Harriet Beecher Stowe : Three Novels (262 page)

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Authors: Harriet Beecher Stowe

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Page 1462
L.
The Last Chapter
It was eight years after Tina left us on the wharf in Boston when I met her again. Ellery Davenport had returned to this country, and taken a house in Boston. I was then a lawyer established there in successful business.
Ellery Davenport met me with open-handed cordiality, and Tina with warm sisterly affection; and their house became one of my most frequent visiting-places. Knowing Tina by a species of divination, as I always had, it was easy for me to see through all those sacred little hypocrisies by which good women instinctively plead and intercede for husbands whom they themselves have found out. Michelet says, somewhere, that "in marriage the maternal feeling becomes always the strongest in woman, and in time it is the motherly feeling with which she regards her husband." She cares for him, watches over him, with the indefatigable tenderness which a mother gives to a son.
It was easy to see that Tina's affection for her husband was no longer a blind, triumphant adoration for an idealized hero, nor the confiding dependence of a happy wife, but the careworn anxiety of one who constantly seeks to guide and to restrain. And I was not long in seeing the cause of this anxiety.
Ellery Davenport was smitten with that direst curse, which, like the madness inflicted on the heroes of some of the Greek tragedies, might seem to be the vengeance of some incensed divinity. He was going down that dark and slippery road, up which so few return. We were all fully aware that at many times our Tina had all the ghastly horrors of dealing with a madman. Even when he was himself again, and sought, by vows, promises, and illusive good resolutions, to efface the memory of the past, and give security for the future, there was no rest for Tina. In her dear eyes I could read always that sense of overhanging dread, that helpless watchfulness, which

 

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one may see in the eyes of so many poor women in our modern life, whose days are haunted by a fear they dare not express, and who must smile, and look gay, and seem confiding, when their very souls are failing them for fear. Still these seasons of madness did not seem for a while to impair the vigor of Ellery Davenport's mind, nor the feverish intensity of his ambition. He was absorbed in political life, in a wild, daring, unprincipled way, and made frequent occasions to leave Tina alone in Boston, while he travelled around the country, pursuing his intrigues. In one of these absences, it was his fate at last to fall in a political duel.
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Ten years after the gay and brilliant scene in Christ Church, some of those who were present as wedding guests were again convened to tender the last offices to the brilliant and popular Ellery Davenport. Among the mourners at the grave, two women who had loved him truly stood arm in arm.
After his death, it seemed, by the general consent of all, the kindest thing that could be done for him, to suffer the veil of silence to fall over his memory.
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Two years after that, one calm, lovely October morning, a quiet circle of friends stood around the altar of the old church, when Tina and I were married. Our wedding journey was a visit to Harry and Esther in England. Since then, the years have come and gone softly.
Ellery Davenport now seems to us as a distant dream of another life, recalled chiefly by the beauty of his daughter, whose growing loveliness is the principal ornament of our home.
Miss Mehitable and Emily form one circle with us. Nor does the youthful Emily know why she is so very dear to the saintly woman whose prayers and teachings are such a benediction in our family.
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Not long since we spent a summer vacation at Oldtown, to explore once more the old scenes, and to show to young Mas-

 

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ter Harry and Miss Tina the places that their parents had told them of. Many changes have taken place in the old homestead. The serene old head of my grandfather has been laid beneath the green sod of the burying-ground; and my mother, shortly after, was laid by him.
Old Parson Lothrop continued for some years, with his antique dress and his antique manners, respected in Oldtown as the shadowy minister of the past; while his colleague, Mr. Mordecai Rossiter, edified his congregation with the sharpest and most stringent new school Calvinism. To the last, Dr. Lothrop remained faithful to his Arminian views, and regarded the spread of the contrary doctrines, as a decaying old minister is apt to, as a personal reflection upon himself. In his last illness, which was very distressing, he was visited by a zealous Calvinistic brother from a neighboring town, who, on the strength of being a family connection, thought it his duty to go over and make one last effort to revive the orthodoxy of his venerable friend. Dr. Lothrop received him politely, and with his usual gentlemanly decorum remained for a long time in silence listening to his somewhat protracted arguments and statements. As he gave no reply, his friend at last said to him, "Dr. Lothrop, perhaps you are weak, and this conversation disturbs you?"
"I should be weak indeed, if I allowed such things as you have been saying to disturb me," replied the stanch old doctor.
"He died like a philosopher, my dear," said Lady Lothrop to me, "just as he always lived."
My grandmother, during the last part of her life, was totally blind. One would have thought that a person of her extreme activity would have been restless and wretched under this deprivation; but in her case blindness appeared to be indeed what Milton expressed it as being, "an overshadowing of the wings of the Almighty." Every earthly care was hushed, and her mind turned inward, in constant meditation upon those great religious truths which had fed her life for so many years.
Aunt Lois we found really quite lovely. There is a class of women who are like winter apples,all their youth they are crabbed and hard, but at the further end of life they are full

 

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of softness and refreshment. The wrinkles had really almost smoothed themselves out in Aunt Lois's face, and our children found in her the most indulgent and painstaking of aunties, ready to run, and wait, and tend, and fetch, and carry, and willing to put everything in the house at their disposal. In fact, the young gentleman and lady found the old homestead such very free and easy ground that they announced to us that they preferred altogether staying there to being in Boston, especially as they had the barn to romp in.
One Saturday afternoon, Tina and I drove over to Need-more with a view to having one more gossip with Sam Lawson. Hepsy, it appears, had departed this life, and Sam had gone over to live with a son of his in Needmore. We found him roosting placidly in the porch on the sunny side of the house.
"Why, lordy massy, bless your soul an' body, ef that ain't Horace Holyoke!" he said, when he recognized who I was.
"An' this 'ere 's your wife, is it? Wal, wal, how this 'ere world does turn round! Wal, now, who would ha' thought it? Here you be, and Tiny with you. Wal, wal!"
"Yes," said I, "here we are."
"Wal, now, jest sit down," said Sam, motioning us to a seat in the porch. "I was jest kind o' 'flectin' out here in the sun; ben a readin' in the Missionary Herald; they 've ben a sendin' missionaries to Otawhity, an' they say that there ain't no winter there, an' the bread jest grows on the trees, so 't they don't hev to make none, an' there ain't no wood-piles nor splittin' wood, nor nothin' o' that sort goin' on, an' folks don't need no clothes to speak on. Now, I's jest thinkin' that 'ere 's jest the country to suit me. I wonder, now, ef they could n't find suthin' for me to do out there. I could shoe the hosses, ef they hed any, and I could teach the natives their catechize, and kind o' help round gin'ally. These 'ere winters gits so cold here I'm e'en a'most crooked up with the rheumatiz"
"Why, Sam," said Tina, "where is Hepsy?"
"Law, now, hain't ye heerd? Why, Hepsy, she's been dead, wal, let me see, 't was three year the fourteenth o' last May when Hepsy died, but she was clear wore out afore she died. Wal, jest half on her was clear paralyzed, poor crittur; she could n't speak a word; that 'ere was a gret trial to her. I

 

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don't think she was resigned under it. Hepsy hed an awful sight o' grit. I used to talk to Hepsy, an' talk, an' try to set things afore her in the best way I could, so 's to git 'er into a better state o' mind. D' you b'lieve, one day when I 'd ben a talkin' to her, she kind o' made a motion to me with her eye, an' when I went up to 'er, what d' you think? why, she jest tuk and BIT me! she did so!"
"Sam," said Tina, "I sympathize with Hepsy. I believe if I had to be talked to an hour, and could n't answer, I should bite."
"Jes' so, jes' so," said Sam. "I 'spex 't is so. You see, women must talk, there 's where 't is. Wal, now, don't ye remember that Miss Bell,Miss Miry Bell? She was of a good family in Boston. They used to board her out to Oldtown, 'cause she was's crazy 's a loon. They jest let 'er go 'bout, 'cause she n't hurt nobody, but massy, her tongue used ter run 's ef 't was hung in the middle and run both ends. Ye really could n't hear yourself think when she was round. Wal, she was a visitin' Parson Lothrop, an' ses he, 'Miss Bell, do pray see ef you can't be still a minute.' 'Lord bless ye, Dr. Lothrop, I can't stop talking!' ses she. 'Wal,' ses he, 'you jest take a mouthful o' water an' hold in your mouth, an' then mebee ye ken stop.' Wal, she took the water, an' she sot still a minute or two, an' it kind o' worked on 'er so 't she sot still a minute or two, an' it kind o' worked on 'er so 't she jumped up an' twitched off Dr. Lothrop's wig an' spun it right acrost the room inter the fireplace. 'Bless me! Miss Bell,' ses he, 'spit out yer water an' talk, ef ye must!' I 've offun thought on 't," said Sam. "I s'pose Hepsy 's felt a good 'eal so. Wal, poor soul, she 's gone to 'er rest. We 're all on us goin', one arter another. Yer grandther 's gone, an' yer mother, an' Parson Lothrop, he 's gone, an' Lady Lothrop, she 's kind o' solitary. I went over to see 'er last week, an' ses she to me, 'Sam, I dunno nothin' what I shell do with my hosses. I feed 'em well, an' they ain't worked hardly any, an' yet they act so 't I 'm 'most afeard to drive out with 'em.' I 'm thinkin' 't would be a good thing ef she 'd give up that 'ere place o' hern, an' go an' live in Boston with her sister."
"Well, Sam," said Tina, "what has become of Old Crab Smith? Is he alive yet?"
"Law, yis, he 's creepin' round here yit; but the old woman,

 

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she's dead," said Sam. "I tell you she 's a hevin' her turn o' hectorin'
him
now, 'cause she keeps appearin' to him, an' scares the old critter 'most to death."
"Appears to him?" said I. "Why, what do you mean, Sam?"
"Wal, jest as true 's you live an' breathe, she does 'pear to him," said Sam. "Why, 't was only last week my son Luke an' I, we was a settin' by the fire here, an' I was a holdin' a skein o' yarn for Malviny to wind (Malviny, she 's Luke's wife), when who should come in but Old Crab, head first, lookin' so scart an' white about the gills thet Luke, ses he, 'Why, Mistur Smith! what ails ye?' ses he. Wal, the critter was so scared 't he could n't speak, he jest set down in the chair, an' he shuk so 't he shuk the chair, an' his teeth, they chattered, an' 't was a long time 'fore they could git it out on him. But come to, he told us, 't was a bright moonlight night, an' he was comin' 'long down by the Stone pastur, when all of a suddin he looks up an' there was his wife walkin right 'longside on him,he ses he never see nothin' plainer in his life than he see the old woman, jest in her short gown an' petticut 't she allers wore, with her gold beads round her neck, an' a cap on with a black ribbon round it, an' there she kep' a walkin' right 'long-side of 'im, her elbow a touchin' hisn, all 'long the road, an' when he walked faster, she walked faster, an' when he walked slower, she walked slower, an' her eyes was sot, an' fixed on him, but she did n't speak no word, an' he did n't darse to speak to her. Finally, he ses he gin a dreadful yell an' run with all his might, an' our house was the very fust place he tumbled inter. Lordy massy, wal, I could n't help thinkin' 't sarved him right. I told Sol 'bout it, last townmeetin' day, an' Sol, I thought he 'd ha' split his sides. Sol said he did n't know 's the old woman had so much sperit. 'Lordy massy,' ses he, 'ef she don't do nothin' more 'n take a walk 'long-side on him now an' then, why, I say, let 'er rip,sarves him right.'"
"Well," said Tina, "I 'am glad to hear about Old Sol; how is he?"
"O, Sol? Wal, he 's doin' fustrate. He married Deacon 'Bijah Smith's darter, an' he 's got a good farm of his own, an' boys bigger 'n you be, considerable."
"Well," said Tina, "how is Miss Asphyxia?"

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