Queechy

"You"re just the same, Miss Fleda, that you used to be ?

you"re very little altered ? I can see that ? though you"re looking a good-deal more thin and pale; you had very pretty roses in your cheeks in those times. Yes, I know, I understood Mrs. Evelyn to say you had not been well; but, allowing for that, I can see you are just yourself still ? I"m glad of it.

Do you recollect, Miss Fleda, what a little thing you was then?"

"I recollect, very well," said Fleda.

"I"m sure of another thing ? you"re just as good as you used to be," said the housekeeper, looking at her complacently. "Do you remember how you used to come into my room to see me make jelly? I see it as well as if it was yesterday; and you used to beg me to let you squeeze the lemons; and I never could refuse you, because you never did anything I didn"t want you to. And do you mind how I used to tie you up in a big towel, for fear you would stain your dress with the acid, and I"d stand and watch to see you putting all your strength to squeeze "em clean, and be afraid that Mrs. Rossitur would be angry with me for letting you spoil your hands; but you used to look up and smile at me so, I couldn"t help myself, but let you do just whatever you had a mind? You don"t look quite so light and bright as you did in those times; ? but, to be sure, you aint feeling well! See here ? just let me pull some of these things onto this settee, and you put yourself down there and rest ? pillows ? let"s have another pillow ? there, how"s that?"

Oh, if Fleda might have silenced her! She thought it was rather hard that she should have two talkative companions on this journey of all others. The housekeeper paused no longer than to arrange her couch and see her comfortably laid down.

"And then Mr. Hugh would come in to find you and carry you away ? he never could bear to be long from you. How is Mr.

Hugh, Miss Fleda? he used to be always a very delicate-looking child. I remember you and him used to be always together ? he was a very sweet boy! I have often said I never saw such another pair of children. How does Mr. Hugh have his health, Miss Fleda?"

"Not very well, just now," said Fleda, gently, and shutting her eyes that they might reveal less.

There was need; for the housekeeper went on to ask particularly after every member of the family, and where they had been living, and as much as she conveniently could about how they had been living. She was very kind through it all, or she tried to be; but Fleda felt there was a difference since the time when her aunt kept house in State Street, and Mrs.

Renney made jellies for her. When her neighbours" affairs were exhausted, Mrs. Renney fell back upon her own, and gave Fleda a very circ.u.mstantial account of the occurrences that were drawing her westward; how so many years ago her brother had married and removed thither; how lately his wife had died; what, in general, was the character of his wife, and what, in particular, the story of her decease; how many children were left without care, and the state of her brother"s business, which demanded a great deal; and how, finally, she, Mrs.

Renney, had received and accepted an invitation to go on to Belle Riviere, and be housekeeper de son chef. And as Fleda"s pale worn face had for some time given her no sign of attention, the housekeeper then hoped she was asleep, an placed herself so as to screen her, and have herself a good view of everything that was going on in the cabin.

But poor Fleda was not asleep, much as she rejoiced in being thought so. Mind and body could get no repose, sadly as the condition of both called for it. Too worn to sleep, perhaps; ?

too down-hearted to rest. She blamed herself for it, and told over to herself the causes, the recent causes, she had of joy and grat.i.tude; but it would not do. Grateful she could be and was; but tears that were not the distillation of joy came with her grat.i.tude; came from under the closed eyelid in spite of her; the pillow was wet with them. She excused herself, or tried to, with thinking that she was weak and not very well, and that her nerves had gone through so much for a few days past, it was no wonder if a reaction left her without her usual strength of mind. And she could not help thinking, there had been a want of kindness in the Evelyns to let her come away to-day to make such a journey, at such a season, under such guardianship. But it was not all that; she knew it was not. The journey was a small matter; only a little piece of disagreeableness that was well in keeping with her other meditations. She was going home, and home had lost all its fair-seeming; its honours were withered. It would be pleasant indeed to be there again to nurse Hugh; but nurse him for what? ? life or death? ? she did not like to think; and beyond that she could fix upon nothing at all that looked bright in the prospect; she almost thought herself wicked, but she could not. If she might hope that her uncle would take hold of his farm like a man, and redeem his character and his family"s happiness on the old place ? that would have been something; but he had declared a different purpose, and Fleda knew him too well to hope that he would be better than his word. Then they must leave the old homestead, where at least the a.s.sociations of happiness clung, and go to a strange land. It looked desolate to Fleda, wherever it might be. Leave Queechy!

? that she loved unspeakably beyond any other place in the world; where the very hills had been the friends of her childhood, and where she had seen the maples grow green and grow red, through as many coloured changes of her own fortunes; the woods where the shade of her grandfather walked with her, and where the presence even of her father could be brought back by memory; where the air was sweeter and the sunlight brighter; by far, than in any other place ? for both had some strange kindred with the sunny days of long ago. Poor Fleda turned her face from Mrs. Renney, and leaving doubtful prospects and withering comforts for a while, as it were, out of sight, she wept the fair outlines and the red maples of Queechy, as if they had been all she had to regret. They had never disappointed her. Their countenance had comforted her many a time, under many a sorrow. After all, it was only fancy choosing at which shrine the whole offering of sorrow should be made. She knew that many of the tears that fell were due to some other. It was in vain to tell herself they were selfish; mind and body were in no condition to struggle with anything.

It had fallen dark some time, and she had wept and sorrowed herself into a half-dozing state, when a few words spoken near aroused her.

"It is snowing," was said by several voices.

"Going very slow, aint we?" said Fleda"s friend, in a suppressed voice.

"Yes, "cause it"s so dark, you see; the Captain durstn"t let her run."

Some poor witticism followed from a third party about the "b.u.t.terfly"s" having run herself off her legs the first time she ever ran at all; and then Mrs. Renney went on.

"Is the storm so bad, Hannah?"

"Pretty thick ? can"t see far ahead ? I hope we"ll make out to find our way in ? that"s all I care for."

"How far are we?"

"Not half way yet ? I don"t know ? depends on what headway we make, you know; ? there aint much wind yet, that"s a good thing."

"There aint any danger, is there?"

This, of course, the chambermaid denied, and a whispered colloquy followed, which Fleda did not try to catch. A new feeling came upon her weary heart ? a feeling of fear. There was a sad twinge of a wish that she were out of the boat, and safe back again with the Evelyns; and a fresh sense of the unkindness of letting her come away that afternoon so attended. And then, with that sickness of heart, the forlorn feeling of being alone, of wanting some one at hand to depend upon, to look to. It is true, that, in case of real danger, none such could be a real protection; and yet lot so neither, for strength and decision can live and make live, where a moment"s faltering will kill; and weakness must often falter of necessity. "All the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth"

to his people; she thought of that, and yet she feared ? for his ways are often what we do not like. A few moments of sick- heartedness and trembling ? and then Fleda mentally folded her arms about a few other words of the Bible, and laid her head down in quiet again. ? "_The Lord is my refuge and my fortress: my G.o.d: in him will I trust_."

And then what comes after ?

"_He shall cover thee with his feathers; and under his wings shalt thou trust; his truth shall be thy shield and buckler_."

Fleda lay quiet till she was called to tea.

"Bless me, how pale you are?" said the housekeeper, as Fleda raised herself up at this summons; "do you feel very bad, Miss Fleda?"

Fleda said "No."

"Are you frighted?" said the housekeeper ? "there"s no need of that ? Hannah says there"s no need ? we"ll be in by and by."

"No, Mrs. Renney," said Fleda, smiling. "I believe I am not very strong yet."

The housekeeper and Hannah both looked at her with strangely touched faces, and again begged her to try the refreshment of tea. But Fleda would not go down, so they served her up there, with great zeal and tenderness. And then she waited patiently and watched the people in the cabin, as they sat gossiping in groups, or stupefying in solitude; and thought how miserable a thing is existence where religion and refinement have not taught the mind to live in somewhat beyond and above its every-day concerns.

Late at night the boat arrived safe at Bridgeport. Mrs. Renney and Fleda had resolved to stay on board till morning, when the former promised to take her to the house of a sister she had living in the town; as the cars would not leave the place till near eleven o"clock. Rest was not to be hoped for meantime in the boat, on the miserable couch which was the best the cabin could furnish; but Fleda was so thankful to have finished the voyage in safety, that she took thankfully everything else, even lying awake. It was a wild night. The wind rose soon after they reached Bridgeport, and swept furiously over the boat, rattling the tiller chains, and making Fleda so nervously alive to possibilities that she got up two or three times to see if the boat were fast to her moorings. It was very dark, and only by a fortunately-placed lantern, she could see a bit of the dark wharf and one of the posts belonging to it, from which the lantern never budged; so, at last quieted, or tired-out, nature had her rights, and she slept.

It was not refreshing rest after all, and Fleda was very glad that Mrs. Renney"s impatience for something comfortable made her willing to be astir as early as there was any chance of finding people up in the town. Few were abroad when they left the boat, they two. Not a foot had printed the deep layer of snow that covered the wharf. It had fallen thick during the night. Just then it was not snowing; the clouds seemed to have taken a recess, for they hung threatening yet; one uniform leaden canopy was over the whole horizon.

"The snow aint done yet," said Mrs. Renney.

"No, but the worst of our journey is over," said Fleda. "I am glad to be on the land."

"I hope we"ll get something to eat here," said Mrs. Renney, as they stepped along over the wharf. "They ought to be ashamed to give people such a mess, when it"s just as easy to have things decent. My! how it has snowed! I declare, if I"d ha"

known, I"d ha" waited till somebody had tracked a path for us.

But I guess it"s just as well we didn"t; you look as like a ghost as you can, Miss Fleda. You"ll be better when you get some breakfast. You"d better catch on to my arm ? I"ll waken up the seven sleepers but what I"ll have something to put life into you directly."

Fleda thanked her, but declined the proffered accommodation, and followed her companion in the narrow beaten path a few travellers had made in the street, feeling enough like a ghost, if want of flesh and blood reality were enough. It seemed a dream that she was walking through the grey light, and the empty streets of the little town; everything looked and felt so wild and strange.

If it was a dream, she was soon waked out of it. In the house, where they were presently received and established in sufficient comfort, there was such a little specimen of masculine humanity as never showed his face in dream-land yet ? a little bit of reality, enough to bring any dreamer to his senses. He seemed to have been brought up on stove heat, for he was all glowing yet from a very warm bed he had just tumbled out of somewhere, and he looked at the pale thin stranger by his mother"s fire-place, as if she were an anomaly in the comfortable world. If he could have contented himself with looking! ? but he planted himself firmly on the rug, just two feet from Fleda, and, with a laudable and most persistent desire to examine into the causes of what he could not understand, he commenced inquiring ?

"Are you cold? ? say! Are you cold? ? say!" in a tone most provokingly made up of wonder and dulness. In vain Fleda answered him, that she was not very cold, and would soon not be cold at all by that good fire ? the question came again, apparently in all its freshness, from the interrogator"s mind ?

"Are you cold? ? say !" ?

And silence and words, looking grave and laughing, were alike thrown away. Fleda shut her eyes at length, and used the small remnant of her patience to keep herself quiet till she was called to breakfast. After breakfast she accepted the offer of her hostess to go up stairs and lie down till the cars were ready; and there got some real and much needed refreshment of sleep and rest.

It lasted longer than she had counted upon. For the cars were not ready at eleven o"clock ? the snow last night had occasioned some perplexing delays. It was not till near three o"clock, that the often-despatched messenger to the depot brought back word that they might go as soon as they pleased.

It pleased Mrs. Renney to be in a great hurry, for her baggage was in the cars, she said, and it would be dreadful if she and it went different ways; so Fleda and her companion hastened down to the station-house and chose their places some time before anybody else thought of coming. They had a long, very tiresome waiting to go through, and room for some uneasy speculations about being belated and a night-journey. But Fleda was stronger now, and bore it all with her usual patient submission At length, by degrees, the people dropped in and filled the cars, and they set off.

"How early do you suppose we shall reach Greenfield?" said Fleda.

"Why, we ought to get there between nine and ten o"clock, I should think," said her companion. "I hope the snow will hold up till we get there."

Fleda thought it a hope very unlikely to be fulfilled. There were as yet no snow-flakes to be seen near by, but, at a little distance, the low clouds seemed already to enshroud every clump of trees, and put a mist about every hill. They surely would descend more palpably soon.

It was pleasant to be moving swiftly on again towards the end of their journey, if Fleda could have rid herself of some qualms about the possible storm and the certain darkness; they might not reach Greenfield by ten o"clock; and she disliked travelling in the night at any time. But she could do nothing, and she resigned herself anew to the comfort and trust she had built upon last night. She had the seat next the window, and with a very sober kind of pleasure watched the pretty landscape they were flitting by ? misty as her own prospects ?

darkening as they? ? no, she would not allow that thought. "

"Surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear G.o.d;"

and I can trust Him." And she found a strange sweetness in that naked trust and clinging of faith, that faith never tried never knows. But the breath of daylight was already gone, though the universal spread of snow gave the eye a fair range yet, white, white, as far as the view could reach, with that light misty drapery round everything in the distance, and merging into the soft grey sky; and every now and then, as the wind served, a thick wreath of white vapour came by from the engine and hid all, eddying past the windows, and then skimming off away over the snowy ground from which it would not lift; a more palpable veil for a moment of the distant things ? and then broken, scattered, fragmentary, lovely in its frailty, and evanishing. It was a pretty afternoon, but a sober; and the bare, black, solitary trees near hand which the cars flew by, looked to Fleda constantly like finger-posts of the past; and back, at their bidding, her thoughts and her spirits went, back and forward, comparing, in her own mental view what had once been so gay and genial with its present bleak and chill condition. And from this, in sudden contrast, came a strangely fair and bright image of heaven ? its exchange of peace for all this turmoil ? of rest for all this weary bearing up of mind and body against the ills that beset both ? of its quiet home for this unstable strange world, where nothing is at a standstill ? of perfect and pure society for the unsatisfactory and wearying friendships that the most are here. The thought came to Fleda like one of those unearthly clear north-western skies from which a storm-cloud has rolled away, that seem almost to mock earth with their distance from its defilement and agitations. "Truly I know that it shall be well with them that fear G.o.d!" She could remember Hugh ? she could not think of the words without him ?

and yet say them with the full bounding a.s.surance. And in that weary and uneasy afternoon, her mind rested and delighted itself with two lines of George Herbert, that only a Christian can well understand ?