MALBONE_ AN OLDPORT ROMANCE.(马尔布恩)

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MALBONE: AN OLDPORT ROMANCE.

MALBONE: AN

OLDPORT ROMANCE.

by THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON.

"What is Nature unless there is an eventful human life passing

within her?

Many joys and many sorrows are the lights and shadows in which

she shows most beautiful."--THOREAU, MS. Diary.

MALBONE: AN OLDPORT ROMANCE.

CHAPTER I.

AN ARRIVAL.

IT was one of the changing days of our Oldport midsummer. In the

morning it had rained in rather a dismal way, and Aunt Jane had said she

should put it in her diary. It was a very serious thing for the elements

when they got into Aunt Jane's diary. By noon the sun came out as clear

and sultry as if there had never been a cloud, the northeast wind died away,

the bay was motionless, the first locust of the summer shrilled from the

elms, and the robins seemed to be serving up butterflies hot for their

insatiable second brood, while nothing seemed desirable for a human

luncheon except ice-cream and fans. In the afternoon the southwest wind

came up the bay, with its line of dark-blue ripple and its delicious coolness;

while the hue of the water grew more and more intense, till we seemed to

be living in the heart of a sapphire.

The household sat beneath the large western doorway of the old

Maxwell House,--he rear door, which looks on the water. The house had

just been reoccupied by my Aunt Jane, whose great-grandfather had built

it, though it had for several generations been out of the family. I know no

finer specimen of those large colonial dwellings in which the genius of Sir

Christopher Wren bequeathed traditions of stateliness to our democratic

days. Its central hall has a carved archway; most of the rooms have

painted tiles and are wainscoted to the ceiling; the sashes are red-cedar, the

great staircase mahogany; there are pilasters with delicate Corinthian

capitals; there are cherubs' heads and wings that go astray and lose

themselves in closets and behind glass doors; there are curling acanthus-

leaves that cluster over shelves and ledges, and there are those graceful

shell-patterns which one often sees on old furniture, but rarely in houses.

The high front door still retains its Ionic cornice; and the western entrance,

looking on the bay, is surmounted by carved fruit and flowers, and is

crowned, as is the roof, with that pineapple in whose symbolic wealth the

rich merchants of the last century delighted.

MALBONE: AN OLDPORT ROMANCE.

Like most of the statelier houses in that region of Oldport, this abode

had its rumors of a ghost and of secret chambers. The ghost had never

been properly lionized nor laid, for Aunt Jane, the neatest of housekeepers,

had discouraged all silly explorations, had at once required all barred

windows to be opened, all superfluous partitions to be taken down, and

several highly eligible dark-closets to be nailed up. If there was anything

she hated, it was nooks and odd corners. Yet there had been times that year,

when the household would have been glad to find a few more such hiding-

places; for during the first few weeks the house had been crammed with

guests so closely that the very mice had been ill-accommodated and

obliged to sit up all night, which had caused them much discomfort and

many audible disagreements.

But this first tumult had passed away; and now there remained only

the various nephews and nieces of the house, including a due proportion of

small children. Two final guests were to arrive that day, bringing the

latest breath of Europe on their wings,--Philip Malbone, Hope's betrothed;

and little Emilia, Hope's half-sister.

None of the family had seen Emilia since her wandering mother had

taken her abroad, a fascinating spoiled child of four, and they were all

eager to see in how many ways the succeeding twelve years had

completed or corrected the spoiling. As for Philip, he had been spoiled,

as Aunt Jane declared, from the day of his birth, by the joint effort of all

friends and neighbors. Everybody had conspired to carry on the process

except Aunt Jane herself, who directed toward him one of her honest,

steady, immovable dislikes, which may be said to have dated back to the

time when his father and mother were married, some years before he

personally entered on the scene.

The New York steamer, detained by the heavy fog of the night before,

now came in unwonted daylight up the bay. At the first glimpse, Harry

and the boys pushed off in the row-boat; for, as one of the children said,

anybody who had been to Venice would naturally wish to come to the very

house in a gondola. In another half-hour there was a great entanglement of

embraces at the water-side, for the guests had landed.

MALBONE: AN OLDPORT ROMANCE.

Malbone's self-poised easy grace was the same as ever; his chestnut-

brown eyes were as winning, his features as handsome; his complexion,

too clearly pink for a man, had a sea bronze upon it: he was the same

Philip who had left home, though with some added lines of care. But in

the brilliant little fairy beside him all looked in vain for the Emilia they

remembered as a child. Her eyes were more beautiful than ever,--the

darkest violet eyes, that grew luminous with thought and almost black

with sorrow. Her gypsy taste, as everybody used to call it, still showed

itself in the scarlet and dark blue of her dress; but the clouded gypsy tint

had gone from her cheek, and in its place shone a deep carnation, so hard

and brilliant that it appeared to be enamelled on the surface, yet so firm

and deep-dyed that it seemed as if not even death could ever blanch it.

There is a kind of beauty that seems made to be painted on ivory, and such

was hers. Only the microscopic pencil of a miniature-painter could

portray those slender eyebrows, that arched caressingly over the beautiful

eyes,--or the silky hair of darkest chestnut that crept in a wavy line along

the temples, as if longing to meet the brows,--or those unequalled lashes!

"Unnecessarily long," Aunt Jane afterwards pronounced them; while Kate

had to admit that they did indeed give Emilia an overdressed look at

breakfast, and that she ought to have a less showy set to match her

morning costume.

But what was most irresistible about Emilia,--that which we all noticed

in this interview, and which haunted us all thenceforward,--was a certain

wild, entangled look she wore, as of some untamed out-door thing, and a

kind of pathetic lost sweetness in her voice, which made her at once and

forever a heroine of romance with the children. Yet she scarcely seemed to

heed their existence, and only submitted to the kisses of Hope and Kate as

if that were a part of the price of coming home, and she must pay it.

Had she been alone, there might have been an awkward pause; for if

you expect a cousin, and there alights a butterfly of the tropics, what

hospitality can you offer? But no sense of embarrassment ever came

near Malbone, especially with the children to swarm over him and claim

him for their own. Moreover, little Helen got in the first remark in the way

MALBONE: AN OLDPORT ROMANCE.

of serious conversation.

"Let me tell him something!" said the child. "Philip! that doll of

mine that you used to know, only think! she was sick and died last summer,

and went into the rag-bag. And the other split down the back, so there was

an end of her."

Polar ice would have been thawed by this reopening of communication.

Philip soon had the little maid on his shoulder,--the natural throne of all

children,--and they went in together to greet Aunt Jane.

Aunt Jane was the head of the house,--a lady who had spent more than

fifty years in educating her brains and battling with her ailments. She had

received from her parents a considerable inheritance in the way of whims,

and had nursed it up into a handsome fortune. Being one of the most

impulsive of human beings, she was naturally one of the most entertaining;

and behind all her eccentricities there was a fund of the soundest sense and

the tenderest affection. She had seen much and varied society, had been

greatly admired in her youth, but had chosen to remain unmarried.

Obliged by her physical condition to make herself the first object, she was

saved from utter selfishness by sympathies as democratic as her personal

habits were exclusive. Unexpected and commonly fantastic in her doings,

often dismayed by small difficulties, but never by large ones, she

sagaciously administered the affairs of all those around her,--planned their

dinners and their marriages, fought out their bargains and their feuds.

She hated everything irresolute or vague; people might play at cat's-

cradle or study Spinoza, just as they pleased; but, whatever they did, they

must give their minds to it. She kept house from an easy-chair, and ruled

her dependants with severity tempered by wit, and by the very sweetest

voice in which reproof was ever uttered. She never praised them, but if

they did anything particularly well, rebuked them retrospectively, asking

why they had never done it well before? But she treated them

munificently, made all manner of plans for their comfort, and they all

thought her the wisest and wittiest of the human race. So did the youths

and maidens of her large circle; they all came to see her, and she

counselled, admired, scolded, and petted them all. She had the gayest

MALBONE: AN OLDPORT ROMANCE.

spirits, and an unerring eye for the ludicrous, and she spoke her mind with

absolute plainness to all comers. Her intuitions were instantaneous as

lightning, and, like that, struck very often in the wrong place. She was

thus extremely unreasonable and altogether charming.

Such was the lady whom Emilia and Malbone went up to greet,--the

one shyly, the other with an easy assurance, such as she always disliked.

Emilia submitted to another kiss, while Philip pressed Aunt Jane's hand, as

he pressed all women's, and they sat down.

"Now begin to tell your adventures," said Kate. "People always tell

their adventures till tea is ready."

"Who can have any adventures left," said Philip, "after such letters as I

wrote you all?"

"Of which we got precisely one!" said Kate. "That made it such an

event, after we had wondered in what part of the globe you might be

looking for the post-office! It was like finding a letter in a bottle, or

disentangling a person from the Dark Ages."

"I was at Neuchatel two months; but I had no adventures. I lodged

with a good Pasteur, who taught me geology and German."

"That is suspicious," said Kate. "Had he a daughter passing fair?"

"Indeed he had."

"And you taught her English? That is what these beguiling youths

always do in novels."

"Yes."

"What was her name?"

"Lili."

"What a pretty name! How old was she?"

"She was six."

"O Philip!" cried Kate; "but I might have known it. Did she love you

very much?"

Hope looked up, her eyes full of mild reproach at the possibility of

doubting any child's love for Philip. He had been her betrothed for more

than a year, during which time she had habitually seen him wooing every

child he had met as if it were a woman,--which, for Philip, was saying a

MALBONE: AN OLDPORT ROMANCE.

great deal. Happily they had in common the one trait of perfect amiability,

and she knew no more how to be jealous than he to be constant.

"Lili was easily won," he said. "Other things being equal, people of

six prefer that man who is tallest."

"Philip is not so very tall," said the eldest of the boys, who was

listening eagerly, and growing rapidly.

"No," said Philip, meekly. "But then the Pasteur was short, and his

brother was a dwarf."

"When Lili found that she could reach the ceiling from Mr. Malbone's

shoulder," said Emilia, "she asked no more."

"Then you knew the pastor's family also, my child," said Aunt Jane,

looking at her kindly and a little keenly.

"I was allowed to go there sometimes," she began, timidly.

"To meet her American Cousin," interrupted Philip. "I got some

relaxation in the rules of the school. But, Aunt Jane, you have told us

nothing about your health."

"There is nothing to tell," she answered. "I should like, if it were

convenient, to be a little better. But in this life, if one can walk across the

floor, and not be an idiot, it is something. That is all I aim at."

"Isn't it rather tiresome?" said Emilia, as the elder lady happened to

look at her.

"Not at all," said Aunt Jane, composedly. "I naturally fall back into

happiness, when left to myself."

"So you have returned to the house of your fathers," said Philip. "I

hope you like it."

"It is commonplace in one respect," said Aunt Jane. "General

Washington once slept here."

"Oh!" said Philip. "It is one of that class of houses?"

"Yes," said she. "There is not a village in America that has not half a

dozen of them, not counting those where he only breakfasted. Did ever

man sleep like that man? What else could he ever have done? Who

governed, I wonder, while he was asleep? How he must have travelled!

The swiftest horse could scarcely have carried him from one of these

MALBONE: AN OLDPORT ROMANCE.

houses to another."

"I never was attached to the memory of Washington," meditated Philip;

"but I always thought it was the pear-tree. It must have been that he was

such a very unsettled person."

"He certainly was not what is called a domestic character," said Aunt

Jane.

"I suppose you are, Miss Maxwell," said Philip. "Do you often go

out?"

"Sometimes, to drive," said Aunt Jane. "Yesterday I went shopping

with Kate, and sat in the carriage while she bought under-sleeves enough

for a centipede. It is always so with that child. People talk about the

trouble of getting a daughter ready to be married; but it is like being

married once a month to live with her."

"I wonder that you take her to drive with you," suggested Philip,

sympathetically.

"It is a great deal worse to drive without her," said the impetuous lady.

"She is the only person who lets me enjoy things, and now I cannot enjoy

them in her absence. Yesterday I drove alone over the three beaches, and

left her at home with a dress-maker. Never did I see so many lines of surf;

but they only seemed to me like some of Kate's ball-dresses, with the

prevailing flounces, six deep. I was so enraged that she was not there, I

wished to cover my face with my handkerchief. By the third beach I was

ready for the madhouse."

"Is Oldport a pleasant place to live in?" asked Emilia, eagerly.

"It is amusing in the summer," said Aunt Jane, "though the society is

nothing but a pack of visiting-cards. In winter it is too dull for young

people, and only suits quiet old women like me, who merely live here to

keep the Ten Commandments and darn their stockings."

Meantime the children were aiming at Emilia, whose butterfly looks

amazed and charmed them, but who evidently did not know what to do

with their eager affection.

"I know about you," said little Helen; "I know what you said when you

were little."

MALBONE: AN OLDPORT ROMANCE.

"Did I say anything?" asked Emilia, carelessly.

"Yes," replied the child, and began to repeat the oft-told domestic

tradition in an accurate way, as if it were a school lesson. "Once you had

been naughty, and your papa thought it his duty to slap you, and you cried;

and he told you in French, because he always spoke French with you, that

he did not punish you for his own pleasure. Then you stopped crying, and

asked, 'Pour le plaisir de qui alors?' That means 'For whose pleasure then?'

Hope said it was a droll question for a little girl to ask."

"I do not think it was Emilia who asked that remarkable question, little

girl," said Kate.

"I dare say it was," said Emilia; "I have been asking it all my life." Her

eyes grew very moist, what with fatigue and excitement. But just then, as

is apt to happen in this world, they were all suddenly recalled from tears to

tea, and the children smothered their curiosity in strawberries and cream.

They sat again beside the western door, after tea. The young moon

came from a cloud and dropped a broad path of glory upon the bay; a

black yacht glided noiselessly in, and anchored amid this tract of splendor.

The shadow of its masts was on the luminous surface, while their

reflection lay at a different angle, and seemed to penetrate far below. Then

the departing steamer went flashing across this bright realm with gorgeous

lustre; its red and green lights were doubled in the paler waves, its four

reflected chimneys chased each other among the reflected masts. This

jewelled wonder passing, a single fishing-boat drifted silently by, with its

one dark sail; and then the moon and the anchored yacht were left alone.

Presently some of the luggage came from the wharf. Malbone brought

out presents for everybody; then all the family went to Europe in

photographs, and with some reluctance came back to America for bed.

MALBONE: AN OLDPORT ROMANCE.

CHAPTER II.

PLACE AUX DAMES!

IN every town there is one young maiden who is the universal favorite,

who belongs to all sets and is made an exception to all family feuds, who

is the confidante of all girls and the adopted sister of all young men, up to

the time when they respectively offer themselves to her, and again after

they are rejected. This post was filled in Oldport, in those days, by my

cousin Kate.

Born into the world with many other gifts, this last and least definable

gift of popularity was added to complete them all. Nobody criticised her,

nobody was jealous of her, her very rivals lent her their new music and

their lovers; and her own discarded wooers always sought her to be a

bridesmaid when they married somebody else.

She was one of those persons who seem to have come into the world

well-dressed. There was an atmosphere of elegance around her, like a

costume; every attitude implied a presence-chamber or a ball-room. The

girls complained that in private theatricals no combination of disguises

could reduce Kate to the ranks, nor give her the "make-up" of a waiting-

maid. Yet as her father was a New York merchant of the precarious or

spasmodic description, she had been used from childhood to the wildest

fluctuations of wardrobe;--a year of Paris dresses,--then another year spent

in making over ancient finery, that never looked like either finery or

antiquity when it came from her magic hands. Without a particle of vanity

or fear, secure in health and good-nature and invariable prettiness, she

cared little whether the appointed means of grace were ancient silk or

modern muslin. In her periods of poverty, she made no secret of the

necessary devices; the other girls, of course, guessed them, but her lovers

never did, because she always told them. There was one particular tarlatan

dress of hers which was a sort of local institution. It was known to all

her companions, like the State House. There was a report that she had

first worn it at her christening; the report originated with herself. The

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MALBONE:ANOLDPORTROMANCE.1MALBONE:ANOLDPORTROMANCE.byTHOMASWENTWORTHHIGGINSON."WhatisNatureunlessthereisaneventfulhumanlifepassingwithinher?Manyjoysandmanysorrowsarethelightsandshadowsinwhichsheshowsmostbeautiful."--THOREAU,MS.Diary.MALBONE:ANOLDPORTROMANCE.2CHAPTERI.ANARRIVAL.ITwasoneofthechangingd...

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