Harriet Beecher Stowe : Three Novels (150 page)

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Page 854
and the rich bloom on her cheek; for where she stood, a sunbeam, streaming aslant through the dusty panes of the window, touched her head with a kind of glory, and the thought he then received out-breathed itself in the yet more fervent adoration of his prayer.

 

Page 855
XXXIX.
The Ice Broken
Our fathers believed in special answers to prayer. They were not stumbled by the objection about the inflexibility of the laws of Nature; because they had the idea, that, when the Creator of the world promised to answer human prayers, He probably understood the laws of Nature as well as they did. At any rate, the laws of Nature were His affair, and not theirs. They were men, very apt, as the Duke of Wellington said, to "look to their marching-orders,"which, being found to read, "Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God," they did it. "They looked unto Him and were lightened, and their faces were not ashamed.'' One reads, in the Memoirs of Dr. Hopkins, of Newport Gardner, one of his African catechumens, a negro of singular genius and ability, who, being desirous of his freedom, that he might be a missionary to Africa, and having long worked without being able to raise the amount required, was counselled by Dr. Hopkins that it might be a shorter way to seek his freedom from the Lord, by a day of solemn fasting and prayer. The historical fact is, that, on the evening of a day so consecrated, his master returned from church, called Newport to him, and presented him with his freedom. Is it not possible that He who made the world may have established laws for prayer as invariable as those for the sowing of seed and raising of grain? Is it not as legitimate a subject of inquiry, when petitions are not answered, which of these laws has been neglected?
But be that as it may, certain it is, that Candace, who on this morning in church sat where she could see Mary and James in the singers' seat, had certain thoughts planted in her mind which bore fruit afterwards in a solemn and select consultation held with Miss Prissy at the end of the horse-shed by the meeting-house, during the intermission between the morning and afternoon services.

 

Page 856
Candace sat on a fragment of granite boulder which lay there, her black face relieved against a clump of yellow mulleins, then in majestic altitude. On her lap was spread a checked pocket-handkerchief, containing rich slices of cheese, and a store of her favorite brown doughnuts.
"Now, Miss Prissy," she said, "dar's
reason
in all tings, an' a good deal
more
in some tings dan dar is in oders. Dar's a good deal more reason in two young, handsome folks comin' togeder dan dar is in"___
Candace finished the sentence by an emphatic flourish of her doughnut.
"Now, as long as eberybody thought Jim Marvyn was dead, dar wa'n't nothin' else in de world
to
be done
but
marry de Doctor. But, good lan! I hearn him a-talkin' to Miss Marvyn las' night; it kinder 'mos' broke my heart. Why, dem two poor creeturs, dey's jest as onhappy's dey can be! An' she's got too much feelin' for de Doctor to say a word; an'
I
say
he oughter be told on't!
dat's what
I
say," said Candace, giving a decisive bite to her doughnut.
"I say so, too," said Miss Prissy. "Why, I never had such bad feelings in my life as I did yesterday, when that young man came down to our house. He was just as pale as a cloth. I tried to say a word to Miss Scudder, but she snapped me up so! She's an awful decided woman when her mind's made up. I was telling Cerinthy Ann Twitchel,she came round me this noon,that it didn't exactly seem to me right that things should go on as they are going. And says I, 'Cerinthy Ann, I don't know anything what to do.' And says she, 'If I was you, I know what
I'd
do,I'd tell the Doctor,' says she. 'Nobody ever takes offense at anything
you
do, Miss Prissy.' To be sure," added Miss Prissy, ''I have talked to people about a good many things that it's rather strange I should; 'cause I a'n't one, somehow, that can let things go that seem to want doing. I always told folks that I should spoil a novel before it got half-way through the first volume, by blurting out some of those things that they let go trailing on so, till everybody gets so mixed up they don't know what they're doing."
"Well, now, honey," said Candace, authoritatively, "ef you's got any notions o' dat kind, I tink it mus' come from

 

Page 857
de good Lord, an' I 'dvise you to be 'tendin' to't, right away. You jes' go 'long an' tell de Doctor yourself all you know, an' den le's see what'll come on't. I tell you, I b'liebe it'll be one o' de bes' day's works you eber did in your life!"
"Well," said Miss Prissy, "I guess to-night, before I go to bed, I'll make a dive at him. When a thing's once out, it's out, and can't be got in again, even if people don't like it; and that's a mercy, anyhow. It really makes me feel 'most wicked to think of it, for he is the most blessedest man!"
"Dat's what he
is,"
said Candace. "But de blessedest man in de world oughter know de truth; dat's what
I
tink!"
"Yes,true enough!" said Miss Prissy. "I'll tell him, anyway."
Miss Prissy was as good as her word; for that evening, when the Doctor had retired to his study, she took her life in her hand, and, walking swiftly as a cat, tapped rather timidly at the study-door, which the Doctor opening said, benignantly,
"Ah, Miss Prissy!"
"If you please, Sir," said Miss Prissy, "I'd like a little conversation."
The Doctor was well enough used to such requests from the female members of his church, which, generally, were the prelude to some disclosures of internal difficulties or spiritual experiences. He therefore graciously motioned her to a chair.
"I thought I must come in," she began, busily twirling a bit of her Sunday gown. "I thoughtthat isI felt it my dutyI thoughtperhapsI ought to tell youthat perhaps you ought to know."
The Doctor looked civilly concerned. He did not know but Miss Prissy's wits were taking leave of her. He replied, however, with his usual honest stateliness,
"I trust, dear Madam, that you will feel at perfect freedom to open to me any exercises of mind that you may have."
"It isn't about myself," said Miss Prissy. "If you please, it's about you and Mary!"
The Doctor
now
looked awake in right earnest, and very much astonished besides; and he looked eagerly at Miss Prissy, to have her go on.

 

Page 858
"I don't know how you would view such a matter," said Miss Prissy; "but the fact is, that James Marvyn and Mary always did love each other, ever since they were children."
Still the Doctor was unawakened to the real meaning of the words, and he answered, simply,
"I should be far from wishing to interfere with so very natural and universal a sentiment, which, I make no doubt, is all quite as it should be."
"No,but," said Miss Prissy, "you don't understand what I mean. I mean that James Marvyn wanted to marry Mary, and that she waswellshe wasn't engaged to him, but"___
"Madam!" said the Doctor, in a voice that frightened Miss Prissy out of her chair, while a blaze like sheet-lightning shot from his eyes, and his face flushed crimson.
"Mercy on us! Doctor, I hope you'll excuse me; but there the fact is,I've said it out,the fact is, they wa'n't engaged; but that Mary loved him ever since he was a boy, as she never will and never can love any man again in this world, is what I am just as sure of as that I'm standing here; and I've felt you ought to know it; 'cause I'm quite sure, that, if he'd been alive, she'd never given the promise she has,the promise that she means to keep, if her heart breaks, and his too. They wouldn't anybody tell you, and I thought I must tell you; 'cause I thought you'd know what was right to do about it."
During all this latter speech the Doctor was standing with his back to Miss Prissy, and his face to the window, just as he did some time before, when Mrs. Scudder came to tell him of Mary's consent. He made a gesture backward, without speaking, that she should leave the apartment; and Miss Prissy left, with a guilty kind of feeling, as if she had been striking a knife into her pastor, and, rushing distractedly across the entry into Mary's little bedroom, she bolted the door, threw herself on the bed, and began to cry.
"Well, I've done it!" she said to herself. "He's a very strong, hearty man," she soliloquized, "so I hope it won't put him in a consumption;men do go into a consumption about such things sometimes. I remember Abner Seaforth did; but then he was always narrow-chested, and had the liver-complaint, or something. I don't know what Miss Scud-

 

Page 859
der will say;but I've done it. Poor man! such a good man, too! I declare, I feel just like Herod taking off John the Baptist's head. Well, well! it's done, and can't be helped."
Just at this moment Miss Prissy heard a gentle tap at the door, and started, as if it had been a ghost,not being able to rid herself of the impression, that, somehow, she had committed a great crime, for which retribution was knocking at the door.
It was Mary, who said, in her sweetest and most natural tones, "Miss Prissy, the Doctor would like to see you."
Mary was much astonished at the frightened, discomposed manner with which Miss Prissy received this announcement, and said,
"I'm afraid I've waked you up out of sleep. I don't think there's the least hurry."
Miss Prissy didn't, either; but she reflected afterwards that she might as well get through with it at once; and therefore, smoothing her tumbled cap-border, she went to the Doctor's study. This time he was quite composed, and received her with a mournful gravity, and requested her to be seated.
"I beg, Madam," he said, "you will excuse the abruptness of my manner in our late interview. I was so little prepared for the communication you had to make, that I was, perhaps, unsuitably discomposed. Will you allow me to ask whether you were requested by any of the parties to communicate to me what you did?"
"No, Sir," said Miss Prissy.
"Have any of the parties ever communicated with you on the subject at all?" said the Doctor.
"No, Sir," said Miss Prissy.
"That is all," said the Doctor. "I will not detain you. I am very much obliged to you, Madam."
He rose, and opened the door for her to pass our,and Miss Prissy, overawed by the stately gravity of his manner, went out in silence.

 

Page 860
XL.
The Sacrifice
When Miss Prissy left the room, the Doctor sat down by the table and covered his face with his hands. He had a large, passionate, determined nature; and he had just come to one of those cruel crises in life in which it is apt to seem to us that the whole force of our being, all that we can hope, wish, feel, enjoy, has been suffered to gather itself into one great wave, only to break upon some cold rock of inevitable fate, and go back, moaning, into emptiness.
In such hours men and women have cursed God and life, and thrown violently down and trampled under their feet what yet was left of life's blessings, in the fierce bitterness of despair. "This, or nothing!" the soul shrieks, in her frenzy. At just such points as these, men have plunged into intemperance and wild excess,they have gone to be shot down in battle,they have broken life, and thrown it away, like an empty goblet, and gone, like wailing ghosts, out into the dread unknown.
The possibility of all this lay in that heart which had just received that stunning blow. Exercised and disciplined as he had been, by years of sacrifice, by constant, unsleeping self-vigilance, there was rising there, in that great heart, an oceantempest of passion, and for a while his cries unto God seemed as empty and as vague as the screams of birds tossed and buffeted in the clouds of mighty tempests.
The will that he thought wholly subdued seemed to rise under him as a rebellious giant. A few hours before, he thought himself established in an invincible submission to God's will that nothing could shake. Now he looked into himself as into a seething vortex of rebellion, and against all the passionate cries of his lower nature could, in the language of an old saint, cling to God only by the naked force of his will. That will rested unmelted amid the boiling sea of pas-

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