Queechy by Susan Warner

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"But she looks more like a wax figure yet than anything else, don't
she, Guy?"

"Not like any that ever I saw," said Mr. Carleton gravely. "Hardly
substantial enough. Mother, I have come to tell you I am ashamed of myself
for having given you such cause of offence yesterday."

Mrs. Carleton's quick look, as she laid her hand on her son's arm, said
sufficiently well that she would have excused him from making any apology
rather than have him humble himself in the presence of a third person.

"Fleda heard me yesterday," said he; "it was right she should hear
me to-day."

"Then my dear Guy," said his mother with a secret eagerness which she did
not allow to appear,--"if I may make a condition for my forgiveness, which
you had before you asked for it,--will you grant me one favour?"

"Certainly, mother,--if I can."

"You promise me?"

"As well in one word as in two."

"Promise me that you will never, by any circumstances, allow yourself to
be drawn into--what is called _an affair of honour_."

Mr. Carleton's brow changed, and without making any reply, perhaps to
avoid his mother's questioning gaze, he rose up and walked two or three
times the length of the cabin. His mother and Fleda watched him
doubtfully.

"Do you see how you have got me into trouble, Elfie?" said he, stopping
before them.

Fleda looked wonderingly, and Mrs. Carleton exclaimed, "What trouble?"

"Elfie," said he, without immediately answering his mother, "what would
your conscience do with two promises both of which cannot be kept?"

"What such promises have you made?" said Mrs Carleton eagerly.

"Let me hear first what Fleda says to my question."

"Why," said Fleda, looking a little bewildered,--"I would keep the
right one."

"Not the one first made?" said he smiling.

"No," said Fleda,--"not unless it was the right one."

"But don't you think one ought to keep one's word, in any event?"

"I don't think anything can make it right to do wrong," Fleda said
gravely, and not without a secret trembling consciousness to what point
she was speaking.

He left them and again took several turns up and down the cabin before
he sat down.

"You have not given me your promise yet, Guy," said his mother, whose eye
had not once quitted him. "You said you would."

"I said, if I could."

"Well?--you can?"

"I have two honourable meetings of the proscribed kind now on hand, to
which I stand pledged."

Fleda hid her face in an agony. Mrs. Carleton's agony was in every line of
hers as she grasped her son's wrist exclaiming, "Guy, promise me!" She had
words for nothing else. He hesitated still a moment, and then meeting his
mother's look he said gravely and steadily,

"I promise you, mother, I never will."

His mother threw herself upon his breast and hid her face there, too much
excited to have any thought of her customary regard to appearances;
sobbing out thanks and blessings even audibly. Fleda's gentle head was
bowed in almost equal agitation; and Mr. Carleton at that moment had no
doubt that he had chosen well which promise to keep.

There remained however a less agreeable part of the business to manage.
After seeing his mother and Fleda quite happy again, though without
satisfying in any degree the curiosity of the former, Guy went in search
of the two young West Point officers. They were together, but without
Thorn's friend, Capt. Beebee. Him Carleton next sought and brought to the
forward deck where the others were enjoying their cigars; or rather
Charlton Rossitur was enjoying his, with the happy self satisfaction of a
pair of epaulettes off duty. Thorn had too busy a brain to be much of a
smoker. Now, however, when it was plain that Mr. Carleton had something to
say to them, Charlton's cigar gave way to his attention; it was displaced
from his mouth and held in abeyance; while Thorn puffed away more intently
than ever.

"Gentlemen," Carleton began,--"I gave you yesterday reason to expect that
so soon as circumstances permitted, you should have the opportunity which
offended honour desires of trying sounder arguments than those of reason
upon the offender. I have to tell you to-day that I will not give it you.
I have thought further of it."

"Is it a new insult that you mean by this, sir?" exclaimed Rossitur in
astonishment. Thorn's cigar did not stir.

"Neither new nor old. I mean simply that I have changed my mind."

"But this is very extraordinary!" said Rossitur. "What reason do
you give?"

"I give none, sir."

"In that case," said Capt. Beebee, "perhaps Mr. Carleton will not object
to explain or unsay the things which gave offence yesterday."

"I apprehend there is nothing to explain, sir,--I think I must have been
understood; and I never take back my words, for I am in the habit of
speaking the truth."

"Then we are to consider this as a further, unprovoked, unmitigated insult
for which you will give neither reason nor satisfaction!" cried Rossitur.

"I have already disclaimed that, Mr. Rossitur."

"Are we, on mature deliberation, considered unworthy of tha _honour_ you
so condescendingly awarded to us yesterday?"

"My reasons have nothing to do with you, sir, nor with your friend; they
are entirely personal to myself."

"Mr. Carleton must be aware," said Capt. Beebee, "that his conduct, if
unexplained, will bear a very strange construction."

Mr. Carleton was coldly silent.

"It never was heard of," the Captain went on,--"that a gentleman declined
both to explain and to give satisfaction for any part of his conduct which
had called for it."

"It never was heard that a _gentleman_ did," said Thorn, removing his
cigar a moment for the purpose of supplying the emphasis which his friend
had carefully omitted to make.

"Will you say, Mr. Carleton," said Rossitur, "that you did not mean to
offend us yesterday in what you said?"

"No, Mr. Rossitur."

"You will not!" cried the Captain.

"No, sir; for your friends had given me, as I conceived, just cause
of displeasure; and I was, and am, careless of offending those who
have done so."

"You consider yourself aggrieved, then, in the first place?" said Beebee.

"I have said so, sir."

"Then," said the Captain, after a puzzled look out to sea, "supposing that
my friends disclaim all intention to offend you in that case--"

"In that case I should be glad, Capt. Beebee, that they had changed their
line of tactics--there is nothing to change in my own."

"Then what are we to understand by this strange refusal of a meeting, Mr.
Carleton? what does it mean?"

"It means one thing in my own mind, sir, and probably another in yours;
but the outward expression I choose to give it is that I will not reward
uncalled-for rudeness with an opportunity of self-vindication."

"You are," said Thorn sneeringly, "probably careless as to the figure your
own name will cut in connection with this story?"

"Entirely so," said Mr. Carleton, eying him steadily.

"You are aware that your character is at our mercy?"

A slight bow seemed to leave at their disposal the very small portion of
his character he conceived to lie in that predicament.

"You will expect to hear yourself spoken of in terms that befit a man who
has cowed out of an engagement he dared not fulfil?"

"Of course," said Carleton haughtily, "by my present refusal I give you
leave to say all that, and as much more as your ingenuity can furnish in
the same style; but not in my hearing, sir."

"You can't help yourself," said Thorn, with the same sneer. "You have rid
yourself of a gentleman's means of protection,--what others will you use?

"I will leave that to the suggestion of the moment. I do not doubt it will
be found fruitful."

Nobody doubted it who looked just then on his steady sparkling eye.

"I consider the championship of yesterday given up of course," Thorn went
on in a kind of aside, not looking at anybody, and striking his cigar
against the guards to clear it of ashes;--"the champion has quitted the
field; and the little princess but lately so walled in with defences must
now listen to whatever knight and squire may please to address to her.
Nothing remains to be seen of her defender but his spurs."

"They may serve for the heels of whoever is disposed to annoy her," said
Mr. Carleton. "He will need them."

He left the group with the same air of imperturbable self-possession which
he had maintained during the conference. But presently Rossitur, who had
his private reasons for wishing to keep friends with an acquaintance who
might be of service in more ways than one, followed him and declared
himself to have been, in all his nonsense to Fleda, most undesirous of
giving displeasure to her temporary guardian, and sorry that it had fallen
out so. He spoke frankly, and Mr. Carleton, with the same cool
gracefulness with which he had carried on the quarrel, waived his
displeasure, and admitted the young gentleman apparently to stand as
before in his favour. Their reconciliation was not an hour old when Capt.
Beebee joined them.

"I am sorry I must trouble you with a word more on this disagreeable
subject, Mr. Carleton," he began, after a ceremonious salutation,--"My
friend, Lieut. Thorn, considers himself greatly outraged by your
determination not to meet him. He begs to ask, by me, whether it is your
purpose to abide by it at all hazards?"

"Yes, sir."

"There is some misunderstanding here, which I greatly regret.--I hope you
will see and excuse the disagreeable necessity I am under of delivering
the rest of my friend's message."

"Say on, sir."

"Mr. Thorn declares that if you deny him the common courtesy which no
gentleman refuses to another, he will proclaim your name with the most
opprobrious adjuncts to all the world, and in place of his former regard
he will hold you in the most unlimited contempt, which he will have no
scruple about shewing on all occasions."

Mr. Carleton coloured a little, but replied coolly,

"I have not lived in Mr. Thorn's favour. As to the rest, I forgive
him!--except indeed he provoke me to measures for which I never will
forgive him."

"Measures!" said the Captain.

"I hope not! for my own self-respect would be more grievously hurt than
his. But there is an unruly spring somewhere about my composition that
when it gets wound up is once in a while too much for me."

"But," said Rossitur, "pardon me,--have you no regard to the effect of his
misrepresentations?"

"You are mistaken, Mr. Rossitur," said Carleton slightly;--this is but
the blast of a bellows,--not the Simoom."

"Then what answer shall I have the honour of carrying back to my friend?"
said Capt. Beebee, after a sort of astounded pause of a few minutes.

"None, of my sending, sir."

Capt. Beebee touched his cap, and went back to Mr. Thorn, to whom he
reported that the young Englishman was thoroughly impracticable, and that
there was nothing to be gained by dealing with him; and the vexed
conclusion of Thorn's own mind, in the end, was in favour of the wisdom of
letting him alone.

In a very different mood, saddened and disgusted, Mr. Carleton shook
himself free of Rossitur and went and stood alone by the guards looking
out upon the sea. He did not at all regret his promise to his mother, nor
wish to take other ground than that he had taken. Both the theory and the
practice of duelling he heartily despised, and he was not weak enough to
fancy that he had brought any discredit upon either his sense or his
honour by refusing to comply with an unwarrantable and barbarous custom.
And he valued mankind too little to be at all concerned about their
judgment in the matter. His own opinion was at all times enough for him.
But the miserable folly and puerility of such an altercation as that in
which he had just been engaged, the poor display of human character, the
little low passions which bad been called up, even in himself, alike
destitute of worthy cause and aim, and which had perhaps but just missed
ending in the death of some and the living death of others,--it all
wrought to bring him back to his old wearying of human nature and
despondent eying of the everywhere jarrings, confusions, and discordances
in the moral world. The fresh sea-breeze that swept by the ship,
roughening the play of the waves, and brushing his own cheek with its
health-bearing wing, brought with it a sad feeling of contrast. Free, and
pure, and steadily directed, it sped on its way, to do its work. And like
it all the rest of the natural world, faithful to the law of its Maker,
was stamped with the same signet of perfection. Only man, in all the
universe, seemed to be at cross purposes with the end of his being. Only
man, of all animate or inanimate things, lived an aimless, fruitless,
broken life,--or fruitful only in evil. How was this? and whence? and when
would be the end? and would this confused mass of warring elements ever be
at peace? would this disordered machinery ever work smoothly, without let
or stop any more, and work out the beautiful something for which sure it
was designed? And could any hand but its first Maker mend the broken wheel
or supply the spring that was wanting?

Has not the Desire of all nations been often sought of eyes that were
never taught where to look for him.

Mr. Carleton was standing still by the guards, looking thoughtfully out to
windward to meet the fresh breeze, as if the Spirit of the Wilderness were
in it and could teach him the truth that the Spirit of the World knew not
and had not to give, when he became sensible of something close beside
him; and looking down met little Fleda's upturned face, with such a look
of purity, freshness, and peace, it said as plainly as ever the dial-plate
of a clock that _that_ little piece of machinery was working right. There
was a sunlight upon it, too, of happy confidence and affection. Mr.
Carleton's mind experienced a sudden revulsion. Fleda might see the
reflection of her own light in his face as he helped her up to a stand
where she could be more on a level with him; putting his arm round her to
guard against any sudden roll of the ship.

"What makes you wear such a happy face?" said he, with an expression half
envious, half regretful.

"I don't know!" said Fleda innocently. "You, I suppose."

He looked as bright as she did, for a minute.

"Were you ever angry, Elfie?"

"I don't know--" said Fleda. "I don't know but I have."

He smiled to see that although evidently her memory could not bring the
charge, her modesty would not deny it.

"Were you not angry yesterday with your cousin and that unmannerly
friend of his?"

"No," said Fleda, a shade crossing her face,--"I was not _angry_ "--

And as she spoke her hand was softly put upon Mr. Carleton's; as if partly
in the fear of what might have grown out of _his_ anger, and partly in
thankfulness to him that he had rendered it unnecessary. There was a
singular delicate timidity and tenderness in the action.

"I wish I had your secret, Elfie," said Mr. Carleton, looking wistfully
into the clear eyes that met his.

"What secret?" said Fleda smiling.

"You say one can always do right--is that the reason you are
happy?--because you follow that out?"

"No," said Fleda seriously. "But I think it is a great deal pleasanter."

"I have no doubt at all of that, neither, I dare say, have the rest of the
world; only somehow when it comes to the point they find it is easier to
do wrong. What's your secret, Elfie?"

"I haven't any secret," said Fleda. But presently, seeming to bethink
herself, she added gently and gravely,

"Aunt Miriam says--"

"What?"

"She says that when we love Jesus Christ it is easy to please him."

"And do you love him, Elfie?" Mr Carleton asked after a minute.

Her answer was a very quiet and sober "Yes."

He doubted still whether she were not unconsciously using a form of speech
the spirit of which she did not quite realize. That one might "not see and
yet believe," he could understand; but for _affection_ to go forth towards
an unseen object was another matter. His question was grave and acute.

"By what do you judge that you do, Elfie?"

"Why, Mr. Carleton," said Fleda, with an instant look of appeal, "who else
_should_ I love?"

"If not him "--her eye and her voice made sufficiently plain. Mr. Carleton
was obliged to confess to himself that she spoke intelligently, with
deeper intelligence than he could follow. He asked no more questions. Yet
truth shines by its own light, like the sun. He had not perfectly
comprehended her answers, but they struck him as something that deserved
to be understood, and he resolved to make the truth of them his own.

The rest of the voyage was perfectly quiet. Following the earnest advice
of his friend Capt. Beebee, Thorn had given up trying to push Mr. Carleton
to extremity; who on his part did not seem conscious of Thorn's existence.

Chapter XIII.

There the most daintie paradise on ground
Itselfe doth offer to his sober eye,--
-----The painted flowres, the trees upshooting hye,
The dales for shade, the hills for breathing space,
The trembling groves, the christall running by;
And that, which all faire works doth most aggrace,
The art which all that wrought appeared in no place.

Faery Queene.

They had taken ship for London, as Mr. and Mrs. Carleton wished to visit
home for a day or two before going on to Paris. So leaving Charlton to
carry news of them to the French capital, so soon as he could persuade
himself to leave the English one, they with little Fleda in company posted
down to Carleton, in ----shire.

It was a time of great delight to Fleda, that is, as soon as Mr. Carleton
had made her feel at home in England; and somehow he had contrived to do
that and to scatter some clouds of remembrance that seemed to gather about
her, before they had reached the end of their first day's journey. To be
out of the ship was itself a comfort, and to be alone with kind friends
was much more. With great joy Fleda put her cousin Charlton and Mr. Thorn
at once out of sight and out of mind; and gave herself with even more than
her usual happy readiness to everything the way and the end of the way had
for her. Those days were to be painted days in Fleda's memory.

She thought Carleton was a very odd place. That is, the house, not the
village which went by the same name. If the manner of her two companions
had not been such as to put her entirely at her ease she would have felt
strange and shy. As it was she felt half afraid of losing herself in the
house, to Fleda's unaccustomed eyes it was a labyrinth of halls and
staircases, set with the most unaccountable number and variety of rooms;
old and new, quaint and comfortable, gloomy and magnificent; some with
stern old-fashioned massiveness of style and garniture; others absolutely
bewitching (to Fleda's eyes and understanding) in the rich beauty and
luxuriousness of their arrangements. Mr. Carleton's own particular haunts
were of these; his private room, the little library as it was called, the
library, and the music-room, which was indeed rather a gallery of fine
arts, so many treasures of art were gathered there. To an older and
nice-judging person these rooms would have given no slight indications of
their owner's mind--it had been at work on every corner of them. No
particular fashion had been followed in anything, nor any model consulted
but that which fancy had built to the mind's order. The wealth of years
had drawn together an enormous assemblage of matters, great and small,
every one of which was fitted either to excite fancy, or suggest thought,
or to satisfy the eye by its nice adaptation. And if pride had had the
ordering of them, all these might have been but a costly museum, a
literary alphabet that its possessor could not put together, an ungainly
confession of ignorance on the part of the intellect that could do nothing
with this rich heap of material. But pride was not the genius of the
place. A most refined taste and curious fastidiousness had arranged and
harmonized all the heterogeneous items; the mental hieroglyphics had been
ordered by one to whom the reading of them was no mystery. Nothing struck
a stranger at first entering, except the very rich effect and faultless
air of the whole, and perhaps the delicious facilities for every kind of
intellectual cultivation which appeared on every hand; facilities which it
must be allowed do seem in general _not_ to facilitate the work they are
meant to speed. In this case however it was different. The mind that
wanted them bad brought them together to satisfy its own craving.

These rooms were Guy's peculiar domain. In other parts of the house,
where his mother reigned conjointly with him, their joint tastes had
struck out another style of adornment which might be called a style of
superb elegance. Not superb alone, for taste had not permitted so heavy a
characteristic to be predominant; not merely elegant, for the fineness of
all the details would warrant an ampler word. A larger part of the house
than both these together had been left as generations past had left it, in
various stages of, refinement, comfort and comeliness. It was a day or two
before Fleda found out that it was all one; she thought at first that it
was a collection of several houses that had somehow inexplicably sat down
there with their backs to each other; it was so straggling and irregular a
pile of building, covering so much ground, and looking so very unlike the
different parts to each other. One portion was quite old; the other parts
ranged variously between the present and the far past. After she once
understood this it was a piece of delicious wonderment and musing and
great admiration to Fleda; she never grew weary of wandering round it and
thinking about it, for from a child fanciful meditation was one of her
delights. Within doors she best liked Mr. Carleton's favourite rooms.
Their rich colouring and moderated light and endless stores of beauty and
curiosity made them a place of fascination.

Out of doors she found still more to delight her. Morning, noon, and night
she might be seen near the house gazing, taking in pictures of natural
beauty which were for ever after to hang in Fleda's memory as standards of
excellence in that sort. Nature's hand had been very kind to the place,
moulding the ground in beautiful style. Art had made happy use of the
advantage thus given her; and now what appeared was neither art nor
nature, but a perfection that can only spring from the hands of both.
Fleda's eyes were bewitched. She stood watching the rolling slopes of
green turf, _so_ soft and lovely, and the magnificent trees, that had kept
their ground for ages and seen generations rise and fall before their
growing strength and grandeur. They were scattered here and there on the
lawn, and further back stood on the heights and stretched along the ridges
of the undulating ground, the outposts of a wood of the same growth still
beyond them.

"How do you like it, Elfie?" Mr. Carleton asked her the evening of the
first day, as he saw her for a length of time looking out gravely and
intently from before the hall door.

"I think it is beautiful!" said Fleda. "The ground is a great deal
smoother here than it was at home."

"I'll take you to ride to-morrow," said he smiling, "and shew you rough
ground enough."

"As you did when we came from Montepoole?" raid Fleda rather eagerly.

"Would you like that?"

"Yes, very much,--if _you_ would like it, Mr. Carleton."

"Very well," said he. "So it shall be."

And not a day passed during their short stay that he did not give her one
of those rides. He shewed her rough ground, according to his promise, but
Fleda still thought it did not look much like the mountains "at home." And
indeed unsightly roughnesses had been skilfully covered or removed; and
though a large part of the park, which was a very extensive one, was
wildly broken and had apparently been left as nature left it, the hand of
taste had been there; and many an unsuspected touch instead of hindering
had heightened both the wild and the beautiful character. Landscape
gardening had long been a great hobby of its owner.

"How far does your ground come, Mr Carleton?" inquired Fleda on one of
these rides, when they had travelled a good distance from home.

"Further than you can see, Elfie."

"Further than I can see!--It must be a very large farm!"

"This is not a farm where we are now," said he;--"did you mean
that?--this is the park; we are almost at the edge of it on this side."

"What is the difference between a farm and a park?" said Fleda.

"The grounds of a farm are tilled for profit; a park is an uncultivated
enclosure kept merely for men and women and deer to take pleasure in."

"_I_ have taken a good deal of pleasure in it," said Fleda. "And have you
a farm besides, Mr. Carleton?"

"A good many, Elfie."

Fleda looked surprised, and then remarked that it must be very nice to
have such a beautiful piece of ground just for pleasure.

She enjoyed it to the full during the few days she was there. And one
thing more, the grand piano in the music-room. The first evening of their
arrival she was drawn by the far-off sounds, and Mrs. Carleton seeing it
went immediately to the music-room with her. The room had no light, except
from the moonbeams that stole in through two glass doors which opened upon
a particularly private and cherished part of the grounds, in summer-time
full of flowers; for in the very refinement of luxury delights had been
crowded about this favourite apartment. Mr. Carleton was at the
instrument, playing. Fleda sat down quietly in one corner and
listened,--in a rapture of pleasure she had hardly ever known from any
like source. She did not think it could be greater, till after a time, in
a pause of the music, Mrs. Carleton asked her son to sing a particular
ballad, and that one was followed by two or three more. Fleda left her
corner, she could not contain herself, and favoured by the darkness came
forward and stood quite near; and if the performer bad bad light to see
by, he would have been gratified with the tribute paid to his power by the
unfeigned tears that ran down her cheeks. This pleasure was also repeated
from evening to evening.