.” A wild and merry
chase she led her grave instructor. Morning, noon, or
night, she was always ready. Under the blue sky, breathing
the pure air, treading the green turf familiar from her infancy,
she could not be otherwise than happy; but when
was superadded to this the companionship of a mind vigorous,
cultivated, and refined, she enjoyed it with a keen and
intense delight. Nowhere else did her soul so entirely unfold
to the genial light of this new sun which had suddenly
mounted above her horizon. Nowhere else did the freshness
and fulness and splendor of life dilate her whole being with
a fine ecstasy.
And what was the end of all this? Just what you would
have supposed. She had led a life of simple, unbounded
love and trust, — a buoyant, elastic gladness, — a dream of
sunshine. No gray cloud had ever lowered in her sky, no
thunderbolt smitten her joys, no winter rain chilled her
warmth. Only the white fleeciness of morning mist had
flitted sometimes over her summer-sky, deepening the blue.
Little cooling drops had fluttered down through the leafiness,
only to span her with a rainbow in the glory of the setting
sun. But the time had come. From the deep fountains
of her heart the stone was to be rolled away. The
secret chord was to be smitten by a master-hand, — a chord
which, once stirred, may never cease to quiver.
At first Ivy worshipped very far off. Her friend was to
her the embodiment of all knowledge and goodness and
greatness. She marvelled to see him so at home in what
was to her so strange. Every word that fell from his lips
was an oracle. She secretly contrasted him with all the men
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she had ever met, to the utter discomfiture of the latter.
Washington, the Apostle Paul, and Peter Parley were the
only men of the past or present whom she considered at all
worthy to be compared with him; and in fact, if these three
men and Felix Clerron had all stood before her, and offered
each a different opinion on any given subject, I have
scarcely a doubt as to whose would have commended itself
to her as combining the soundest practical wisdom and the
highest Christian benevolence.
So the summer passed on, and her shyness wore off, —
and their intimacy became less and less that of teacher and
pupil, and more and more that of friend and friend. With
the sudden awakening of her intellectual nature, there woke
also another power, of whose existence she had never
dreamed. It was natural, that, in ranging the fields of
thought so lately opened to her, she should often revert to
him whose hand had unbarred the gates; she was therefore
not startled that the image of Felix Clerron was with her
when she sat down and when she rose up, when she went
out and when she came in. She ceased, indeed, to think
of him. She thought him. She lived him. Her soul fed
on his life. And so — and so — by a pleasant and flowery
path, there came into Ivy's heart the old, old pain.
Now the thing was on this wise: —
One morning, when she went to recite, she did not find
Mr. Clerron in the library, where he usually awaited her.
After spending a few moments in looking over her lessons,
she rose and was about to pass to the door to ring, when
Mrs. Simm looked in, and, seeing Ivy, informed her that
Mr. Clerron was in the garden, and desired her to come
out. Ivy immediately followed Mrs. Simm into the garden.
On the south side of the house was a piazza two stories high.
Along the pillars which supported it a trellis-work had been
constructed, reaching several feet above the roof of the
piazza. About this climbed a vigorous grape-vine, which
not only completely screened nearly the whole front of the
piazza, but, reaching the top of the trellis, shot across, by
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the aid of a few pieces of fine wire, and overran a part of
the roof of the house. Thus the roof of the piazza was the
floor of a beautiful apartment, whose walls and ceiling were
broad, rustling, green leaves, among which drooped now
innumerable heavy clusters of rich purple grapes.
From behind this leafy wall a well-known voice cried,
“All hail, my twining vine!” Ivy turned and looked up,
with the uncertain, inquiring smile we often wear when conscious
that, though unseeing, we are not unseen; and presently
two hands parted the leaves far enough for a very
sunshiny smile to gleam down on the upturned face.
“O, I wish I could come up there!” cried Ivy, clasping
her hands with childish eagerness.
“The wish is father to the deed.”
“May I?”
“Be sure you may.”
“But how shall I get in?”
“Are you afraid to come up the ladder?”
“No, I don't mean that; but how shall I get in where
you are, after I am up?”
“O, never fear! I 'll draw you in safely enough.”
“Lorful heart! Miss Ivy, what are you going to do?”
cried Mrs. Simm, in terror.
Ivy was already on the third round of the ladder, but she
stopped and answered, hesitatingly, —
“He said I might.”
“He said you might, yes,” continued Mrs. Simm, — talking
to Ivy, but at Mr. Clerron, with whom she hardly dared
to remonstrate in a more direct way. “And if he said you
might throw yourself down Vineyard Cliff, it don't follow
that you are bound to do it. He goes into all sorts of haphazard
scrapes himself, but you can't follow him.”
“But it looks so nice up there,” pleaded Ivy, “and I have
been twice as high at home. I don't mind it at all.”
“If your father chooses to let you run the risk of your
life, it 's none of my lookout, but I a'n't going to have you
breaking your neck right under my nose. If you want to
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get up there, I 'll show you the way in the house, and you
can step right out of the window. Just wait till I 've told
Ellen about the dinner.”
As Mrs. Simm disappeared, Mr. Clerron said softly to
Ivy, “Come!” — and in a moment Ivy bounded up the
ladder and through an opening in the vine, and stood by
his side.
“I 'm ready now, Miss Ivy,” said Mrs. Simm, reappearing.
“Miss Ivy! Where is the child?”
A merry laugh greeted her.
“O, you good-for-nothing!” cried the good-natured old
housekeeper, “you 'll never die in your bed.”
“Not for a good while, I hope,” answered Mr. Clerron.
Then he made Ivy sit down by him, and took from the
great basket the finest cluster of grapes.
“Is that reward enough for coming?”
“Coming into so beautiful a place as this is like what you
read yesterday about poetry to Coleridge, `its own exceeding
great reward.'”
“And you don't want the grapes?”
“I don't know that I have any intrinsic objection to them
as a free gift. It was only the principle that I opposed.”
“Very well, we will go shares, then. You may have half
for the free gift, and I will have half for the principle. Little
tendril, you look as fresh as the morning.”
“Don't I always?”
“I should say there was a little more dew than usual.
Stand up and let me survey you, if perchance I may discover
the cause.”
Ivy rose, made a profound courtesy, and then turned
slowly around, after the manner of the revolving fashion-figures
in a milliner's window.
“I don't know,” continued Mr. Clerron, when Ivy, after a
couple of revolutions, resumed her seat. “You seem to be
the same. I think it must be the frock.”
“I don't wear a frock. I don't think it would improve
my style of beauty if I did. Papa wears one sometimes.”
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“And what kind of a frock, pray, does `papa' wear?”
“O, a horrid blue thing. Comes about down to his
knees. Made of some kind of woollen stuff. Horrid!”
“And what name do you give to that white thing with
blue sprays in it?”
“This?”
“Yes.”
“This is a dress.”
“No. This, and your collar, and hat, and shoes, and sash
are your dress. This is a frock.”
Ivy shook her head doubtfully.
“You know a great deal, I know.”
“So you informed me once before.”
“O, don't mention that!” said Ivy, blushing, and quickly
added, “Do you know I have discovered the reason why
you like me this morning?”
“And every morning.”
“Sir?”
“Go on. What is the reason?”
“It is because I clear-starched and ironed it myself with
my owny-dony hands; and that, you know, is the reason it
looks nicer than usual.”
“Ah me! I wish I wore dresses.”
“You can, if you choose, I suppose. There is no one to
hinder you.”
“Simpleton! that is not what you were intended to say.
You should have asked the cause of so singular a wish, and
then I had a pretty little speech all ready for you, — a veritable
compliment.”
“It is well I did not ask, then. Mamma does not approve
of compliments, and perhaps it would have made me vain.”
“Incorrigible! Why did you not ask me what the speech
was, and thus give me an opportunity to relieve myself.
Why, a body might die of a plethora of flattery, if he had
nobody but you to discharge it against.”
“He must take care, then, that the supply does not exceed
the demand.”
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“Political economy, upon my word! What shall we have
next?”
“Domestic, I suppose you would like. Men generally,
indeed, prefer it to the other, I am told.”
“Ah, Ivy, Ivy! little you know about men, my child!”
He leaned back in his seat and was silent for some minutes.
Ivy did not care to interrupt his thinking. Presently
he said, —
“Ivy, how old are you?”
“I shall be seventeen the last day of this month.”
A short pause.
“And then eighteen.”
“And then nineteen.”
“And then twenty. In three years you will be twenty.”
“Horrid old, is n't it?”
He turned his head, and looked down upon her with what
Ivy thought a curious kind of smile, but only said, —
“You must not say `horrid' so much.”
By and by Ivy grew rather tired of sitting silent and
watching the rustle of the leaves, which hid every other
prospect; she turned a little so that she could look at him.
He sat with folded arms, looking straight ahead; and she
thought his face wore a troubled expression. She felt as if
she would like very much to smooth out the wrinkles in his
forehead and run her fingers through his hair, as she sometimes
did for her father. She had a great mind to ask him
if she should; then she reflected that it might make him
nervous. Then she wondered if he had forgotten her lessons,
and how long they were to sit there. Determined, at
length, to have a change of some kind, she said, softly, —
“Mr. Clerron!”
He roused himself suddenly, and stood up.
“I thought, perhaps, you had a headache.”
“No, Ivy. But this is not climbing the hill of science, is
it?”
“Not so much as it is climbing the piazza.”
“Suppose we take a vacation to-day, and investigate the
state of the atmosphere?”
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“Yes, sir, I am ready.”
Ivy did not fully understand the nature of his proposition;
but if he had proposed to “put a girdle round the
earth in forty minutes,” she would have said and acted,
“Yes, sir, I am ready,” just the same.
He took up the basket of grapes which he had gathered,
and led the way through the window, down-stairs. Ivy
waited for him at the hall-door, while he carried the grapes
to Mrs. Simm; then he joined her again and proposed to
walk through the woods a little while, before Ivy went
home.
“You must know, my docile pupil, that I am going to the
city to-morrow, on business, to be gone a week or two. So,
as you must perforce take a vacation then, why, we may as
well begin to vacate to-day, and enjoy it.”
“I am sorry you are going away.”
“You are? That is almost enough to pay me for going.
Why are you sorry?”
“Because I shall not see you for a week; and I have become
so used to you, that somehow I don't seem to know
what to do with a day without you; and then the cars may
run off the track and kill you or hurt you, or you may get
the small-pox, or a great many things may happen.”
“And suppose some of these terrible things should happen, —
the last, for instance, — what would you do?”
“I? I should advise you to send for the doctor at once.”
Mr. Clerron laughed.
“So you would not come and nurse me, and take care of
me, and get me well again?”
“No, because I should then be in danger of taking it
myself and giving it to papa and mamma; besides, they
would not let me, I am quite sure.”
“So you love your papa and mamma better than —”
He stopped abruptly. Ivy finished for him.
“Better than words can tell. Papa particularly. Mamma,
somehow, seems strong of herself, and does n't depend
upon me; but papa, — O, you don't know how he is to me!
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I think, if I should die, he would die of grief. I have, I
cannot help having, a kind of pity for him, he loves me so.”
“Do you always pity people, when they love you very
much?”
“O no! of course not. Besides, nobody loves me enough
to be pitied, except papa. — Is n't it pleasant here? How
very green it is! It looks just like summer. O Mr. Clerron,
did you see the clouds this morning?”
“There were none when I arose.”
“Why, yes, sir, there was a great heap of them at sunrise.”
“I am not prepared to contradict you.”
“Perhaps you were not up at sunrise.”
“I have an impression to that effect.”
He smiled so comically, that Ivy could not help saying,
though she was half afraid he might not be pleased, —
“I wonder whether you are an early riser.”
“Yes, my dear, I consider myself tolerably early. I believe
I have been up every morning but one, this week, by
nine o'clock.”
Ivy was horror-struck. Her country ideas of “early to
bed and early to rise” received a great shock, as her looks
plainly showed. He laughed gayly at her amazed face.
“You don't seem to appreciate me, Miss Geer.”
“`Nine o'clock'!” repeated Ivy, slowly, — “`every morning
but one'! and it is Tuesday to-day.”
“Yes, but you know yesterday was a dark, cloudy day,
and excellent for sleeping.”
“But, Mr. Clerron, then you are not more than fairly up
when I come. And when do you write?”
“Always in the evening.”
“But the evenings are so short, — or have been.”
“Mine are not particularly so. From six to three is
about long enough for one sitting.”
“I should think so. And you must be so tired!”
“Not so tired as you think. You, now, rising at five or
six, and running round all day, become so tired that you
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have to go to bed by nine; of course you have no time for
reflection and meditation. I, on the contrary, take life easily, —
write in the night, when everything is still and quiet,—
take my sleep when all the noise of the world's wakingup
is going on, — and after creation is fairly settled for the
day, I rise leisurely, breakfast leisurely, take a smoke leisurely,
and leisurely wait the coming of my little pupil.”
“Mr. Clerron!”
“Well!”
“May I tell you another thing I don't like in you? a bad
habit?”
“As many as you please, provided you won't require me
to reform.”
“What is the use of telling it, then?”
“But it may be a relief to you. You will have the satisfaction
arising from doing your duty. We shall exchange
opinions, and perhaps come to a better understanding. Go
on.”
“Well, sir, I wish you did not smoke so much.”
“I don't smoke very much, little Ivy.”
“I wish you would not at all. Mamma thinks it is very
injurious, and wrong, even. And papa says cigars are bad
things.”
“Some of them are outrageous. But, my dear, granting
your father and mother and yourself to be right, don't you
see I am doing more to extirpate the evil than you, with all
your principle? I exterminate, destroy, and ruin them at
the rate of three a day; while you, I venture to say, never
lifted a finger or lighted a spark against them.”
“Now, sir, that is only a way of slipping round the question.
And I really wish you did not. Before I knew you,
I thought it was almost as bad to smoke as it was to steal.
I know, however, now, that it cannot be; still —”
“Feminine logic.”
“I have not studied Logic yet; still, as I was going to
say, sir, I don't like to think of you as being in a kind of
subjection to anything.”
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“Ivy, seriously, I am not in subjection to a cigar. I often
don't smoke for months together. To prove it, I promise
you I won't smoke for the next two months.”
“O, I am so glad! O, I am so much obliged to you!
And you are not in the least vexed that I spoke to you about
it?”
“Not in the least.”
“I was afraid you would be. And one thing more, sir, I
have been afraid of, the last few days. You know when I
first knew you, or before I knew you, I supposed you did
nothing but walk round and enjoy yourself all day. But
now I know you do work very hard; and I have feared that
you could not well spare two hours every day for me, — particularly
in the morning, which are almost always considered
the best. But if you like to write in the evening, you
would just as soon I would come in the morning?”
“Certainly.”
“But if two hours are too much, I hope you won't, at any
time, hesitate to tell me. I have no claim on a moment, —
only —”
“My dear Ivy Geer, pupil and friend, be so good as to
understand, henceforth, that you cannot possibly come into
my house at any time when you are not wanted; nor stay
any longer than I want you; nor say anything that will not
please me; — well, I am not quite sure about that; — but,
at least, remember that I am always glad to see you, and
teach you, and have you with me; and that I can never
hope to do you as much good as you do me every day of
your blessed life.”
“O Mr. Clerron!” exclaimed Ivy, with a great gush of
gratitude and happiness; “do I, can I, do you any good?”
“You do and can, my tendril! You supply an element
that was wanting in my life. You make every day beautiful
to me. The flutter of your robes among these trees brings
sunshine into my heart. Every morning I walk in my garden
as soon as I am, as you say, fairly up, till I see you
turn into the lane; and every day I watch you till you
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disappear. You are fresh and truthful and natural, and you
give me new life. And now, my dear little trembling benefactor,
because we are nearly through the woods, I can go
no farther with you; and because I am going away to-morrow,
not to see you again for a week, and because I hope
you will be a little lonesome while I am gone, why, I think
I must let you — kiss me!”
Ivy had been looking intently into his face, with an expression,
at first, of the most beaming, tearful delight, then
gradually changing into waiting wonder; but when his sentence
finally closed, she stood still, scarcely able to comprehend.
He placed his hands on her temples, and, smiling
involuntarily at her blushes and embarrassment, half in
sport and half in tenderness, bent her head a little back,
touched brow, cheeks, and lips, whispered softly, “Go now!
God bless you for ever and ever, my darling!” and, turning
walked hastily down the winding path. As for Ivy, she went
home in a dream, blind and stunned with a great joy.
The week of Mr. Clerron's absence passed away more
quickly than Ivy had supposed it would. The reason for
this may be found in the fact that her thoughts were very
busily occupied. She was more silent than usual, so much
so that her father one day said to her, — “Ivy, I have n't
heard you sing this long while, and seems to me you don't
talk either. What 's the matter?”
“Do I look as if anything was the matter?” and the face
she turned upon him was so radiant, that even the father's
heart was satisfied.
Very quietly happy was Ivy to think she was of service
to Mr. Clerron, that she could give him pleasure, — though
she could in no wise understand how it was. She went
over every event since her acquaintance with him; she felt
how much he had done for her, and how much he had been
to her; but she sought in vain to discover how she had
been of any use to him. She only knew that she was the
most ignorant and insignificant girl in the whole world, and
that he was the best and greatest man. As this was very
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nearly the same conclusion at which she had arrived at an
early period of their acquaintance, it cannot be said that
her week of reflection was productive of any very valuable
results.
The day before Mr. Clerron's expected return, Ivy sat
down to prepare her lessons, and for the first time remembered
that she had left her books in Mr. Clerron's library.
She was not sorry to have so good an excuse for visiting
the familiar room, though its usual occupant was not there
to welcome her. Very quietly and joyfully happy, she trod
slowly along the path through the woods where she last
walked with Mr. Clerron. She was, indeed, at a loss to
know why she was so calm. Always before, a sudden influx
of joy testified itself by very active demonstrations.
She was quite sure that she had never in her life been so
happy as now; yet she never had felt less disposed to leap
and dance and sing. The non-solution of the problem,
however, did not ruffle her serenity. She was content to
accept the facts, and await patiently the theory.
Arriving at the house, she went, as usual, into the library
without ringing, — but, not finding the books, proceeded in
search of Mrs. Simm. That notable lady was sitting behind
a huge pile of clean clothes, sorting and mending to
her heart's content. She looked up over her spectacles at
Ivy's bright “good morning,” and invited her to come in.
Ivy declined, and begged to know if Mrs. Simm had seen
her books. To be sure she had, like the good housekeeper
that she was. “You 'll find them in the book-case, second
shelf; but, Miss Ivy, I wish you would come in, for I 've
had something on my mind that I 've felt to tell you this
long while.”
Ivy came in, took the seat opposite Mrs. Simm, and
waited for her to speak; but Mrs. Simm seemed to be in
no hurry to speak. She dropped her glasses; Ivy picked
them up and handed them to her. She muttered something
about the destructive habits of men, especially in regard to
buttons; and presently, as if determined to come to the
subject at once, abruptly exclaimed, —
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“Miss Ivy, you 're a real good girl, I know, and as innocent
as a lamb. That 's why I 'm going to talk to you as
I do. I know, if you were my child, I should want somebody
to do the same by you.”
Ivy could only stare in blank astonishment. After a
moment's pause, Mrs. Simm continued, —
“I 've seen how things have been going on for some time;
but my mouth was shut, though my eyes were open. I
did n't know but maybe I 'd better speak to your mother
about it; but then, thinks I to myself, she 'll think it is a
great deal worse than it is, and then, like enough, there 'll be
a rumpus. So I concluded, on the whole, I 'd just tell you
what I thought; and I know you are a sensible girl and
will take it all right. Now you must promise me not to get
mad.”
“No,” gasped Ivy.
“I like you a sight. It 's no flattery, but the truth, to say
I think you 're as pretty-behaved a girl as you 'll find in a
thousand. And all the time you 've been here, I never have
known you to do a thing you had n't ought to. And Mr.
Clerron thinks so too, and there 's the trouble. You see,
dear, he 's a man, and men go on their ways and like
women, and talk to them, and sort of bewitch them, not
meaning to do them any hurt, — and enjoy their company
of an evening, and go about their own business in the
morning, and never think of it again; but women stay at
home, and brood over it, and think there 's something in
it, and build a fine air-castle, — and when they find it 's all
smoke, they mope and pine and take on. Now that 's what
I don 't want you to do. Perhaps you 'd think I 'd better
have spoken with Mr. Clerron; but it would n't signify the
head of a pin. He 'd either put on the Clerron look and
scare you to death and not say a word, or else he 'd hold
it up in such a ridiculous way as to make you think it was
ridiculous yourself. And I thought I 'd put you on your
guard a little, so as you need n't fall in love with him.
You 'll like him, of course. He likes you; but a young
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girl like you might make a mistake, if she was ever so
modest and sweet, — and nobody could be modester or
sweeter than you, — and think a man loved you to marry
you, when he only pets and plays with you. Not that Mr.
Clerron means to do anything wrong. He 'd be perfectly
miserable himself, if he thought he 'd led you on. There
ain't a more honorable man every way in the whole country.
Now, Miss Ivy, it 's all for your good I say this. I
don 't find fault with you, not a bit. It 's only to save you
trouble in store that I warn you to look where you stand,
and see that you don't lose your heart before you know it.
It 's an awful thing for a woman, Miss Ivy, to get a notion
after a man who has n't got a notion after her. Men go
out and work and delve and drive, and forget; but there
ain't much in darning stockings and making pillow-cases
to take a woman's thought off her troubles, and sometimes
they get sp'iled for life.”
Ivy had remained speechless from amazement; but when
Mrs. Simm had finished, she said, with a sudden accession
of womanly dignity that surprised the good housekeeper, —
“Mrs. Simm, I cannot conceive why you should speak
in this way to me. If you suppose I am not quite able to
take care of myself, I assure you you are very much mistaken.”
“Lorful heart! Now, Miss Ivy, you promised you
would n't be mad.”
“And I have kept my promise. I am not mad.”
“No, but you answer up short like, and that is n't what I
thought of you, Ivy Geer.”
Mrs. Simm looked so disappointed that Ivy took a lower
tone, and at any rate she would have had to do it soon; for
her fortitude gave way, and she burst into a flood of tears.
She was not, by any means, a heroine, and could not put on
the impenetrable mask of a woman of the world.
“Now, dear, don't be so distressful, dear, don't!” said
Mrs. Simm, soothingly. “I can't bear to see you.”
“I am sure I never thought of such a thing as falling in
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love with Mr. Clerron or anybody else,” sobbed Ivy, “and
I don't know what should make you think so.”
“Dear heart, I don't think so. I only told you, so you
need n't.”
“Why, I should as soon think of marrying the angel
Gabriel!”
“O, don't talk so, dear; he 's no more than man, after
all; but still, you know, he 's no fit match for you. To say
nothing of his being older, and all that, I don't think it 's
the right place for you. Your father and mother are very
nice folks; I am sure nobody could ask for better neighbors,
and their good word is in everybody's mouth; and
they 've brought you up well, I am sure; but, my dear, you
know it 's nothing against you nor them that you ain't
used to splendor, and you would n't take to it natural like.
You 'd get tired of that way of life, and want to go back
to the old fashions, and you 'd most likely have to leave
your father and mother; for it 's noways probable Mr.
Clerron will stay here always; and when he goes back to
the city, think what a dreary life you 'd have betwixt his
two proud sisters, on the one hand, — to be sure, there 's
no reason why they should be; their gran'ther was a tailor,
and their grandma was his apprentice, and he got rich,
and gave all his children learning; and Mr. Felix's father,
he was a lawyer, and he got rich by speculation, and so the
two girls always had on their high-heeled boots; but Mr.
Clerron, he always laughs at them, and brings up “the
grand-paternal shop,” as he calls it, and provokes them
terribly, I know. Well, that 's neither here nor there; but,
as I was saying, here you 'll have them on the one side,
and all the fine ladies on the other, and a great house and
servants, and parties to see to, and, lorful heart! Miss Ivy,
you 'd die in three years; and if you know when you 're
well off, you 'll stay at home, and marry and settle down
near the old folks. Believe me, my dear, it 's a bad thing
both for the man and the woman, when she marries above
her.”
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“Mrs. Simm,” said Ivy, rising, “will you promise me
one thing?”
“Certainly, child, if I can.”
“Will you promise me never again to mention this thing
to me, or allude to it in the most distant manner?”
“Miss Ivy, now,” — began Mrs. Simm, deprecatingly.
“Because,” interrupted Ivy, speaking very thick and fast,
“you cannot imagine how disagreeable it is to me. It
makes me feel ashamed to think of what you have said,
and that you could have thought it even. I suppose —
indeed, I know — that you did it because you thought you
ought; but you may be certain that I am in no danger
from Mr. Clerron, nor is there the slightest probability that
his fortune, or honor, or reputation, or sisters will ever be
disturbed by me. I am very much obliged to you for your
good intentions, and I wish you good morning.”
“Don't, now, Miss Ivy, go so —”
But Miss Ivy was gone, and Mrs. Simm could only withdraw
to her pile of clothes, and console herself by stitching
and darning with renewed vigor. She felt rather uneasy
about the result of her morning's work, though she had
really done it from a conscientious sense of duty.
“Welladay,” she sighed, at last, “she 'd better be a little
cut up and huffy now, than to walk into a ditch blindfolded;
and I wash my hands of whatever may happen
after this. I 've had my say and done my part.”
Alas, Ivy Geer! The Indian summer day was just as
calm and beautiful, — the far-off mountains wore their veil
of mist just as aerially, — the brook rippled over the stones
with just as soft a melody; but what “discord on the
music” had fallen! what “darkness on the glory”! A miserable,
dull, dead weight was the heart which throbbed so
lightly but an hour before. Wearily, drearily, she dragged
herself home. It was nearly sunset when she arrived, and
she told her mother she was tired and had the headache,
which was true, — though, if she had said heartache, it
would have been truer. Her mother immediately did what
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ninety-nine mothers out of a hundred would do in similar
circumstances, — made her swallow a cup of strong tea,
and sent her to bed. Alas, alas that there are sorrows
which the strongest tea cannot assuage!
When the last echo of her mother's footstep died on the
stairs, and Ivy was alone in the darkness, the tide of bitterness
and desolation swept unchecked over her soul, and
she wept tears more passionate and desponding than her
life had ever before known, — tears of shame and indignation
and grief. It was true that the thought which Mrs.
Simm had suggested had never crossed her mind before;
yet it is no less true, that, all-unconsciously, she had been
weaving a golden web, whose threads, though too fine and
delicate even for herself to perceive, were yet strong enough
to entangle her life in their meshes. A secret chamber, far
removed from the noise and din of the world, — a chamber
whose soft and rose-tinted light threw its radiance over her
whole future, and within whose quiet recesses she loved
to sit alone and dream away the hours, — had been rudely
entered, and thrown violently open to the light of day, and
Ivy saw with dismay how its pictures had become ghastly
and its sacredness was defiled. With bitter, though needless
and useless self-reproach, she saw how she had suffered
herself to be fascinated. Sorrowfully, she felt that Mrs.
Simm's words were true, and a great gulf lay between her
and him. She pictured him moving easily and gracefully
and naturally among scenes which to her inexperienced eye
were grand and stately; and then, with a sharp pain, she
felt how constrained and awkward and entirely unfit for
such a life was she. Then her thoughts reverted to her
parents, — their unchanging love, their happiness depending
on her, their solicitude and watchfulness, — and she
felt as if ingratitude were added to her other sins, that
she could have so attached herself to any other. And
again came back the bitter, burning agony of shame that
she had done the very thing that Mrs. Simm too late had
warned her not to do; she had been carried away by the
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kindness and tenderness of her friend, and, unasked, had
laid the wealth of her heart at his feet. So the night
flushed into morning; and the sun rose upon a pale face
and a trembling form, — but not upon a faint heart; for
Ivy, kneeling by the couch where her morning and evening
prayer had gone up since lisping infancy, — kneeling no
longer a child, but a woman, matured through love, matured,
alas! through suffering, prayed for strength and
comfort; prayed that her parents' love might be rendered
back into their own bosoms a hundred-fold; prayed that
her friend's kindness to her might not be an occasion of
sin against God, and that she might be enabled to walk
with a steady step in the path that lay before her. And
she arose strengthened and comforted.
All the morning she lay quiet and silent on the lounge
in the little sitting-room. Her mother, busied with household
matters, only looked in upon her occasionally, and,
as the eyes were always closed, did not speak, thinking her
asleep. Ivy was not asleep. Ten thousand little sprites
flitted swiftly through the chambers of her brain, humming,
singing, weeping, but always busy, busy. Then softly came
another tread, and she knew her dear old father had drawn
a chair close to her, and was looking into her face. Tears
came into her eyes, her lip involuntarily quivered, and then
she felt the pressure of his — his! — surely that was not
her father's kiss! She started up. No, no! that was not
her father's face bending over her, — not her father's eyes
smiling into hers; but, woe for Ivy! her soul thrilled with
a deeper bliss, her heart leaped with a swifter bound, and
for a moment all the experience and suffering and resolutions
of the last night were as if they had never been.
Only for a moment, and then with a strong effort she remembered
the impassable gulf.
“A pretty welcome home you have given me!” said Mr.
Clerron, lightly.
He saw that something was weighing on her spirits, but
did not wish to distress her by seeming to notice it.
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“I wait in my library, I walk in my garden, expecting
every moment will bring you, — and lo! here you are lying,
doing nothing but look pale and pretty as hard as you can.”
Ivy smiled; but did not consider it prudent to speak.
“I found your books, however, and have brought them
to you. You thought you would escape a lesson finely, did
you not? But you see I have outwitted you.”
“Yes, — I went for the books yesterday,” said Ivy, “but
I got talking with Mrs. Simm and forgot them.”
“Ah!” he replied, looking somewhat surprised. “I did
not know Mrs. Simm could be so entertaining. She must
have exerted herself. Pray, now, if it would not be impertinent,
what subject was it that drove everything else
from your mind? The best way of preserving apples, I
dare swear, or the superiority of pickled grapes to pickled
cucumbers.”
“No,” said Ivy, with the ghost of another smile, — “we
talked upon various subjects; but not those. How do you
do, Mr. Clerron? Have you had a pleasant visit to the
city?”
“Very well, I thank you, Miss Geer; and I have not
had a remarkably pleasant visit, I am obliged to you.
Have I the pleasure of seeing you quite well, Miss Geer, —
quite fresh and buoyant?”
The lightness of tone which he had assumed had precisely
the opposite effect intended.
“Ye banks and braes o' bonny Doon,
How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair?
How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I sae weary fu' o' care?”
is the wail of stricken humanity everywhere. And Ivy
thought of Mr. Clerron, rich, learned, elegant, happy, on
the current of whose life she only floated a pleasant ripple,—
and of herself, poor, plain, ignorant, to whom he was
the life of life, the all in all. I would not have you suppose
this passed through her mind precisely as I have written
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it. By no means. The ideas rather trooped through in a
pellmell sort of way; but they got through just as effectually.
Now, if Ivy had been content to let her muscles
remain perfectly still, her face might have given no sign
of the confusion within; but, with a foolish presumption,
she undertook to smile, and so quite lost control of the
little rebels, who immediately twisted themselves into a sob.
Her whole frame convulsed with weeping and trying not
to weep, he forced her gently back on the pillow, and, bending
low, whispered softly, —
“Ivy what is it?”
“O, don't ask me! — please, don't! Please, go away!”
murmured the poor child.
“I will, my dear, in a minute; but you must think I
should be a little anxious. I leave you as gay as a bird,
and healthy and rosy, — and when I come back, I find you
white and sad and ill. I am sure something weighs on
your mind. I assure you, my little Ivy, and you must
believe, that I am your true friend, — and if you would
confide in me, perhaps I could bring you comfort. It would
at least relieve you to let me help you bear the burden.”
The burden being of such a nature, it is not at all probable
that Ivy would have assented to his proposition; but
the welcome entrance of her mother prevented the necessity
of replying.
“O, you 're awake! Well, I told Mr. Clerron he might
come in, though I thought you would n't be. Slept well
this morning, did n't you, deary, to make up for last night?”
“No, mamma, I have n't been asleep.”
“Crying, my dear? Well, now, that 's a pretty good one!
Nervous she is, Mr. Clerron, always nervous, when the least
thing ails her; and she did n't sleep a wink last night,
which is a bad thing for the nerves, — and Ivy generally
sleeps like a top. She walked over to your house yesterday,
and when she got home she was entirely beat out, —
looked as if she had been sick a week. I don't know why
it was, for the walk could n't have hurt her. She 's always
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dancing round at home. I don't think she 's been exactly
well for four or five days. Her father and I both thought
she 'd been more quiet like than usual.”
The sudden pang that shot across Ivy's face was not
unobserved by Mr. Clerron. A thought came into his
mind. He had risen at Mrs. Geer's entrance, and he now
expressed his regret for Ivy's illness, and hoped that she
would soon be well, and able to resume her studies; and,
with a few words of interest and inquiry to Mrs. Geer, took
his leave.
“I wonder if Mrs. Simm has been making mischief!”
thought he, as he stalked home rather more energetically
than was his custom.
That unfortunate lady was in her sitting-room, starching
muslins, when Mr. Clerron entered. She had surmised
that he was gone to the farm, and had looked for his return
with a shadow of dread. She saw by his face that
something was wrong.
“Mrs. Simm,” he began, somewhat abruptly, but not
disrespectfully, “may I beg your pardon for inquiring what
Ivy Geer talked to you about, yesterday?”
“O, good Lord! she ha' n't told you, has she?” cried
Mrs. Simm, — her fear of God, for once, yielding to her
greater fear of man. The embroidered collar, which she
had been vigorously beating, dropped to the floor, and she
gazed at him with such terror and dismay in every lineament,
that he could not help being amused. He picked up
the collar, which, in her perturbation, she had not noticed,
and said, —
“No, she has told me nothing; but I find her excited
and ill, and I have reason to believe it is connected with
her visit here yesterday. If it is anything relating to me,
and which I have a right to know, you would do me a
great favor by enlightening me on the subject.”
Mrs. Simm had not a particle of that knowledge in
which Young America is so great a proficient, namely, the
“knowing how to get out of a scrape.” She was, besides,
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alarmed at the effect of her words on Ivy, supposing nothing
less than that the girl was in the last stages of a swift
consumption; so she sat down, and, rubbing her starchy
hands together, with many a deprecatory “you know,” and
apologetic “I am sure I thought I was acting for the best,”
gave, considering her agitation, a tolerably accurate account
of the whole interview. Her interlocutor saw plainly
that she had acted from a sincere conscientiousness, and
not from a meddlesome, mischievous interference; so he
only thanked her for her kind interest, and suggested that
he had now arrived at an age when it would, perhaps, be
well for him to conduct matters, particularly of so delicate
a nature, solely according to his own judgment. He was
sorry to have given her any trouble.
“Scissors cuts only what comes between 'em,” soliloquized
Mrs. Simm, when the door closed behind him. “If
ever I meddle with a courting-business again, my name
ain't Martha Simm. No, they may go to Halifax, whoever
they be, 'fore ever I 'll lift a finger.”
It is a great pity that the world generally has not been
brought to make the same wise resolution.
One, two, three, four days passed away, and still Ivy pondered
the question so often wrung from man in his bewildered
gropings, “What shall I do?” Every day brought
her teacher and friend to comfort, amuse, and strengthen.
Every morning she resolved to be on her guard, to remember
the impassable gulf. Every evening she felt the
silken cords drawing tighter and tighter around her soul,
and binding her closer and closer to him. She thought
she might die, and the thought gave her a sudden joy.
Death would solve the problem at once. If only a few
weeks or months lay before her, she could quietly rest on
him, and give herself up to him and wait in heaven for all
rough places to be made plain. But Ivy did not die.
Youth and nursing and herb-tea were too strong for her,
and the color came back to her cheek and the languor went
out from her blue eyes. She saw nothing to be done but
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to resume her old routine. It would be difficult to say
whether she was more glad or sorry at seeming to see this
necessity. She knew her danger, and it was very fascinating.
She did not look into the far-off future; she only
prayed to be kept from day to day. Perhaps her course
was wise; perhaps not. But she had to rely on her own
judgment alone; and her judgment was founded on inexperience,
which is not a trustworthy basis.
A new difficulty arose. Ivy found that she could not
resume her old habits. To be sure, she learned her lessons
just as perfectly at home as she had ever done. Just as
punctual to the appointed hour, she went to recite them;
but no sooner had her foot crossed Mr. Clerron's threshold
than her spirit seemed to die within her. She remembered
neither words nor ideas. Day after day, she attempted to
go through her recitation as usual, and, day after day, she
hesitated, stammered, and utterly failed. His gentle assistance
only increased her embarrassment. This she was too
proud to endure; and, one day, after an unsuccessful effort,
she closed the book with a quick, impatient gesture, and
exclaimed, —
“Mr. Clerron, I shall not recite any more!”
The agitated flush which had suffused her face gave way
to paleness. He saw that she was under strong excitement,
and quietly replied, —
“Very well, you need not, if you are tired. You are not
quite well yet, and must not try to do too much. We will
commence here to-morrow.”
“No, sir, — I shall not recite any more at all.”
“Till to-morrow.”
“Never any more!”
There was a moment's pause.
“You must not lose patience, my dear. In a few days
you will recite as well as ever. A fine notion, forsooth,
because you have been ill, and forgotten a little, to give up
studying! And what is to become of my laurels, pray, —
all the glory I am to get by your proficiency?”
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“I shall study at home just the same, but I shall not
recite.”
“Why not?”
His look became serious.
“Because I cannot. I do not think it best, — and — and
I will not.”
Another pause.
“Ivy, do you not like your teacher?”
“No, sir. I hate you!”
The words seemed to flash from her lips. She sprang
up and stood erect before him, her eyes on fire, and every
nerve quivering with intense excitement. He was shocked
and startled. It was a new phase of her character, — a
new revelation. He, too, arose, and walked to the window.
If Ivy could have seen the workings of his face, there
would have been a revelation to her also. But she was too
highly excited to notice anything. He came back to her
and spoke in a low voice, —
“Ivy, this is too much. This I did not expect.”
He laid his hand upon her head as he had often done
before. She shook it off passionately.
“Yes, I hate you. I hate you, because —”
“Because I wanted you to love me?”
“No, sir; because I do love you, and you bring me only
wretchedness. I have never been happy since the miserable
day I first saw you.”
“Then, Ivy, I have utterly failed in what it has been my
constant endeavor to do.”
“No, sir, you have succeeded in what you endeavored
to do. You have taught me. You have given me knowledge
and thought, and showed me the source of knowledge.
But I had better have been the ignorant girl you found me.
You have taken from me what I can never find again. I
have made a bitter exchange. I was ignorant and stupid,
I know, — but I was happy and contented; and now I am
wretched and miserable and wicked. You have come between
me and my home and my father and mother, —
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between me and all the bliss of my past and all my hope for
the future.”
“And thus, Ivy, have you come between me and my past
and my future; — yet not thus. You shut out from my
heart all the sorrow and vexation and strife that have
clouded my life, and fill it with your own dear presence.
You come between me and my future, because, in looking
forward, I see only you. I should have known better.
There is a gulf between us; but if I could make you
happy —”
“I don't want you to make me happy. I know there is
a gulf between us. I saw it while you were gone. I
measured it and fathomed it. I shall not leap across.
Stay you on your side quietly; I shall stay as quietly on
mine.”
“It is too late for that, Ivy, — too late now. But you
are not to blame, my child. Little sunbeam that you are,
I will not cloud you. Go shine upon other lives as you have
shone upon mine! light up other hearths as you have mine!
and I will bless you forever, though mine —”
He turned away with an expression on his face that Ivy
could not read. Her passion was gone. She hesitated a
moment, then went to his side and laid her hand softly on
his arm. There was a strange moistened gleam in his eyes
as he turned them upon her.
“Mr. Clerron, I do not understand you.”
“My dear, you never can understand me.”
“I know it,” said Ivy, with her old humility; “but, at
least, I might understand whether I have vexed you.”
“You have not vexed me.”
“I spoke proudly and rudely to you. I was angry, and
so unhappy. I shall always be so; I shall never be happy
again; but I want you to be, and you do not look as if
you were.”
If Ivy had not been a little fool, she would not have
spoken so; but she was, so she did.
“I beg your pardon, little tendril. I was so occupied
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with my own preconceived ideas that I forgot to sympathize
with you. Tell me why or how I have made you
unhappy. But I know; you need not. I assure you, however,
that you are entirely wrong. It was a prudish and
whimsical notion of my good old housekeeper's. You are
never to think of it again. I never attributed such a
thought or feeling to you.”
“Did you suppose that was all that made me unhappy?”
“Can there be anything else?”
“I am glad you think so. Perhaps I should not have
been unhappy but for that, at least not so soon; but that
alone could never have made me so.”
Little fool again! She was like a chicken thrusting its
head into a corner and thinking itself out of danger because
it cannot see the danger. She had no notion that
she was giving him the least clew to the truth, but considered
herself speaking with more than Delphic prudence.
She rather liked to coast along the shores of her trouble
and see how near she could approach without running
aground; but she struck before she knew it.
Mr. Clerron's face suddenly changed. He took both her
hands, and drew her towards him.
“Ivy, perhaps I have been misunderstanding you. I
will at least find out the truth. Ivy, do you know that I
love you, that I have loved you almost from the first, that
I would gladly here and now take you to my heart and
keep you here forever?”
“I do not know it,” faltered Ivy, half beside herself.
“Know it now, then! I am older than you, and I seem
to myself so far removed from you that I have feared to
ask you to trust your happiness to my keeping, lest I should
lose you entirely; but sometimes you say or do something
which gives me hope. My experience has been very different
from yours. I am not worthy to clasp your purity
and loveliness. Still I would do it if — Tell me, Ivy,
does it give you pain or pleasure?”
Ivy took his hands, as he had before held hers, gazed
steadily into his eyes, and said, —
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“Mr. Clerron, are you in earnest? Do you love me?”
“I am, Ivy. I do love you.”
“How do you love me?”
“I love you with all the strength and power that God has
given me.”
“You do not simply pity me? You have not, because
you heard from Mrs. Simm, or suspected, yourself, that I
was weak enough to mistake your kindness and nobleness,—
you have not in pity resolved to sacrifice your happiness
to mine?”
“No, Ivy, — nothing of the kind. I pity only myself.
I reverence you. I think — I have hoped that you loved
me as a teacher and friend. I dared not believe you could
ever do more; now something within tells me that you
can. Can you, Ivy? If the love and tenderness and devotion
of my whole life can make you happy, happiness
shall not fail to be yours.”
Ivy's gaze never for a moment drooped under his, earnest
and piercing though it was.
“Now I am happy,” she said, slowly and distinctly.
“Now I am blessed. I can never ask anything more.”
“But I ask something more,” he replied, bending forward
eagerly. “I ask much more. I want your love. Shall I
have it? And I want you.”
“My love?” She blushed slightly, but spoke without
hesitation. “Have I not given it, — long, long before you
asked it, before you even cared for my friendship? Not
love only, but life, my very whole being, centred in you,
does now, and will always. Is it right to say this? — But
I am not ashamed. I shall always be proud to have loved
you, though only to lose you, — and to be loved by you is
glory enough for all my future.”
One moment Ivy rested in the arms that clasped her;
but as he whispered, “Thus you answer the second question?
You give me yourself too?” she hastily freed herself.
“Never!”
“Ivy!”
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“Never!” more firmly than before.
“What does this mean?” he said, sternly. “Are you
trifling?”
There was such a frown on his brow as Ivy had never
seen. She quailed before it.
“Do not be angry! Alas! I am not trifling. Life itself
is not worth so much as your love. But the impassable
gulf is between us just the same.”
“What is it? Who put it there?
“God put it there. Mrs. Simm showed it to me.”
“Mrs. Simm be —! A prating gossip! Ivy, I told you
you were never to mention that again, — never to think of
it; and you must obey me.”
“I will try to obey you in that.”
“And very soon you shall promise to obey me in all
things. But I will not be hard with you. The yoke shall
rest very lightly, — so lightly you shall not feel it. You
will not do as much, I dare say. You will make me acknowledge
your power every day, dear little vixen! Ivy,
why do you draw back? Why do you not come to me?”
“I cannot come to you, Mr. Clerron, any more. I must
go home now, and stay at home.”
“When your home is here, Ivy, stay at home. For the
present, don't go. Wait a little.”
“You do not understand me. You will not understand
me,” said Ivy, bursting into tears. “I must leave you.
Don't make the way so difficult.”
“I will make it so difficult that you cannot walk in it.
Why do you wish to leave me? Have you not said that
you loved me?”
“It is because I love you that I go. I am not fit for
you. I was not made for you. I can never make you
happy. I cannot go among your friends, your sisters. I
am ignorant. You would be ashamed of me, and then
you would not love me; you could not; and I should lose
the thing I most value. No, Mr. Clerron, — I would rather
keep your love in my own heart and my own home.”
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“Ivy, can you be happy without me?”
“I shall not be without you. My heart is full of lifelong
joyful memories. You need not regret me. Yes, I shall
be happy. I shall work with mind and hands. I shall
not pine away in a mean and feeble life. I shall be strong,
and cheerful, and active, and helpful; and I think I shall
not cease to love you in heaven.”
“But there is, maybe, a long road for us to travel before
we reach heaven, and I want you to help me along. Ivy,
I am not so spiritual as you. I cannot live on memory,
I want you before me all the time. I want to see you and
talk with you every day. Why do you speak of such
things? Is it the soul or its surroundings that you value?
Do you respect or care for wealth and station? Do you
consider a woman your superior because she wears a finer
dress than you?”
“I? No, sir! No, indeed! you very well know. But
the world does, and you move in the world; and I do not
want the world to pity you because you have an uncouth,
ignorant wife. I don't want to be despised by those who
are above me only in station.”
“Little aristocrat, you are prouder than I. Will you
sacrifice your happiness and mine to your pride?”
“Proud perhaps I am, but it is not all pride. I think
you are noble, but I think also you could not help losing
patience when you found that I could not accommodate
myself to the station to which you had raised me. Then
you would not respect me. I am, indeed, too proud to
wish to lose that; and losing your respect, as I said before,
I should not long keep your love.”
“But you will accommodate yourself to any station.
My dear, you are young, and know so little about this
world, which is such a bugbear to you. Why, there is very
little that will be greatly unlike this. At first you might
be a little bewildered but I shall be by you all the time,
and you shall feel and fear nothing, and gradually you will
learn what little you need to know; and most of all, you
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will be yourself the best and the loveliest of women. Dear
Ivy, I would not part with your sweet, unconscious simplicity
for all the accomplishments and acquired elegancies
of the finest lady in the world.” (What men always say.)
“You are not ignorant of anything you ought to know, and
your ignorance of the world is an additional charm to one
who knows so much of its wickedness as I. But we will
not talk of it. There is no need. This shall be our home,
and here the world will not trouble us.”
“And I cannot give up my dear father and mother.
You and your friends —”
“They are my friends, valued and dear to me, and dearer
still they shall be as the parents of my dear little wife —”
“I was going to say —”
“But you shall not say it. I utterly forbid you ever to
mention it again. You are mine, all my own. Your friends
are my friends, your honor my honor, your happiness my
happiness henceforth; and what God joins together let not
man or woman put asunder.”
“Ah!” whispered Ivy, faintly; for she was yielding, and
just beginning to receive the sense of great and unexpected
bliss, “but if you should be wrong, — if you should ever
repent of this, it is not your happiness alone, but mine, too,
that will be destroyed.”
“Ivy, am I a mere school-boy to swear eternal fidelity
for a week? Have I not been tossing hither and thither
on the world's tide ever since you lay in your cradle, and
do I not know my position and my power and my habits
and my love? And knowing all this, do I not know that
this dear head” — etc., etc., etc., etc.
But I said I was not going to marry my man and woman,
did I not? Nor have I. To be sure, you may have detected
premonitory symptoms, but I said nothing about
that. I only promised not to marry them, and I have not
married them.
And that is the end of my story.
