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Books: Opening a Chestnut Burr

E >> Edward Payson Roe >> Opening a Chestnut Burr




He was soon aroused, however, by a knocking at the door, and a middle-
aged servant placed before him a tempting plate of Albert biscuit and
a glass of home-made currant wine of indefinite age. The quaint and
dainty little lunch caught his appetite as exactly as if manna had
fallen adapted to his need; but it soon stimulated him out of his
condition of partial non-existence. With returning consciousness of
the necessity of living and acting came the strong desire to spend as
much of his vacation as possible in his old home, and he determined to
avail himself of Mr. Walton's invitation to the utmost limit that
etiquette would permit.

His awakened mind gave but little thought to his entertainers, and he
did not anticipate much pleasure from their society. He was satisfied
that they were refined, cultivated people, with whom he could be as
much at ease as would be possible in any companionship, but he hoped
and proposed to spend the most of his time alone in wandering amid old
scenes and brooding over the past. The morbid mind is ever full of
unnatural contradictions, and he found a melancholy pleasure in
shutting his eyes to the future and recalling the time when he had
been happy and hopeful. In his egotism he found more that interested
him in his past and vanished self than in the surrounding world. Evil
and ill-health had so enfeebled his body, narrowed his mind, and
blurred the future, that his best solace seemed a vain and sentimental
recalling of the crude yet comparatively happy period of childhood.

This is sorry progress. A man must indeed have lived radically wrong
when he looks backward for the best of his life. Gray-haired Mr.
Walton was looking forward. Gregory's habit of self-pleasing--of
acting according to his mood--was too deeply seated to permit even the
thought of returning the hospitality he hoped to enjoy by a cordial
effort on his part to prove himself an agreeable guest. Polite he ever
would be, for he had the instincts and training of a gentleman, in
society's interpretation of the word, but he had lost the power to
feel a generous solicitude for the feelings and happiness of others.
Indeed, he rather took a cynical pleasure in discovering defects in
the character of those around him, and in learning that their seeming
enjoyment of life was but hollow and partial. Conscious of being evil
himself, he liked to think others were not much better, or would not
be if tempted. Therefore, with a gloomy scepticism, he questioned all
the seeming happiness and goodness he saw. "It is either unreal or
untried," he was wont to say bitterly.

About seven o'clock, Hannah, the waitress, again appeared, saying:
"Supper is ready, but the ladies beg you will not come down unless you
feel able. I can bring up your tea if you wish."

Thinking first and only of self, he at once decided not to go down. He
felt sufficiently rested and revived, but was in no mood for
commonplace talk to comparative strangers. His cosey chair, glowing
fire, and listless ease were much better than noisy children,
inquisitive ladies, and the unconscious reproach of Mr. Walton's face,
as he would look in vain for the lineaments of his lost friend.
Therefore he said, suavely: "Please say to the ladies that I am so
wearied that I should make but a dull companion, and so for their
sakes, as well as my own, had better not leave my room this evening."

It is the perfection of art in selfishness to make it appear as if you
were thinking only of others. This was the design of Walter's polite
message. Soon a bit of tender steak, a roast potato, tea, and toast
were smoking appetizingly beside him, and he congratulated himself
that he had escaped the bore of company for one evening.

Notwithstanding his misanthropy and cherished desolation the supper
was so inviting that he was tempted to partake of it heartily. Then
incasing himself in his ample dressing-gown he placed his slippered
feet on the fender before a cheery fire, lighted a choice Havana, and
proceeded to be miserable after the fashion that indulged misery often
affects.

Hannah quietly removed the tea-tray, and Mr. Walton came up and
courteously inquired if there was anything that would add to his
guest's comfort.

"After a few hours of rest and quiet I hope I shall be able to make a
better return for your hospitality," Gregory rejoined, with equal
politeness.

"Oh, do not feel under any obligation to exert yourself," said kind
Mr. Walton. "In order to derive full benefit from your vacation, you
must simply rest and follow your moods."

This view of the case suited Gregory exactly, and the prospect of a
visit at his old home grew still more inviting. When he was left
alone, he gave himself up wholly to the memories of the past.

At first it was with a pleasurable pain that he recalled his former
life. With an imagination naturally strong he lived it all over again,
from the date of his first recollections. In the curling flames and
glowing coals on the hearth a panorama passed before him. He saw a
joyous child, a light-hearted boy, and a sanguine youth, with the
shifting and familiar scenery of well-remembered experience. Time
softened the pictures, and the harsh, rough outlines which exist in
every truthful portraiture of life were lost in the haze of distance.
The gentle but steady light of mother love, and through her a pale,
half-recognized reflection of the love of God, illumined all those
years; and his father's strong, quiet affection made a background
anything but dark. He had been naturally what is termed a very good
boy, full of generous impulses. There had been no lack of ordinary
waywardness or of the faults of youth, but they showed a tendency to
yield readily to the correcting influence of love. Good impulses,
however, are not principles, and may give way to stronger impulses of
evil. If the influences of his early home had alone followed him, he
would not now be moodily recalling the past as the exiled convict
might watch the shores of his native land recede.

And then, as in his prolonged revery the fire burned low, and the
ruddy coals turned to ashes, the past faded into distance, and his
present life, dull and leaden, rose before him, and from regretful
memories that were not wholly painful he passed to that bitterness of
feeling which ever comes when hope is giving place to despair.

The fire flickered out and died, his head drooped lower and lower,
while the brooding frown upon his brow darkened almost into a scowl.
Outwardly he made a sad picture for a young man in the prime of life,
but to Him who looks at the attitude of the soul, what but unutterable
love kept him from appearing absolutely revolting?

Suddenly, like light breaking into a vault a few notes of prelude were
struck upon the piano in the parlor below, and a sweet voice, softened
by distance sung:

"Rock of ages, cleft for me,
let me hide myself in thee,"

How often he had heard the familiar words and music in that same home!
They seemed to crown and complete all the memories of the place, but
they reminded him more clearly than ever before that its most
inseparable associations were holy, hopeful, and suggestive of a faith
that he seemed to have lost as utterly as if it had been a gem dropped
into the ocean.

He had lived in foreign lands far from his birthplace, but the purpose
to return ever dwelt pleasurably in his mind. But how could he cross
the gulf that yawned between him and the faith of his childhood? Was
there really anything beyond that gulf save what the credulous
imagination had created? Instinctively he felt that there was, for he
was honest enough with himself to remember that his scepticism was the
result of an evil life and the influence of an unbelieving world,
rather than the outcome of patient investigation. The wish was father
to the thought.

Yet sweet, unfaltering, and clear as the voice of faith ever should
be, the hymn went forward in the room below, his memory supplying the
well-known words that were lost from remoteness:--

"When mine eyelids close in death,
When I soar to worlds unknown."

"Oh, when!" he exclaimed, bitterly. "What shall be my experience then?
If I continue to fail in health as I have of late I shall know
cursedly soon. That must be Miss Walton singing. Though she does not
realize it, to me this is almost as cruel mockery as if an angel sang
at the gates of hell."

The music ceased, and the monotone of one reading followed.

"Family prayers as of old," he muttered. "How everything conspires to-
day to bring my home-life back again! and yet there is a fatal lack of
something that is harder to endure than the absence of my own kindred
and vanished youth. I doubt whether I can stay here long after all.
Will not the mocking fable of Tantalus be repeated constantly, as I
see others drinking daily at a fountain which though apparently so
near is ever beyond my reach?"

Shivering with the chill of the night and the deeper chill at heart,
he retired to troubled sleep.




CHAPTER IV

HOW MISS WALTON MANAGED PEOPLE



Rest, and the sunny light and bracing air of the following morning,
banished much of Gregory's moodiness, and he descended the stairs
proposing to dismiss painful thoughts and get what comfort and
semblance of enjoyment he could out of the passing hours. Mr. Walton
met him cordially--indeed with almost fatherly solicitude--and led him
at once to the dining-room, where an inviting breakfast awaited them.
Miss Walton also was genial, and introduced Miss Eulalia Morton, a
maiden sister of her mother. Miss Eulie, as she was familiarly called,
was a pale, delicate little lady, with a face sweetened rather than
hardened and imbittered by time. If, as some believe, the flesh and
the spirit, the soul and the body, are ever at variance, she gave the
impression at first glance that the body was getting the worst of the
conflict. But in truth the faintest thoughts of strife seemed to have
no association with her whatever. She appeared so light and aerial
that one could imagine her flying over the rough places of life, and
vanishing when any one opposed her.

Miss Walton reversed all this, for she was decidedly substantial. She
was of only medium height, but a fine figure made her appear taller
than she was. She immediately gave the impression of power and reserve
force. You felt this in her quick, elastic step, saw it in her decided
though not abrupt movements, and heard it in her tone. Even the
nonchalant Mr. Gregory could not ignore her in his customary polite
manner, though quiet refinement and peculiar unobtrusiveness seemed
her characteristics. She won attention, not because she sought it, nor
on the ground of eccentricities, but because of her intense vitality.
From her dark eyes a close observer might catch glimpses of a quick,
active mind, an eager spirit, and--well, perhaps a passionate temper.
Though chastened and subdued, she ever gave the impression of power to
those who came to know her well. In certain ways, as they interpreted
her, people acknowledged this force of character. Some spoke of her as
very lively, others as exceedingly energetic and willing to enter on
any good work. Some thought her ambitious, else why was she so
prominent in church matters, and so ready to visit the sick and poor?
They could explain this in but one way. And some looked knowingly at
each other and said: "I wonder if she is always as smiling and sweet
as when in society;" and then followed shaking of heads which
intimated, "Look out for sudden gusts."

Again, as in simple morning wrapper she turned to greet Gregory, she
gave him the impression of something like beauty. But his taste,
rendered critical by much observation both at home and abroad, at once
told him that he was mistaken.

"The expression is well enough," he thought, "but she has not a single
perfect feature--not one that an artist would copy, except perhaps the
eyes, and even they are not soft and Madonna-like."

He had a sybarite's eye for beauty, and an intense admiration for it.
At the same time he was too intellectual to be satisfied with the mere
sensuous type. And yet, when he decided that a woman was not pretty,
she ceased to interest him. His exacting taste required no small
degree of outward perfection crowned by ready wit and society polish.
With those so endowed he had frequently amused himself in New York and
Paris by a passing flirtation since the politic Miss Bently had made
him a sceptic in regard to women. All his intercourse with society had
confirmed his cynicism. The most beautiful and brilliant in the
drawing-rooms were seldom the best. He flattered them to their faces
and sneered at them in his heart. Therefore his attentions were merely
of a nature to excite their vanity, stimulated by much incense from
other sources. He saw this plainly manifested trait, which he
contributed to develop, and despised it. He also saw that many were as
eager for a good match as ever the adored Miss Bently had been, and
that, while they liked his compliments, they cared not for him. Why
should they? Insincere and selfish himself, why should he expect to
awaken better feelings on the part of those who were anything but
unsophisticated, and from knowledge of the world could gauge him at
his true worth? Not even a sentimental girl would show her heart to
such a man. And yet with the blind egotism of selfishness he smiled
grimly at their apparent heartlessness and said, "Such is woman."

At the same time it must in justice be said that he despised men in
general quite as sincerely. "Human nature is wretched stuff," had come
to be the first article in his creed.

In regard to Miss Walton he concluded: "She is a goodish girl, more of
a lady than the average, pious and orthodox, an excellent housekeeper,
and a great comfort to her father, no doubt. She is safe from her very
plainness, though confident, of course, that she could resist
temptation and be a saint under all circumstances;" and he dismissed
her from his mind with a sort of inward groan and protest against the
necessity of making himself agreeable to her during his visit.

He did not think it worth while to disguise his face as he made these
brief critical observations, and quick-witted Annie gathered something
of the drift of his thoughts, as she stole a few glances at him from
behind the coffee-urn. It piqued her pride a little, and she was
disappointed in him, for she had hoped for a pleasant addition to
their society for a time. But she was so supremely indifferent to him,
and had so much to fill her thoughts and days, that his slight promise
to prove an agreeable visitor caused but momentary annoyance. Yet the
glimmer of a smile flitted across her face as she thought: "He may
find himself slightly mistaken in me, after all. His face seems to
say, 'No doubt she is a good young woman, and well enough for this
slow country place, but she has no beauty, no style.' I think I can
manage to disturb the even current of his vanity, if his visit is long
enough, and he shall learn at least that I shall not gape admiringly
at his artificial metropolitan airs."

Her manner toward Gregory remained full of kindness and grace, but she
made no effort to secure his attention and engage him in conversation,
as he had feared she would do. She acted as if she were accustomed to
see such persons as himself at her father's breakfast-table every
morning; and, though habitually wrapped up in his own personality, he
soon became dimly conscious that her course toward him was not what he
had expected.

Miss Eulie was all solicitude in view of his character of invalid; and
the children looked at him with curious eyes and growing
disapprobation. There was nothing in him to secure their instinctive
friendship, and he made no effort to win their sympathies.

The morning meal began with a reverent looking to heaven for God's
blessing on the gifts which were acknowledged as coming from Him; and
even Gregory was compelled to admit that the brief rite did not appear
like a careless signing of the cross, or a shrivelled form from which
spirit and meaning had departed, but a sincere expression of loving
trust and gratitude.

During the greater part of the meal, Mr. Walton dwelt on the
circumstances that had led to his friendship with Gregory's father,
but at last the conversation flagged a little, since the young man
made so slight effort to maintain it.

Suddenly Mr. Walton turned to his daughter and said, "By the way,
Annie, you have not told me where you found Mr. Gregory, for my
impression is that you brought him down from the hills."

"I was about to say that I found him in a chestnut burr," replied
Annie, with a twinkle in her eye. "At least I found a stranger by the
cedar thicket, and he proved from a chestnut burr who he was, and his
right to acquaintance, with a better logic than I supposed him capable
of."

"Indeed?" asked Gregory, quickly, feeling the prick of her last words;
"on what grounds were you led to estimate my logic so slightingly?"

"On merely general grounds; but you see I am open to all evidence in
your favor. City life no doubt has great advantages, but it also has
greater drawbacks."

"What are they?"

"I cannot think of them all now. Suffice it to say that if you had
always lived in the city you could not have interpreted a chestnut
burr so gracefully. Many there seem to forget Nature's lore."

"But may they not learn other things more valuable?"

Miss Walton shook her head, and said, with a laugh: "An ignorant
exhorter once stated to his little schoolhouse audience that Paul was
brought up at the foot of the hill Gamaliel. I almost wish he were
right, for I should have had more confidence in the teachings of the
hill than in those of the narrow-minded Jewish Rabbi."

"And yet you regard Paul as the very chief of the apostles."

"He became such after he was taught of Him who teaches through the
hills and nature generally."

"My daughter is an enthusiast for nature," remarked Mr. Walton.

"If the people are the same as when I was here a boy, the hills have
not taught the majority very much," said Gregory, with a French shrug.

"Many of them have a better wisdom than you think," answered Annie,
quietly.

"In what does it consist?"

"Well, for one thing they know how to enjoy life and add to the
enjoyment of others."

Gregory looked at her keenly for a moment, but saw nothing to lead him
to think that she was speaking on other than general principles; but
he said, a little moodily, as they rose from the table, "That
certainly is a better wisdom than is usually attained in either city
or country."

"It is not our custom to make company of our friends," said Mr.
Walton, cordially. "We hope you will feel completely at home, and come
and go as you like, and do just what you find agreeable. We dine at
two, and have an early supper on account of the children. There are
one or two fair saddle horses on the place, but if you do not feel
strong enough to ride, Annie can drive you out, and I assure you she
is at home in the management of a horse."

"Yes, indeed," echoed the little boy. "Aunt Annie can manage anything
or anybody."

"That is a remarkable power," said Gregory, with an amused look and a
side glance at the young girl. "How does she do it?"

"Oh, I don't know," replied the boy; "she makes them love her, and
then they want to do as she says."

A momentary wrathful gleam shot from Annie's eyes at her indiscreet
little champion, but with heightened color she joined in the laugh
that followed.

Gregory had the ill grace to say with a sort of mocking gallantry, as
he bowed himself out, "It must be delightful to be managed on such
terms."




CHAPTER V

WAS IT AN ACCIDENT?



Putting on a light overcoat, for the morning air was sharp and
bracing, Gregory soon found himself in the old square garden. Though
its glory was decidedly on the wane, it was as yet unnipped by the
frost It had a neatness and an order of its own that were quite unlike
those where nature is in entire subordination to art. Indeed it looked
very much as he remembered it in the past, and he welcomed its
unchanged aspect. He strolled to many other remembered boyish haunts,
and it seemed that the very lichens and mosses grew in the same places
as of old, and that nature had stood still and awaited his return.

And yet every familiar object chided him for being so changed, and he
began to find more of pain than pleasure as this contrast between what
he had been and what he might have been was constantly forced upon
him.

"Oh that I had never left this place!" he exclaimed, bitterly: "It
would have been better to stay here and drudge as a day laborer. What
has that career out in the world to which I looked forward so ardently
amounted to? The present is disappointment and self-disgust, the
future an indefinite region of fears and forebodings, and even the
happy past is becoming a bitter mockery by reminding me of what can
never be again."

Wearied and despondent, he moodily returned to the house and threw
himself on a lounge in the parlor. A smouldering wood fire upon the
hearth softened the air to summer temperature. The heat was grateful
to his chilled, bloodless body, and gave him a luxurious sense of
physical comfort, and he muttered: "I had about resolved to leave this
place with its memories that are growing into torment, but I suppose
it would be the same anywhere else. I am too weak and ill to face new
scenes and discomfort. A little animal enjoyment and bodily respite
from pain seem about all that is left to me of existence, and I think
I can find these here better than elsewhere. If I am expected,
however, to fall under the management of the daughter of the house on
the terms blurted out by that fidgety nephew of hers, I will fly for
my life. A plague on him! His restlessness makes me nervous! If I
could endure a child at all, the blue-eyed little girl would make a
pretty toy."

Sounds from the sitting-room behind the parlor now caught his
attention, and listening he soon became aware that Miss Walton was
teaching the children. "She has just the voice for a 'schoolmarm,'" he
thought--"quick, clear-cut, and decided."

If he had not given way to unreasonable prejudice he might also have
noted that there was nothing harsh or querulous in it.

"With her management and love of nature, she doubtless thinks herself
the personification of goodness. I suppose I shall be well lectured
before I get away. I had a foretaste of it this morning. 'Drawbacks of
city life,' forsooth! She no doubt regards me as a result of these
disadvantages. But if she should come to deem it her mission to
convert or reform me, then will be lost my small remnant of peace and
comfort."

But weakness and weariness soon inclined him to sleep. Miss Walton's
voice sounded far away. Then it passed into his dream as that of Miss
Bently chiding him affectedly for his wayward tendencies; again it was
explaining that conscientious young lady's "sense of duty" in view of
Mr. Grobb's offer, and even in his sleep his face darkened with pain
and wrath.

Just then, school hours being over, Miss Walton came into the parlor.
For a moment, as she stood by the fire, she did not notice its
unconscious occupant. Then, seeing him, she was about to leave the
room noiselessly, when the expression of his face arrested her steps.

If Annie Walton's eyes suggested the probability of "sudden gusts,"
they also at times announced a warm, kind heart, for as she looked at
him now her face instantly softened to pity.

"Good he is not," she thought, "but he evidently suffers in his evil.
Something is blighting his life, and what can blight a life save evil?
Perhaps I had better change my proposed crusade against his vanity and
cynicism to a kind, sisterly effort toward making him a better and
therefore a happier man. It will soon come out in conversation that I
have long been the same as engaged to another, and this will relieve
me of absurd suspicions of designs upon him. If I could win a friendly
confidence on his part, I'm sure I could tell him some wholesome
truths, for even an enemy could scarcely look on that face without
relenting."

There was nothing slow or cumbrous about Annie. These thoughts had
flashed through her mind during the brief moment in which her eyes
softened from surprise into sympathy as they caught the expression of
Gregory's face. Then, fearing to disturb him, with silent tread she
passed out to her wonted morning duties.

How seemingly accidental was that visit to the parlor! Its motive
indefinite and forgotten. Apparently it was but a trivial episode of
an uneventful day, involving no greater catastrophe than the momentary
rousing of a sleeper who would doze again. But what day can we with
certainty call uneventful? and what episode trivial? Those half-
aimless, purposeless steps of Annie Walton into the quiet parlor might
lead to results that would radically change the endless future of
several lives.

In her womanly, pitying nature, had not God sent His angel? If a
viewless "ministering spirit," as the sinful man's appointed guardian,
was present, as many believe is the case with every one, how truly he
must have welcomed this unselfish human companionship in his loving
labor to save life; for only they who rescue from sin truly save life.