The Complete Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne (Illustrated Edition). Nathaniel Hawthorne

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СКАЧАТЬ soon feel the need of some such out-of-door employment. My own sphere does not so much lie among flowers. You can trim and tend them, therefore, as you please; and I will ask only the least trifle of a blossom, now and then, in exchange for all the good, honest kitchen vegetables with which I propose to enrich Miss Hepzibah’s table. So we will be fellow-laborers, somewhat on the community system.”

      Silently, and rather surprised at her own compliance, Phoebe accordingly betook herself to weeding a flowerbed, but busied herself still more with cogitations respecting this young man, with whom she so unexpectedly found herself on terms approaching to familiarity. She did not altogether like him. His character perplexed the little country-girl, as it might a more practised observer; for, while the tone of his conversation had generally been playful, the impression left on her mind was that of gravity, and, except as his youth modified it, almost sternness. She rebelled, as it were, against a certain magnetic element in the artist’s nature, which he exercised towards her, possibly without being conscious of it.

      After a little while, the twilight, deepened by the shadows of the fruit-trees and the surrounding buildings, threw an obscurity over the garden.

      “There,” said Holgrave, “it is time to give over work! That last stroke of the hoe has cut off a beanstalk. Goodnight, Miss Phoebe Pyncheon! Any bright day, if you will put one of those rosebuds in your hair, and come to my rooms in Central Street, I will seize the purest ray of sunshine, and make a picture of the flower and its wearer.” He retired towards his own solitary gable, but turned his head, on reaching the door, and called to Phoebe, with a tone which certainly had laughter in it, yet which seemed to be more than half in earnest.

      “Be careful not to drink at Maule’s well!” said he. “Neither drink nor bathe your face in it!”

      “Maule’s well!” answered Phoebe. “Is that it with the rim of mossy stones? I have no thought of drinking there, — but why not?”

      “Oh,” rejoined the daguerreotypist, “because, like an old lady’s cup of tea, it is water bewitched!”

      He vanished; and Phoebe, lingering a moment, saw a glimmering light, and then the steady beam of a lamp, in a chamber of the gable. On returning into Hepzibah’s apartment of the house, she found the low-studded parlor so dim and dusky that her eyes could not penetrate the interior. She was indistinctly aware, however, that the gaunt figure of the old gentlewoman was sitting in one of the straight-backed chairs, a little withdrawn from the window, the faint gleam of which showed the blanched paleness of her cheek, turned sideways towards a corner.

      “Shall I light a lamp, Cousin Hepzibah?” she asked.

      “Do, if you please, my dear child,” answered Hepzibah. “But put it on the table in the corner of the passage. My eyes are weak; and I can seldom bear the lamplight on them.”

      What an instrument is the human voice! How wonderfully responsive to every emotion of the human soul! In Hepzibah’s tone, at that moment, there was a certain rich depth and moisture, as if the words, commonplace as they were, had been steeped in the warmth of her heart. Again, while lighting the lamp in the kitchen, Phoebe fancied that her cousin spoke to her.

      “In a moment, cousin!” answered the girl. “These matches just glimmer, and go out.”

      But, instead of a response from Hepzibah, she seemed to hear the murmur of an unknown voice. It was strangely indistinct, however, and less like articulate words than an unshaped sound, such as would be the utterance of feeling and sympathy, rather than of the intellect. So vague was it, that its impression or echo in Phoebe’s mind was that of unreality. She concluded that she must have mistaken some other sound for that of the human voice; or else that it was altogether in her fancy.

      She set the lighted lamp in the passage, and again entered the parlor. Hepzibah’s form, though its sable outline mingled with the dusk, was now less imperfectly visible. In the remoter parts of the room, however, its walls being so ill adapted to reflect light, there was nearly the same obscurity as before.

      “Cousin,” said Phoebe, “did you speak to me just now?”

      “No, child!” replied Hepzibah.

      Fewer words than before, but with the same mysterious music in them! Mellow, melancholy, yet not mournful, the tone seemed to gush up out of the deep well of Hepzibah’s heart, all steeped in its profoundest emotion. There was a tremor in it, too, that — as all strong feeling is electric — partly communicated itself to Phoebe. The girl sat silently for a moment. But soon, her senses being very acute, she became conscious of an irregular respiration in an obscure corner of the room. Her physical organization, moreover, being at once delicate and healthy, gave her a perception, operating with almost the effect of a spiritual medium, that somebody was near at hand.

      “My dear cousin,” asked she, overcoming an indefinable reluctance, “is there not some one in the room with us?”

      “Phoebe, my dear little girl,” said Hepzibah, after a moment’s pause, “you were up betimes, and have been busy all day. Pray go to bed; for I am sure you must need rest. I will sit in the parlor awhile, and collect my thoughts. It has been my custom for more years, child, than you have lived!” While thus dismissing her, the maiden lady stept forward, kissed Phoebe, and pressed her to her heart, which beat against the girl’s bosom with a strong, high, and tumultuous swell. How came there to be so much love in this desolate old heart, that it could afford to well over thus abundantly?

      “Goodnight, cousin,” said Phoebe, strangely affected by Hepzibah’s manner. “If you begin to love me, I am glad!”

      She retired to her chamber, but did not soon fall asleep, nor then very profoundly. At some uncertain period in the depths of night, and, as it were, through the thin veil of a dream, she was conscious of a footstep mounting the stairs heavily, but not with force and decision. The voice of Hepzibah, with a hush through it, was going up along with the footsteps; and, again, responsive to her cousin’s voice, Phoebe heard that strange, vague murmur, which might be likened to an indistinct shadow of human utterance.

      VII. The Guest

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      WHEN Phoebe awoke, — which she did with the early twittering of the conjugal couple of robins in the pear-tree, — she heard movements below stairs, and, hastening down, found Hepzibah already in the kitchen. She stood by a window, holding a book in close contiguity to her nose, as if with the hope of gaining an olfactory acquaintance with its contents, since her imperfect vision made it not very easy to read them. If any volume could have manifested its essential wisdom in the mode suggested, it would certainly have been the one now in Hepzibah’s hand; and the kitchen, in such an event, would forthwith have streamed with the fragrance of venison, turkeys, capons, larded partridges, puddings, cakes, and Christmas pies, in all manner of elaborate mixture and concoction. It was a cookery book, full of innumerable old fashions of English dishes, and illustrated with engravings, which represented the arrangements of the table at such banquets as it might have befitted a nobleman to give in the great hall of his castle. And, amid these rich and potent devices of the culinary art (not one of which, probably, had been tested, within the memory of any man’s grandfather), poor Hepzibah was seeking for some nimble little titbit, which, with what skill she had, and such materials as were at hand, she might toss up for breakfast.

      Soon, with a deep sigh, she put aside the savory volume, and inquired of Phoebe whether old Speckle, as she called one of the hens, had laid an egg the preceding day. Phoebe ran to see, but returned without СКАЧАТЬ