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Morgesons

<h1 id="id02730" style="margin-top: 6em">CHAPTER XXXVIII.</h1> It was true. Locke Morgeson had been insolvent for five years. All this time he had thrown ballast out from every side in the shape of various ventures, which he trusted would lighten the ship, that, nevertheless, drove steadily on to ruin. Then he steered blindly, straining his credit to the utmost; and then—the crash. His losses were so extended and gradual that the public were not aware of his condition till he announced it. There was a general exasperation against him. The Morgeson family rose up with one accord to represent the public mind, which drove Veronica wild. "Have you acted wrongly, father?" she asked. "I have confessed, Verry, will that suit you!" Our house was thronged for several days. "Pay us," cried the female portion of his creditors. In vain father represented that he was still young—that his business days were not over—that they must wait, for paid they should be. "Pay us now, for we are women," they still cried. Fanny opened the doors for these persons as wide as possible when they came, and shut them with a bang when they went, astonishing them with a satirical politeness, or confounding them with an impertinent silence. The important creditors held meetings to agree what should be done, and effected an arrangement by which his property was left in his hands for three years, to arrange for the benefit of his creditors. The arrangement proved that his integrity was not suspected; but it was an ingenious punishment, that he should keep in sight, improve, or change, for others, what had been his own. I was glad when he decided to sell his real estate and personal property, and trust to the ships alone, but would build no more. I begged him to keep our house till Ben should return. He consented to wait; but I did not tell Verry what I had done. All the houses he owned, lots, carriages, horses, domestic stock, the fields lying round our house—were sold. When he began to sell, the fury of retrenchment seized him, and he laid out a life of self-denial for us three. Arthur's ten thousand dollars were safe, who was therefore provided for. He would bring wood and water for us; the rest we must do, with Fanny's help. We could dine in the kitchen, and put our beds in one room; by shutting up the house in part, we should have less labor to perform. We attempted to carry out his ideas, but Veronica was so dreadfully in Fanny's way and mine, that we were obliged to entreat her to resume her old rôle. As for Fanny, she was happy—working like a beaver day and night. Father was much at home, and took an extraordinary interest in the small details that Fanny carried out. When Temperance heard of these arrangements, she came down with Abram in their green and yellow wagon. Temperance drove the shaggy old white horse, for Abram was intrusted with the care of a meal bag, in which were fastened a cock and four hens. We should see, she said when she let them out, whether we were to keep hens or not. Was Veronica to go without new-laid eggs? Had he sold the cat, she sarcastically inquired of father. "Who is going to do your washing, girls?" she asked, taking off her bonnet. "We all do it." "Now I shall die a-laughing!" But she contradicted herself by crying heartily. "One day in every week, I tell you, I am coming; and Fanny and I can do the washing in a jiffy." "Sure," said Abram, "you can; the sass is in." "Sass or no sass, I'm coming." She made me laugh for the first time in a month. I was too tired generally to be merry, with my endeavors to carry out father's wishes, and keep up the old aspect of the house. When she left us we all felt more cheerful. Aunt Merce wanted to come home, but Verry and I thought she had better stay at Rosville. We could not deny it to ourselves, that home was sadly altered, or that we were melancholy; and though we never needed her more, we begged her not to come. Happily father's zeal soon died away. A boy was hired, and as there was no out-of-doors work for him to do, he relieved Fanny, who in her turn relieved me. Finding time to look into myself, I perceived a change in my estimation of father; a vague impression of weakness in him troubled me. I also discovered that I had lost my atmosphere. My life was coarse, hard, colorless! I lived in an insignificant country village; I was poor. My theories had failed; my practice was like my moods—variable. But I concluded that if to-day would go on without bestowing upon me sharp pains, depriving me of sleep, mutilating me with an accident, or sending a disaster to those belonging to me, I would be content. Arthur held out a hope, by writing me, that he meant to support me handsomely. He wished me to send him some shirt studs; and told me to keep the red horse. He had heard that I was very handsome when I was in Rosville. A girl had asked him how I looked now. When he told her I was handsomer than any woman Rosville could boast of, she laughed. October had gone, and we had not heard from Ben. Veronica came to my room of nights, and listened to wind and sea, as she never had before. Sometimes she was there long after I had gone to bed, to look out of the windows. If it was calm, she went away quietly; if the sea was rough, she was sorrowful, but said nothing. The lethargic summer had given way to a boisterous autumn of cold, gray weather, driving rains, and hollow gales. At last he came—to Veronica first. He gave a deep breath of delight when he stood again on the hearth-rug, before our now unwonted parlor fire. The sight of his ruddy face, vigorous form, and gay voice made me as merry as the attendants of a feast are when they inhale the odor of the viands they carry, hear the gurgle of the wine they pour, and echo the laughter of the guests. There was much to tell that astonished him, but he could not be depressed; everything must be arranged to suit us. He would buy the house, provided he could pay for it in instalments. Did I know that his mother had docked his allowance as soon as she knew that he would marry Verry? "How should I know it?" I had not heard then that Desmond's was doubled, when she heard his intention of going to Spain. "How should I know that?" One thing I should learn, however—and that was, that Desmond had begged his mother to make no change in the disposition of her income. He had declined the extra allowance, and then accepted it, to offer him—Ben. Was not that astonishing? "Did you take it?" "No; but pa did." All he could call his was fifteen hundred a year. Was that enough for them to live on, and pay a little every year for the house? Could we all live there together, just the same? Would we, he asked father, and allow him to be an inmate? Father shook hands with him so violently that he winced; and Verry crumpled up a handful of his tawny locks and kissed them, whereat he said: "Are you grown a human woman?" About the wedding? He could only stay to appoint a time, for he must post to Belem. It must be very soon. "In a year or two," said Verry. "Verry!" "In three weeks, then." "From to-day?" "No, that will be the date of the wreck of the Locke Morgeson; but three weeks from to-morrow. Must we have anybody here, Ben?" "Helen, and Alice, Cassandra?" "Certainly." "I have no friends," said Verry. "What will you wear, Verry?" I asked. "Why, this dress," designating her old black silk. Her eyes filled with tears, and went on a pilgrimage toward the unknown heaven where our mother was. She could only come to the wedding as a ghost. I imagined her flitting through the empty spaces, from room to room, scared and troubled by the pressure of mortal life around her. "I shall not wear white," Verry said hastily. The very day Ben went to Belem one of father's outstanding ships arrived. She came into the harbor presenting the unusual sight of trying oil on deck. Black and greasy from hull to spar, she was a pleasant sight, for she was full of sperm oil. Little boys ran down to the house to inform us of that fact before she was moored. "Wouldn't Mr. Morgeson be all right now that his luck had changed?" they asked. At supper father said "By George!" several times, by that oath resuming something of his old self. "Those women can now be paid," he said. "If I could have held out till now, I could have gone on without failing. This is the first good voyage the Oswego ever made me; if another ship, the Adamant, will come full while oil is high, I shall arrange matters with my creditors before the three years are up. To hold my own again—ah! I never will venture all upon the uncertain field of the sea." The Oswego's captain sent us a box of shells next day, and a small Portuguese boy, named Manuel—a handsome, black-eyed, husky-voiced fellow, in a red shirt, which was bound round his waist with a leather belt, from which hung a sailor's sheath-knife. "He is volcanic," said Verry. "The Portuguese are all handsome," said Fanny, poking him, to see if he would notice it. But he did not remove his eyes from Veronica. "He shall be your page, Verry." The next night a message came to us that Abram was dying. If we ever meant to come, Temperance sent word, some of us might come now; but she would rather have Mr. Morgeson. Fanny insisted upon going with him to carry a lantern. Manuel offered her his knife, when he comprehended that she was going through a dark road. "You are a perfect heathen. There's nothing to be afraid of, except that Mr. Morgeson may walk into a ditch; will a knife keep us out of that?" "Knife is good—it kills," he said, showing his white, vegetable-ivory teeth. Verry and I sat up till they returned, at two in the morning. Abram had died about midnight, distressed to the last with worldly cares. "He asked," said father, "if I remembered his poor boy, whose chest never came home, and wished to hear some one read a hymn; Temperance broke down when I read it, while Fanny cried hysterically." "I was freezing cold," she answered haughtily. In the morning Verry and I started for Temperance's house; but she waited on the doorstep till I had inquired whether we were wanted. I called her in, for Temperance asked for her as soon as she saw me. "He was a good man, girls," she said with emphasis. "Indeed he was." "A little mean, I spose." I put in a demurrer; her face cleared instantly. "He thought a great deal of your folks." "And a great deal of you." "Oh, what a loss I have met with! He had just bought a first-rate overcoat." "But Temperance," said Verry, with a lamentable candor, "you can come back now." "Can't you wait for him to be put into the ground?" And she tried to look shocked, but failed. A friend entered with a doleful face, and Temperance groaned slightly. "It is all done complete now, Mis Handy. He looks as easy as if he slept, he was so limber." "Yes, yes," answered Temperance, starting up, and hurrying us out of the room, pinching me, with a significant look at Verry. She was afraid that her feelings might be distressed. "The funeral will be day after to-morrow. Don't come; your father will be all that must be here of the family. I shall shut up the house and come straight to you. I know that I am needed; but you mustn't say a word about pay—I can't stand it, I have had too much affliction to be pestered about wages." Verry hugged her, and Temperance shed the honestest tears of the day then, she was so gratified at Verry's fondness. Before Abram had been buried a week, she was back again—a fixture, although she declared that she had only come for a spell, as we might know by the size of the bundle she had, showing us one, tied in a blue cotton handkerchief. What should she stay from her own house for, when as good a man as ever lived left it to her? We knew that she merely comforted a tender conscience by praising the departed, for whom she had small respect when living. We felt her brightening influence, but Fanny sulked, feeling dethroned. Ben Pickersgill Somers and Veronica Morgeson were "published." Contrary to the usual custom, Verry went to hear her own banns read at the church. She must do all she could, she told me, to realize that she was to be married; had I any thoughts about it, with which I might aid her? She thought it strange that people should marry, and could not decide whether it was the sublimest or the most inglorious act of one's life. I begged her to think about what she should wear—the time was passing. Father gave me so small a sum for the occasion, I had little opportunity for the splendid; but I purchased what Veronica wanted for a dress, and superintended the making of it—black lace over lavender-colored silk. She said no more about it; but I observed that she put in order all her possessions, as if she were going to undertake a long and uncertain journey. Every box and drawer was arranged. All her clothes were repaired, refolded, and laid away; every article was refreshed by a turn or shake-up. She made her room a miracle of cleanliness. What she called rubbish she destroyed—her old papers, things with chipped edges, or those that were defaced by wear. She went once to Milford in the time, and bought a purple Angola rug, which she put before her arm-chair, and two small silver cups, with covers; in one was a perfume which Ben liked, the other was empty. Her favorite blank-books were laid on a shelf, and the table, with its inkstand and portfolio, was pushed against the wall. The last ornament which she added to her room was a beautifully woven mat of evergreens, with which she concealed the picture of the avenue and the nameless man. After it was done, she inhabited my room, appearing to feel at home, and glad to have me with her. As the time drew near, she grew silent, and did not play at all. Temperance watched her with anxiety. "If ever she can have one of those nervous spells again she will have one now," she said. "Don't let her dream. I am turning myself inside out to keep up her appetite." "Do you ever feel worried about me, Tempy?" "Lord 'a marcy! you great, strong thing, why should I? May be you do want a little praise. I never saw anybody get along as well as you do, nowadays; you have altered very much; I never would have believed it." "What was the trouble with me?" "I always stuck up for you, gracious knows. Do you know what has been said of you in Surrey?" "No." "Then I shan't tell you; if I were you, though, I shouldn't trouble myself to be overpolite to the folks who have come and gone here, nigh on to twenty years,—hang 'em!" A few days before the wedding Aunt Merce and Arthur came home. Arthur was shy at first regarding the great change, but being agreeably disappointed, grew lively. I perceived that Aunt Merce had aged since mother's death; her manner was changed; the same objects no longer possessed an interest. She looked at me penitentially. "I wish I could say," she said, "what I used to say to you,—that you were 'possessed.' Now that there is no occasion for me to comprehend people, I begin to. My education began wrong end foremost. I think Mary's death has taught me something. Do you think of her? She was the love of my life." "Women do keep stupid a long time; but I think they are capable of growth, beyond the period when men cease to grow or change." "Oh, I don't know anything about men, you know." Temperance and I cleaned the house, opened every room, and made every fire-place ready for a fire—a fire being the chief luxury which I could command. Baking went on up to within a day of the wedding, under Hepsey's supervision, who had been summoned as a helper; Fanny was busy everywhere. "Mr. Morgeson," said Temperance, "the furniture is too darned shabby for a wedding." "It is not mine, you must remember." "Plague take the creditors! they know as well as I that you turned Surrey from a herring-weir into a whaling-port, and that the houses they live in were built out of the wages you gave them. I am thankful that most of them have water in their cellars." <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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