The Complete Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne (Illustrated Edition). Nathaniel Hawthorne
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instinct would have known at once that it was now a maiden’s bedchamber, and had been purified of all former evil and sorrow by her sweet breath and happy thoughts. Her dreams of the past night, being such cheerful ones, had exorcised the gloom, and now haunted the chamber in its stead.
After arranging matters to her satisfaction, Phoebe emerged from her chamber, with a purpose to descend again into the garden. Besides the rosebush, she had observed several other species of flowers growing there in a wilderness of neglect, and obstructing one another’s development (as is often the parallel case in human society) by their uneducated entanglement and confusion. At the head of the stairs, however, she met Hepzibah, who, it being still early, invited her into a room which she would probably have called her boudoir, had her education embraced any such French phrase. It was strewn about with a few old books, and a work-basket, and a dusty writing-desk; and had, on one side, a large black article of furniture, of very strange appearance, which the old gentlewoman told Phoebe was a harpsichord. It looked more like a coffin than anything else; and, indeed, — not having been played upon, or opened, for years, — there must have been a vast deal of dead music in it, stifled for want of air. Human finger was hardly known to have touched its chords since the days of Alice Pyncheon, who had learned the sweet accomplishment of melody in Europe.
Hepzibah bade her young guest sit down, and, herself taking a chair near by, looked as earnestly at Phoebe’s trim little figure as if she expected to see right into its springs and motive secrets.
“Cousin Phoebe,” said she, at last, “I really can’t see my way clear to keep you with me.”
These words, however, had not the inhospitable bluntness with which they may strike the reader; for the two relatives, in a talk before bedtime, had arrived at a certain degree of mutual understanding. Hepzibah knew enough to enable her to appreciate the circumstances (resulting from the second marriage of the girl’s mother) which made it desirable for Phoebe to establish herself in another home. Nor did she misinterpret Phoebe’s character, and the genial activity pervading it, — one of the most valuable traits of the true New England woman, — which had impelled her forth, as might be said, to seek her fortune, but with a self-respecting purpose to confer as much benefit as she could anywise receive. As one of her nearest kindred, she had naturally betaken herself to Hepzibah, with no idea of forcing herself on her cousin’s protection, but only for a visit of a week or two, which might be indefinitely extended, should it prove for the happiness of both.
To Hepzibah’s blunt observation, therefore, Phoebe replied as frankly, and more cheerfully.
“Dear cousin, I cannot tell how it will be,” said she. “But I really think we may suit one another much better than you suppose.”
“You are a nice girl, — I see it plainly,” continued Hepzibah; “and it is not any question as to that point which makes me hesitate. But, Phoebe, this house of mine is but a melancholy place for a young person to be in. It lets in the wind and rain, and the snow, too, in the garret and upper chambers, in winter-time, but it never lets in the sunshine. And as for myself, you see what I am, — a dismal and lonesome old woman (for I begin to call myself old, Phoebe), whose temper, I am afraid, is none of the best, and whose spirits are as bad as can be! I cannot make your life pleasant, Cousin Phoebe, neither can I so much as give you bread to eat.”
“You will find me a cheerful little body” answered Phoebe, smiling, and yet with a kind of gentle dignity, “and I mean to earn my bread. You know I have not been brought up a Pyncheon. A girl learns many things in a New England village.”
“Ah! Phoebe,” said Hepzibah, sighing, “your knowledge would do but little for you here! And then it is a wretched thought that you should fling away your young days in a place like this. Those cheeks would not be so rosy after a month or two. Look at my face!” and, indeed, the contrast was very striking, — ”you see how pale I am! It is my idea that the dust and continual decay of these old houses are unwholesome for the lungs.”
“There is the garden, — the flowers to be taken care of,” observed Phoebe. “I should keep myself healthy with exercise in the open air.”
“And, after all, child,” exclaimed Hepzibah, suddenly rising, as if to dismiss the subject, “it is not for me to say who shall be a guest or inhabitant of the old Pyncheon House. Its master is coming.”
“Do you mean Judge Pyncheon?” asked Phoebe in surprise.
“Judge Pyncheon!” answered her cousin angrily. “He will hardly cross the threshold while I live! No, no! But, Phoebe, you shall see the face of him I speak of.”
She went in quest of the miniature already described, and returned with it in her hand. Giving it to Phoebe, she watched her features narrowly, and with a certain jealousy as to the mode in which the girl would show herself affected by the picture.
“How do you like the face?” asked Hepzibah.
“It is handsome! — it is very beautiful!” said Phoebe admiringly. “It is as sweet a face as a man’s can be, or ought to be. It has something of a child’s expression, — and yet not childish, — only one feels so very kindly towards him! He ought never to suffer anything. One would bear much for the sake of sparing him toil or sorrow. Who is it, Cousin Hepzibah?”
“Did you never hear,” whispered her cousin, bending towards her, “of Clifford Pyncheon?”
“Never. I thought there were no Pyncheons left, except yourself and our cousin Jaffrey,” answered Phoebe. “And yet I seem to have heard the name of Clifford Pyncheon. Yes! — from my father or my mother; but has he not been a long while dead?”
“Well, well, child, perhaps he has!” said Hepzibah with a sad, hollow laugh; “but, in old houses like this, you know, dead people are very apt to come back again! We shall see. And, Cousin Phoebe, since, after all that I have said, your courage does not fail you, we will not part so soon. You are welcome, my child, for the present, to such a home as your kinswoman can offer you.”
With this measured, but not exactly cold assurance of a hospitable purpose, Hepzibah kissed her cheek.
They now went below stairs, where Phoebe — not so much assuming the office as attracting it to herself, by the magnetism of innate fitness — took the most active part in preparing breakfast. The mistress of the house, meanwhile, as is usual with persons of her stiff and unmalleable cast, stood mostly aside; willing to lend her aid, yet conscious that her natural inaptitude would be likely to impede the business in hand. Phoebe and the fire that boiled the teakettle were equally bright, cheerful, and efficient, in their respective offices. Hepzibah gazed forth from her habitual sluggishness, the necessary result of long solitude, as from another sphere. She could not help being interested, however, and even amused, at the readiness with which her new inmate adapted herself to the circumstances, and brought the house, moreover, and all its rusty old appliances, into a suitableness for her purposes. Whatever she did, too, was done without conscious effort, and with frequent outbreaks of song, which were exceedingly pleasant to the ear. This natural tunefulness made Phoebe seem like a bird in a shadowy tree; or conveyed the idea that the stream of life warbled through her heart as a brook sometimes warbles through a pleasant little dell. It betokened the cheeriness of an active temperament, finding joy in its activity, and, therefore, rendering it beautiful; it was a New England trait, — the stern old stuff of Puritanism with a gold thread in the web.
Hepzibah brought out some old silver spoons with the family crest upon them, and a china tea-set painted over with grotesque figures of man, bird, and beast, in as grotesque a landscape. These pictured people were odd humorists, in a world of their own, — a world of vivid brilliancy, so far as color went, and still unfaded, although the teapot and small cups were as ancient as the custom itself of tea-drinking.
“Your great-great-great-great-grandmother had these cups, when she was married,” said Hepzibah to Phoebe. “She was a Davenport, of a good family. They were almost the first teacups ever seen in the colony; and if one of them were to be broken, my heart would break with it. But it is nonsense to speak so about a brittle teacup, when I remember what my heart has gone through without breaking.”