"Why not have looked us up before?" I asked.
"Why," said Veronica, who had just come in, "there are six Charles Morgesons buried in our graveyard."
"I supposed," he said, "that the name was extinct. I lately saw your father"s in a State Committee List, and feeling curious regarding it, I came here."
He bowed distantly to Veronica when she entered, but she did not return his bow, though she looked at him fixedly. Temperance and Hepsey hurried up a fine supper immediately. A visitor was a creature to be fed. Feeding together removes embarra.s.sment, and before supper was over we were all acquainted with Mr. Morgeson. There were three cheerful old ladies spending the week with us--the widow Desire Carver, and her two maiden sisters, Polly and Serepta Chandler.
They filled the part of chorus in the domestic drama, saying, "Aha,"
whenever there was a pause. Veronica affected these old ladies greatly, and when they were in the house gave them her society. But for their being there at this time, I doubt whether she would have seen Mr. Morgeson again. That evening she played for them. Her wild, pathetic melodies made our visitor"s gray eyes flash with pleasure, and light up his cold face with gleams of feeling; but she was not gratified by his interest. "I think it strange that you should like my music," she said crossly.
"Do you" he answered, amused at her tone, "perhaps it is; but why should I not as well as your friends here?" indicating the old ladies.
"Ah, we like it very much," said the three, clicking their snuff-boxes.
"You, too, play?" he asked me.
"Miss Ca.s.sy don"t play," answered the three, looking at me over their spectacles. "Miss Verry"s sun puts out her fire."
"Ca.s.sandra does other things better than playing," Veronica said to Mr. Morgeson.
"Why, Veronica," I said, surprised, going toward her.
"Go off, go off," she replied, in an undertone, and struck up a loud march. He had heard her, and while she played looked at her earnestly.
Then, seeming to forget the presence of the three, he turned and put out his hand to me, with an authority I did not resist. I laid my hand in his; it was not grasped, but upheld. Veronica immediately stopped playing.
He stayed several days at our house. After the first evening we found him taciturn. He played with Arthur, spoke of his children to him, and promised him a pony if he would go to Rosville. With father he discussed business matters, and went out with him to the shipyards and offices. I scarcely remember that he spoke to me, except in a casual way, more than once. He asked me if I knew whether the sea had any influence upon me; I replied that I had not thought of it. "There are so many things you have not thought of," he answered, "that this is not strange."
Veronica observed him closely; he was aware of it, but was not embarra.s.sed; he met her dark gaze with one keener than her own, and neither talked with the other. The morning he went away, while the chaise was waiting, which was to go to Milford to meet the stagecoach, and he was inviting us to visit him, a thought seemed to strike him. "By the way, Morgeson, why not give Miss Ca.s.sandra a finish at Rosville? I have told you of our Academy, and of the advantages which Rosville affords in the way of society. What do you say, Mrs.
Morgeson, will you let her come to my house for a year?"
"Locke decides for Ca.s.sy," she answered; "I never do now," looking at me reproachfully.
Cousin Charles"s hawk eyes caught the look, and he heard me too, when I tapped her shoulder till she turned round and smiled. I whispered, "Mother, your eyes are as blue as the sea yonder, and I love you." She glanced toward it; it was murmuring softly, creeping along the sh.o.r.e, licking the rocks and sand as if recognizing a master. And I saw and felt its steady, resistless heaving, insidious and terrible.
"Well," said father, "we will talk of it on the way to Milford."
"I have kinder of a creeping about your Cousin Charles, as you call him," said Temperance, after she had closed the porch door. "He is too much shut up for me. How"s Mis Cousin Charles, I wonder?"
"He is fond of flowers," remarked Aunt Merce; "he examined all my plants, and knew all their botanical names."
"That"s a balm for every wound with you, isn"t it?" Temperance said.
"I spose I can clean the parlor, unless Mis Carver and Chandler are sitting in a row there?"
Veronica, who had hovered between the parlor and the hall while Cousin Charles was taking his leave, so that she might avoid the necessity of any direct notice of him, had heard his proposition about Rosville, said, "Ca.s.sandra will go there."
"Do you feel it in your bones, Verry?" Temperance asked.
"Ca.s.sandra does."
"Do I? I believe I do."
"You are eighteen; you are too old to go to school."
"But I am not too old to have an agreeable time; besides, I am not eighteen, and shall not be till four days from now."
"You think too much of having a good time, Ca.s.sandra," said mother. "I foresee the day when the pitcher will come back from the well broken.
You are idle and frivolous; eternally chasing after amus.e.m.e.nt."
"G.o.d knows I don"t find it."
"I know you are not happy."
"Tell me," I cried, striking the table with my hand, making Veronica wink, "tell me how to feel and act."
"I have no influence with you, nor with Veronica."
"Because," said Verry, "we are all so different; but I like you, mother, and all that you do."
"Different!" she exclaimed, "children talk to parents about a difference between them."
"I never thought about it before." I said, "but _where_ is the family likeness?"
Aunt Merce laughed.
"There"s the Morgesons," I continued, "I hate "em all."
"All?" she echoed; "you are like this new one."
"And Grand"ther Warren"--I continued.
"Your talk," interrupted Aunt Merce, jumping up and walking about, "is enough to make him rise out of his grave."
"I believe," said Veronica, "that Grand"ther Warren nearly crushed you and mother, when girls of our age. Did you know that you had any wants then? or dare to dream anything beside that he laid down for you?"
Aunt Merce and mother exchanged glances.
"Say, mother, what shall I do?" I asked again.
"Do," she answered in a mechanical voice; "read the Bible, and sew more."
"Veronica"s life is not misspent," she continued, and seeming to forget that Verry was still there. "Why should she find work for her hands when neither you nor I do?"
Veronica slipped out of the room; and I sat on the floor beside mother. I loved her in an unsatisfactory way. What could we be to each other? We kissed tenderly; I saw she was saddened by something regarding me, which she could not explain, because she refused to explain me naturally. I thought she wished me to believe she could have no infirmity in common with me--no temptations, no errors--that she must repress all the doubts and longings of her heart for example"s sake.
There was a weight upon me all that day, a dreary sense of imperfection.
When father came home he asked me if I would like to go to Rosville.
I answered, "Yes." Mother must travel with me, for he could not leave home. The sooner I went the better. He also thought Veronica should go. She was called and consulted, and, provided Temperance would accompany us to take care of her, she consented. It was all arranged that evening. Temperance said we must wait a week at least, for her corns to be cured, and the plum-colored silk made, which had been shut up in a band-box for three years.
We started on our journey one bright morning in June, to go to Boston in a stagecoach, a hundred miles from Surrey, and thence to Rosville, forty miles further, by railroad. We stopped a night on the way to Boston at a country inn, which stood before an egg-shaped pond. Temperance remade our beds, declaiming the while against the unwholesome situation of the house; the idea of anybody"s living in the vicinity of fresh water astonished her; to impose upon travelers"