June 28th. – My experiment works far better than I had hoped. I am thoroughly at my ease; my peace of mind quite passeth understanding. I work diligently; I have none but pleasant thoughts. The past has almost lost its bitterness. For a week, now, I have been out sketching daily. The Captain carries me to a certain point on the shore of the bay, I disembark and strike across the uplands to a spot where I have taken a kind of tryst with a particular effect of rock and shadow, which has been tolerably faithful to its appointment. Here I set up my easel, and paint till sunset. Then I retrace my steps and meet the boat. I am in every way much encouraged; the horizon of my work grows perceptibly wider. And then I am inexpressibly happy in the conviction that I am not wholly unfit for a life of (moderate) industry and (comparative) privation. I am quite in love with my poverty, if I may call it so. And why should I not? At this rate I don’t spend eight hundred a year.
July 12th. – We have been having a week of bad weather: constant rain, night and day. This is certainly at once the brightest and the blackest spot in New England. The skies can smile, assuredly, but they have also lachrymal moods. I have been painting rather languidly, and at a great disadvantage, at my window … Through all this pouring and pattering Miss Miriam – her name is Miriam, and it exactly fits her – sallies forth to her pupils. She envelops her beautiful head in a great woollen hood, her beautiful figure in a kind of feminine mackintosh; her feet she puts into heavy clogs, and over the whole she balances a cotton umbrella. When she comes home, with the rain-drops glistening on her rich cheeks and her dark lashes, her cloak bespattered with mud and her hands red with the cool damp, she is a very honourable figure. I never fail to make her a very low bow, for which she repays me with a familiar, but not a vulgar, nod. The working-day side of her character is what especially pleases me in Miss Quarterman. This holy working-dress sits upon her with the fine effect of an antique drapery. Little use has she for whale-bones and furbelows. What a poetry there is, after all, in red hands! I kiss yours, Mademoiselle. I do so because you are self-helpful; because you earn your living; because you are honest, simple, and ignorant (for a sensible woman, that is); because you speak and act to the point; because, in short, you are so unlike – certain of your sisters.
July 16th. – On Monday it cleared up generously. When I went to my window, on rising, I found sky and sea looking, for their brightness and freshness, like a clever English water-colour. The ocean is of a deep purple blue; above it, the pure, bright sky looks pale, though it hangs over the island horizon a canopy of denser tissue. Here and there on the dark, breezy water gleams the white cap of a wave, or flaps the white cloak of a fishing-boat. I have been sketching sedulously; I have discovered, within a couple of miles’ walk, a large, lonely pond, set in a really grand landscape of barren rocks and grassy slopes. At one extremity is a broad outlook on the open sea; at the other, buried in the foliage of an apple-orchard, stands an old haunted-looking farm-house. To the west of the pond is a wide expanse of rock and grass, of sand and marsh. The sheep browse over it – poorly – as they might upon a Highland moor. Except a few stunted firs and cedars, there is not a tree in sight. When I want shade I have to look for it in the shelter of one of the large stones which hold up to the sun a shoulder coated with delicate grey, figured over with fine, pale, sea-green moss, or else in one of the long, shallow dells where a tangle of blackberry-bushes hedges about a pool that reflects the sky. I am giving my best attention to a plain brown hillside, and trying to make it look like something in nature; and as we have now had the same clear sky for several days, I have almost finished quite a satisfactory little study. I go forth immediately after breakfast. Miss Quarterman supplies me with a little parcel of bread and cold meat, which at the noonday hour, in my sunny solitude, within sight of the slumbering ocean, I voraciously convey to my lips with my discoloured fingers. At seven o’clock I return to tea, at which repast we each tell the story of our day’s work. For poor Miss Quarterman it is always the same story: a wearisome round of visits to the school, and to the houses of the mayor, the parson, the butcher, the baker, whose young ladies, of course, all receive instruction on the piano. But she doesn’t complain, nor, indeed, does she look very weary. When she has put on a fresh light dress for tea, and arranged her hair anew, and with these improvements flits about with the quiet hither and thither of her gentle footstep, preparing our evening meal, peeping into the teapot, cutting the solid loaf – or when, sitting down on the low door-step, she reads out select scraps from the evening-paper – or else, when tea being over, she folds her arms (an attitude which becomes her mightily) and, still sitting on the door-step, gossips away the evening in comfortable idleness, while her father and I indulge in the fragrant pipe and watch the lights shining out, one by one, in different quarters of the darkening bay: at these moments she is as pretty, as cheerful, as careless as it becomes a sensible woman to be. What a pride the Captain takes in his daughter, and she, in return, how perfect is her devotion to the old man! He is proud of her grace, of her tact, of her good sense, of her wit, such as it is. He believes her to be the most accomplished of women. He waits upon her as if, instead of his old familiar Miriam, she were some new arrival – say a daughter-in-law lately brought home. And à propos of daughters-in-law, if I were his own son he could not be kinder to me. They are certainly – nay, why should I not say it? – we are certainly a very happy little household. Will it last for ever? I say we, because both father and daughter have given me a hundred assurances – he direct, and she, if I don’t flatter myself, after the manner of her sex, indirect – that I am already a valued friend. It is natural enough that they should like me, because I have tried to please them. The way to the old man’s heart is through a studied consideration of his daughter. He knows, I imagine, that I admire Miss Quarterman, but if I should at any time fall below the mark of ceremony, I should have an account to settle with him. All this is as it should be. When people have to economise with the dollars and cents, they have a right to be splendid in their feelings. I have done my best to be nice to the stately Miriam without making love to her. That I haven’t done that, however, is a fact which I do not, in any degree, set down here to my credit; for I would defy the most impertinent of men (whoever he is) to forget himself with this young lady. Those animated eyes have a power to keep people in their place. I mention the circumstance simply because in future years, when my charming friend shall have become a distant shadow, it will be pleasant, in turning over these pages, to find written testimony to a number of points which I shall be apt to charge solely upon my imagination. I wonder whether Miss Quarterman, in days to come, referring to the tables of her memory for some trivial matter-of-fact, some prosaic date or half-buried landmark, will also encounter this little secret of ours, as I may call it – will decipher an old faint note to this effect, overlaid with the memoranda of intervening years. Of course she will. Sentiment aside, she is a woman of a retentive faculty. Whether she forgives or not I know not; but she certainly doesn’t forget. Doubtless, virtue is its own reward; but there is a double satisfaction in being polite to a person on whom it tells!
Another reason for my pleasant relations with the Captain is, that I afford him a chance to rub up his rusty worldly lore and trot out his little scraps of old-fashioned reading, some of which are very curious. It is a great treat for him to spin his threadbare yarns over again to a submissive listener. These warm July evenings, in the sweet-smelling garden, are just the proper setting for his traveller’s tales. An odd enough understanding subsists between us on this point. Like many gentlemen of his calling, the Captain is harassed by an irresistible desire to romance, even on the least promising themes; and it is vastly amusing to observe how he will auscultate, as it were, his auditor’s inmost mood, to ascertain whether it is in condition to be practised upon. Sometimes his artless fables don’t ‘take’ at all: they are very pretty, I conceive, in the deep and briny well of the Captain’s fancy, but they won’t bear being transplanted into
the dry climate of my land-bred mind. At other times, the auditor being in a dreamy, sentimental, and altogether unprincipled mood, he will drink the old man’s saltwater by the bucketful and feel none the worse for it. Which is the worse, wilfully to tell, or wilfully to believe, a pretty little falsehood which will not hurt any one? I suppose you can’t believe wilfully; you only pretend to believe. My part of the game, therefore, is certainly as bad as the Captain’s. Perhaps I take kindly to his beautiful perversions of fact because I am myself engaged in one, because I am sailing under false colours of the deepest dye. I wonder whether my friends have any suspicion of the real state of the case. How should they? I take for granted that I play my little part pretty well. I am delighted to find it comes so easy. I do not mean that I find little difficulty in forgoing my old luxuries and pleasures – for to these, thank heaven, I was not so indissolubly wedded that one wholesome shock could not loosen my bonds – but that I manage more cleverly than I expected to stifle those innumerable tacit allusions which might serve effectually to belie my character.
Sunday, July 20th. – This has been a very pleasant day for me; although in it, of course, I have done no manner of work. I had this morning a delightful tête-à-tête with my hostess. She had sprained her ankle coming down stairs, and so, instead of going forth to Sunday-school and to meeting, she was obliged to remain at home on the sofa. The Captain, who is of a very punctilious piety, went off alone. When I came into the parlour, as the church-bells were ringing, Miss Quarterman asked me if I never went to a place of worship.
‘Never when there is anything better to do at home,’ said I.
‘What is better than going to church?’ she asked, with charming simplicity.
She was reclining on the sofa, with her foot on a pillow and her Bible in her lap. She looked by no means afflicted at having to be absent from divine service; and, instead of answering her question, I took the liberty of telling her so.
‘I am sorry to be absent,’ said she. ‘You know it’s my only festival in the week.’
‘So you look upon it as a festival.’
‘Isn’t it a pleasure to meet one’s acquaintance? I confess I am never deeply interested in the sermon, and I very much dislike teaching the children; but I like wearing my best bonnet, and singing in the choir, and walking part of the way home with——’
‘With whom?’
‘With anyone who offers to walk with me.’
‘With Mr Prendergast, for instance,’ said I.
Mr Prendergast is a young lawyer in the village, who calls here once a week, and whose attentions to Miss Quarterman have been remarked.
‘Yes,’ she answered, ‘Mr Prendergast will do as an instance.’
‘How he will miss you!’
‘I suppose he will. We sing off the same book. What are you laughing at? He kindly permits me to hold the book, while he stands with his hands in his pockets. Last Sunday I quite lost patience. “Mr Prendergast,” said I, “do hold the book! Where are your manners?” He burst out laughing in the midst of the reading. He will certainly have to hold the book to-day.’
‘What a masterful soul he is! I suppose he will call after meeting.’
‘Perhaps he will. I hope so.’
‘I hope he won’t,’ said I, frankly. ‘I am going to sit down here and talk to you, and I wish our conversation not to be interrupted.’
‘Have you anything particular to say?’
‘Nothing so particular as Mr Prendergast, perhaps.’
Miss Quarterman has a very pretty affectation of being more matter-of-fact than she really is.
‘His rights, then,’ she remarked, ‘are paramount to yours.’
‘Ah, you admit that he has rights?’
‘Not at all. I simply assert that you have none.’
‘I beg your pardon. I have claims which I mean to enforce. I have a claim upon your undivided attention when I pay you a morning-call.’
‘You have had all the attention I am capable of. Have I been so very rude?’
‘Not so very rude, perhaps, but rather inconsiderate. You have been sighing for the company of a third person, whom you can’t expect me to care much about.’
‘Why not, pray? If I, a lady, can put up with Mr Prendergast’s society, why shouldn’t you, one of his own sex?’
‘Because he is so outrageously conceited. You, as a lady, or at any rate as a woman, like conceited men.’
‘Ah, yes; I have no doubt that I, as a woman, have all kinds of weak tastes. That’s a very old story.’
‘Admit, at any rate, that our friend is conceited.’
‘Admit it! Why, I have said so a hundred times. I have told him so.’
‘Indeed, it has come to that, then?’
‘To what, pray?’
‘To that critical point in the friendship of a lady and gentleman when they bring against each other all kinds of delightful accusations and rebukes. Take care, Miss Quarterman! A couple of intelligent New-Englanders, of opposite sexes, young, unmarried, are pretty far gone, when they begin to scan each other’s faults. So you told Mr Prendergast that he is conceited? And I suppose you added that he was also dreadfully satirical and sceptical? What was his rejoinder? Let me see. Did he ever tell you that you were a wee bit affected?’
‘No; he left that for you to say, in this very ingenious manner. Thank you, sir.’
‘He left it for me to deny, which is a great deal prettier. Do you think the manner ingenious?’
‘I think the matter, considering the day and hour, very profane, Mr Locksley. Suppose you go away and let me peruse my Bible.’
‘Meanwhile what shall I do?’
‘Go and read yours, if you have one.’
‘My Bible,’ I said, ‘is the female mind.’
I was nevertheless compelled to retire, with the promise of a second audience in half-an-hour. Poor Miss Quarterman owes it to her conscience to read a certain number of chapters. In what a terrible tradition she has been reared, and what an edifying spectacle is the piety of women! Women find a place for everything in their commodious little minds, just as they do in their wonderfully sub-divided trunks when they go on a journey. I have no doubt that this young lady stows away her religion in a corner, just as she does her Sunday-bonnet – and, when the proper moment comes, draws it forth, and reflects, while she puts it on before the glass and blows away the strictly imaginary dust (for what worldly impurity can penetrate through half a dozen layers of cambric and tissue-paper?): ‘Dear me, what a comfort it is to have a nice, fresh holiday-creed!’ – When I returned to the parlour Miriam was still sitting with her Bible in her lap. Somehow or other I no longer felt in the mood for jesting; so I asked her, without chaffing, what she had been reading, and she answered me in the same tone. She inquired how I had spent my half-hour.
‘In thinking good Sabbath thoughts,’ I said. ‘I have been walking in the garden.’ And then I spoke my mind. ‘I have been thanking heaven that it has led me, a poor friendless wanderer, into so peaceful an anchorage.’
‘Are you so very poor and friendless?’
‘Did you ever hear of an art-student who was not poor? Upon my word, I have yet to sell my first picture. Then, as for being friendless, there are not five people in the world who really care for me.’
‘Really care? I am afraid you look too close. And then I think five good friends is a very large number. I think myself very well-off with half-a-one. But if you are friendless, it’s probably your own fault.’
‘Perhaps it is,’ said I, sitting down in the rocking-chair; ‘and also, perhaps it isn’t. Have you found me so very difficult to live with? Haven’t you, on the contrary, found me rather sociable?’
She folded her arms, and quietly looked at me for a moment, before answering. I shouldn’t wonder if I blushed a little.
‘You want a lump of sugar, Mr Locksley; that’s the long and short of it. I haven’t given you one since you have been here. How you must have suffered! But it’s a pity you co
uldn’t have waited a little longer, instead of beginning to put out your paws and bark. For an artist, you are very slap-dash. Men never know how to wait. “Have I found you very difficult to live with? haven’t I found you sociable?” Perhaps, after all, considering what I have in my mind, it is as well that you asked for your lump of sugar. I have found you very indulgent. You let us off easily, but you wouldn’t like us a bit if you didn’t pity us. Don’t I go deep? Sociable? ah, well, no – decidedly not! You are entirely too particular. You are considerate of me, because you know that I know that you are so. There’s the rub, you see: I know that you know that I know it! Don’t interrupt me; I am going to be striking. I want you to understand why I don’t consider you sociable. You call poor Mr Prendergast conceited; but, really, I believe he has more humility than you. He envies my father and me – thinks us so cultivated. You don’t envy any one, and yet I don’t think you’re a saint. You treat us kindly because you think virtue in a lowly station ought to be encouraged. Would you take the same amount of pains for a person you thought your equal, a person equally averse with yourself to being under an obligation? There are differences. Of course it’s very delightful to fascinate people. Who wouldn’t? There is no harm in it, as long as the fascinator doesn’t set up for a public benefactor. If I were a man, a clever man like yourself, who had seen the world, who was not to be dazzled and encouraged, but to be listened to, counted with, would you be equally amiable? It will perhaps seem absurd to you, and it will certainly seem egotistical, but I consider myself sociable, for all that I have only a couple of friends – my father and Miss Blankenberg. That is, I mingle with people without any arrière-pensée. Of course the people I see are mainly women. Not that I wish you to do so: on the contrary, if the contrary is agreeable to you. But I don’t believe you mingle in the same way with men. You may ask me what I know about it! Of course I know nothing; I simply guess. When I have done, indeed, I mean to beg your pardon for all I have said; but until then, give me a chance. You are incapable of exposing yourself to be bored, whereas I take it as my waterproof takes the rain. You have no idea what heroism I show in the exercise of my profession! Every day I have occasion to pocket my pride and to stifle my sense of the ridiculous – of which of course you think I haven’t a bit. It is for instance a constant vexation to me to be poor. It makes me frequently hate rich women; it makes me despise poor ones. I don’t know whether you suffer acutely from the smallness of your own means; but if you do, I dare say you shun rich men. I don’t, I like to bleed; to go into rich people’s houses, and to be very polite to the ladies, especially if they are very much dressed, very ignorant and vulgar. All women are like me in this respect, and all men more or less like you. That is, after all, the text of my sermon. Compared with us it has always seemed to me that you are arrant cowards – that we alone are brave. To be sociable you must have a great deal of patience. You are too fine a gentleman. Go and teach school, or open a corner-grocery, or sit in a law-office all day, waiting for clients: then you will be sociable. As yet you are only selfish. It is your own fault if people don’t care for you; you don’t care for them. That you should be indifferent to their good opinion is all very well; but you don’t care for their indifference. You are amiable, you are very kind, and you are also very lazy. You consider that you are working now, don’t you? Many persons would not call it work.’