Phoebe Deane (19 page)

His Uncle Royal's letter had reached him the afternoon of the nutting party on the hill. Pompey, his uncle's house servant, had brought it to him on a silver salver just as they were starting. He had glanced at the familiar writing, known it for his uncle's, and put it in his pocket for reading at his leisure. He always enjoyed his uncle's letters, yet they were not of deep moment to him. He had been too long separated from him to have keen interests in common with him. Hence he had not read the letter until after his return from the hill-side, which explains how he had carelessly left it behind the log by Phoebe, as an excuse to return and help her out of the laurel.

In the quiet of his own room after Janet and the others were sleeping he had remembered the letter, and, relighting his candle, which had been extinguished, he had read it, feeling a touch of reproach that he could have so lightly put off attending to his good relative's words. How, then, was he startled to discover its contents! The talk of the afternoon floated back to him, idle talk, about his going down to set Texas free. Talk that grew out of his own keen interest in all the questions of the day, and his readiness to argue them out. But he had never had a very definite idea of going to Texas to take part in the struggle that was going on until this letter brought him face to face with a possible duty.

Perhaps he would have had no question about his decision, if, following hard upon this letter, had not come the other one, the very next day in fact, which put an entirely new phase upon some sides of the question, and made duty seem an uncertain creature with more faces than one.

The coach was half way to Albany before Nathaniel finally folded away his uncle's letter and put it in his inner pocket with great care. Then he took up the other letter with a perplexed sigh, and read:

" Dear Chum :

" I am sitting on a high point of white sand, where I can look off at the blue sea. At my right is a great hairy, prickly cactus with a few gorgeous yellow blossoms in a glory of delicate petals and fringed stamens that look as out of place amid the sand as a diamond on a plank. Just now a green lizard peered curiously out from under one of the hairy balls that pass for leaves with a cactus, and then slid back out of sight. But the next time I looked he was blue, brilliant, and palpitating as a peacock's feathers, and sunning himself, not thinking of me at all. Then just as I moved he became a dull gray-brown, hardly discernible from the sand. And thus I know he is not a lizard at all, but a chameleon. The sun is very warm and bright, and everything about seems basking in it.

" As I look off to sea the Gulf Stream is distinct to-day, a brilliant green ribbon in the brilliant blue of the sea. It winds along so curiously and so independently in the great ocean, keeping its own individuality in spite of storm and wind and tide. I went out in a small boat across it the other day, and could look down and see it as distinctly as if there were a glass wall between it and the other water. I cannot but think that God took pleasure in making this old earth—so curious, mysterious, and beautiful.

"A great lazy bird is floating high in the air, looking down to the water for prey, doubtless. I think I could almost see the bright, curious fishes of this strange clime darting in the sunny water myself, if I tried, the air is so clear and the days so bright.

" There are orange groves back of me, not far away—a few miles. I fancy their perfume is wafted even here. There is a curious sweet apathy that steals over one down here, which soothes, and rests.

" I am having a holiday, for my little pupils are gone away on a visit. This is a delightful land to which I have come, and a charming family with whom my lot is cast. I am having an opportunity to study the South in a most ideal manner, and many of my former ideas of it are becoming much modified. For example, there is slavery. I am by no means so sure as I used to be that it was ordained of God. I wish you were here to talk it over with me, and to study it, too. There are possibilities in the institution that make one shudder. Perhaps, after all, Texas is in the wrong. As you have opportunity drop into an Abolition meeting now and then and see what you think. I have been reading the Liberator lately. I find much in it that is strong and appeals to my sense of right. You know what a disturbance it has made in the country recently. I hear some mails have even been broken into and burned on account of it. I wonder if this question of slavery will ever be an issue in our country. If it should be I cannot help wondering what the South will do. From what I have seen I feel sure they will never stand it to have their rights interfered with.

" Now, I have to confess that much as I rebelled against giving up my work and coming down here I feel that it has already benefited me. I can take long walks without the least weariness, and can even talk and sing like any one else without becoming hoarse. I do not believe my lungs have ever been affected, and I feel I am going to get well and come back to my work. With that hope in my veins I can go joyfully through these sunny days and feel the new life creeping into me with every breath of balmy air. We shall yet work shoulder to shoulder, my friend—I feel it. God bless you and keep you, and show you the right. "Yours, faithfully,

" Martin Van Rensselaer."

Nathaniel folded the letter, placed it in his pocket with the other, and leaned his head back to think. It was all perplexing.

This man Van Rensselaer had been his room-mate for four years. They had grown into one another's thoughts as two who are much together and love each other will grow until each had come to depend upon the other's decision as if it were nearly his own judgment. Nathaniel could not quite tell why it was that this letter troubled him, yet he felt breathing through the whole epistle the stirring of a new principle that seemed to antagonize his sympathy with Texas.

So, through the long cold journey the question was debated back and forth. His duty to his uncle demanded that he go to the address given and investigate the matter of helping Texas, else his uncle might think him exceedingly neglectful; and when he looked at the question from his uncle's stand-point, and thought of his father, and his own natural heritage, his sympathy was with Texas. On the other hand his love for his friend and his perfect trust in him demanded that he investigate the other side also. He felt intuitively that the two things could not go together.

Martin Van Rensselaer had been preparing for the Christian ministry. His zeal and earnestness were great, too great for his strength, and before he had finished his theological studies he had broken down and been sent South, as it was feared he had serious lung trouble. This separation had been a great trial to both young men. Martin was three years older than Nathaniel, and two years ahead of him in his studies, but in mind and spirit they were as one, so that the words of the letter had great influence.

The day had grown surly as the coach rumbled on. Sullen clouds lowered in the corners of the sky as if meditating mutiny. There was a hint of snow in the biting air that whistled around the cracks of the coach windows. Nature seemed to have suddenly put on a bare, brown look—hopeless, discouraging, cold.

Nathaniel shivered and drew his cloak close about him He wished the journey were over, or that he had some one with whom to advise. Somehow the question troubled him as if it were of immediate necessity that it be decided, and he could not dismiss it, nor put it off. He had once or twice broached the subject with Judge Bristol, but had hesitated to show him either of the letters which had been the cause of his own perplexity. He felt that his uncle's letter might arouse antagonism in Judge Bristol on account of the claim it seemed to put upon himself, as his father's son, to come and give himself.

Judge Bristol was almost jealously fond of his sister's son, and felt that he belonged to the North. Aside from that, his sympathies would probably have been with Texas. Keeping a few slaves himself as house servants, and treating them as kindly as if they had been his own children, he saw no reason to object to slavery, and deemed it a man's right to do as he pleased with his own property.

Martin Van Rensselaer's letter the Judge would have been likely to look upon as the production of a sentimental, hotheaded fanatic, whose judgment was unsound. Nathaniel was morally certain that if the Judge should read those letters he would advise against having anything to do with either cause personally; yet, dearly as he loved and honored the Judge, who had been a second father to him, Nathaniel's conscience would not let him drop the matter thus easily.

So the coach thumped on over rough roads and smooth. The coachman called to his horses, snapped his whip alluringly, and wondered why Nathaniel, who was usually so sociable, and liked to sit on the box and talk, stayed glumly inside with never a word for him. The coachman was the same one who had brought Nathaniel and his mother to the Judge's door that first time when on their last stage route from Texas. He felt aggrieved, for Nathaniel belonged to him. Had he not allowed him to drive in smooth stretches of road, even when he was a little fellow? Could it be possible that New York had spoiled him, and he was growing too proud to companion with his old friend, or was he in love? The coachman sat gloomily mile after mile, and tried to think what girl of his acquaintance was good enough for Nathaniel.

But all oblivious of his old friend's disquietude, Nathaniel sat inside with closed eyes and tried to think, and ever and anon there came a vision of a sweet-faced girl with brown hair and a golden gown sitting among the falling yellow leaves with bowed head; and somehow in his thoughts her trouble became tangled, and it seemed as if there were three instead of two who needed setting free, and he was to choose between them all.

CHAPTER XV

The cold weather had come suddenly and Phoebe felt like a prisoner. Emmeline's tongue became a daily torture, and the little ways in which she contrived to make Phoebe's life a burden were too numerous to count. Her paltry fortune in the bank was a source of continual trouble. Scarcely a morning passed but it was referred to in some unpleasant way. Every request was prefaced with some such phrase as: " If you're not too grand to soil your hands," or " I don't like to ask a rich lady to do such a thing," till Phoebe felt sometimes that she could bear it no longer and longed to take the few dollars and fling them into the lap of her disagreeable sister-in-law, if thereby she might but gain peace. Like the continual dropping that wears the stone, the unpleasant reference had worn upon a single nerve until the pain was acute.

But there was another source of discomfort still more trying to the girl than all that had gone before, and this was Hiram Green's new role. He had taken it upon himself to act the fine gentleman. It was somewhat surprising considering the fact that Hiram was known in the village as " near," and this new departure demanded an entirely new outfit of clothes. In his selection he aimed to emulate Nathaniel Graham. As he had neither Nathaniel's taste nor his New York tailor the effect was far from perfect, except perhaps in the eyes of Hiram, who felt quite set up in his fine raiment

On the first Sunday of his proud appearance in church thus arrayed he waited boldly at the door until the Deanes came out and then took his place beside Phoebe and walked with her to the carryall as though he belonged there. Phoebe's thoughts were on other things and for a moment she had not noticed, but suddenly becoming conscious of measured footsteps by her own, she looked up and found the reconstructed Hiram strutting by her side as consciously as a peacock. In spite of her great annoyance her first impulse was to laugh, and that laugh probably did more than any other thing to turn the venom of Hiram Green's hate upon her own innocent head. After all the effort he had made to appear well before her, and before the congregation assembled she had laughed. She had dared to laugh aloud, and that hateful Miranda Griscom, who seemed to be always around in the way whenever he tried to walk with Phoebe had laughed back. A slow ugly red rolled into his sun-burned face, and his little eyes narrowed with resolve to pay back all and more than he had received of scorn.

It happened that Miranda was holding Rose by the hand, and could not without greatly attracting attention get much nearer to Phoebe that morning, so the girl could do nothing to get away from her unpleasant suitor except to hasten to the carryall. And there before the open-eyed congregation Hiram Green helped her into the carryall with a rude imitation of Nathaniel Graham's gallantry. She should see that others besides the New York college dandy could play the fine gentleman. He finished the operation with an exaggerated flourish of his hat, and just because laughter is Bo very near to tears, the tears sprang up in Phoebe's eyes. She could do nothing but droop her head and try as best she could to hide them. The all-seeing Alma of course discovered them, and just as they were driving by Judge Bristol and his daughter she called out: "Aunt Phoebe's cryin'. What you cryin' 'bout, Aunt Phoebe? Is it 'cause you can't ride with Hiram Green ? "

Thereafter Hiram Green was in attendance upon her at every possible public place. She could not go to church without finding him at her elbow the minute the service was over, ready to walk down the very aisle beside her. She could not go to singing-school but he would step out from behind his gate as she passed and join her, or if she evaded him he would sit beside her and manage to sing out of the same book. She could not go to the village on an errand but he would appear in the way and accompany her. He seemed to have developed a strange intuition as to her every movement. He was ever vigilant, and the girl began to feel like a hunted creature. Even if she stayed at home he appeared at the door ten minutes after the family had gone, a triumphant, unpleasant smile upon his face, and sauntered into the kitchen without waiting for her to bid him, and there, tilted back in a chair in his favorite attitude, he would watch her every movement, and drawl out an occasional remark. That happened only once, however; she never dared to stay again, lest it would be repeated. She had been busy preparing something for dinner, and she turned suddenly and caught a look upon his face that reminded her of a beast of prey. It flashed upon her that he was actually enjoying her annoyance. Without waiting to think she stepped into the wood-shed, and from there fairly fled across the back yard, and the meadows between and burst into the bright little room of Granny Me Vane.