"No wonder," replied Holgrave, smiling; "for I have told you a secret which I hardly began to know, before I found myself giving it utterance.
Remember it, however, and when the truth becomes clear to you, then think of this moonlight scene!"
"It is entirely moonlight now, except only a little flush of faint crimson, upward from the west, between those buildings," remarked Phoebe.
"I must go in.
Cousin Hepzibah is not quick at figures, and will give herself a headache over the day's accounts, unless I help her."
But Holgrave detained her a little longer.
"Miss Hepzibah tells me," observed he, "that you return to the country, in a few days."
"Yes, but only for a little while," answered Phoebe; "for I look upon this as my present home.
I go to make a few arrangements, and to take a more deliberate leave of my mother and friends.
It is pleasant to live where one is much desired, and very useful; and I think I may have the satisfaction of feeling myself so, here."
"You surely may, and more than you imagine," said the artist. "Whatever health, comfort and natural life, exist in the house, are embodied in your person.
These blessings came along with you and will vanish when you leave the threshold.
Miss Hepzibah, by secluding herself from society, has lost all true relation with it and is, in fact, dead; although she galvanises herself into a semblance of life, and stands behind the counter, afflicting the world with a greatly-to-be-deprecated scowl.
Your poor cousin Clifford is another dead and long-buried person, on whom the governor and council have wrought a necromantic miracle.
I should not wonder if he were to crumble away, some morning after you are gone, and nothing be seen of him more, except a heap of dust. Miss Hepzibah, at any rate, will lose what little flexibility she has.
They both exist by you."
"I should be very sorry to think so," answered Phoebe, gravely.
"But it is true that my small abilities were precisely what they needed; and I have a real interest in their welfare—an odd kind of motherly sentiment—which I wish you would not laugh at!
And let me tell you frankly, Mr. Holgrave, I am sometimes puzzled to know whether you wish them well or ill."
"Undoubtedly," said the daguerreotypist, "I do feel an interest in this antiquated, poverty-stricken old maiden-lady, and this degraded and shattered gentleman—this abortive lover of the beautiful. A kindly interest, too, helpless old children that they are!
But you have no conception what a different kind of heart mine is from your own.
It is not my impulse, as regards these two individuals, either to help or hinder; but to look on, to analyse, to explain matters to myself, and to comprehend the drama which, for almost two hundred years, has been dragging its slow length over the ground where you and I now tread.
If permitted to witness the close, I doubt not to derive a moral satisfaction from it, go matters how they may.
There is a conviction within me that the end draws nigh.
But though Providence sent you hither to help, and sends me only as a privileged and meet spectator, I pledge myself to lend these unfortunate beings whatever aid I can."
"I wish you would speak more plainly," cried Phoebe, perplexed and displeased; "and above all that you would feel more like a Christian and a human being!
How is it possible to see people in distress, without desiring, more than anything else, to help and comfort them?
You talk as if this old house were a theater; and you seem to look at Hepzibah's and Clifford's misfortunes, and those of generations before them, as a tragedy, such as I have seen acted in the hall of a country hotel, only the present one appears to be played exclusively for your amusement.
I do not like this.
The play costs the performers too much, and the audience is too cold-hearted."
"You are severe," said Holgrave, compelled to recognize a degree of truth in this piquant sketch of his own mood.
"And then," continued Phoebe, "what can you mean by your conviction, which you tell me of, that the end is drawing near?
Do you know of any new trouble hanging over my poor relatives?
If so, tell me at once, and I will not leave them!"
"Forgive me, Phoebe!" said the daguerreotypist, holding out his hand, to which the girl was constrained to yield her own.
"I am somewhat of a mystic, it must be confessed.
The tendency is in my blood, together with the faculty of mesmerism, which might have brought me to Gallows Hill, in the good old times of witchcraft.
Believe me, if I were really aware of any secret, the disclosure of which would benefit your friends—who are my own friends, likewise—you should learn it before we part.
But I have no such knowledge."
"You hold something back!" said Phoebe.
"Nothing—no secrets but my own," answered Holgrave.
"I can perceive, indeed, that Judge Pyncheon still keeps his eye on Clifford, in whose ruin he had so large a share. His motives and intentions, however, are a mystery to me.
He is a determined and relentless man, with the genuine character of an inquisitor; and had he any object to gain by putting Clifford to the rack, I verily believe that he would wrench his joints from their sockets, in order to accomplish it.
But so wealthy and eminent as he is—so powerful in his own strength and in the support of society on all sides—what can Judge Pyncheon have to hope or fear from the imbecile, branded, half-torpid Clifford?"
"Yet," urged Phoebe, "you did speak as if misfortune were impending!"
"O, that was because I am morbid!" replied the artist.
"My mind has a twist aside, like almost everybody's mind, except your own.
Moreover, it is so strange to find myself an inmate of this old Pyncheon House, and sitting in this old garden (hark, how Maule's well is murmuring!) that, were it only for this one circumstance, I cannot help fancying that Destiny is arranging its fifth act for a catastrophe."
"There!" cried Phoebe, with renewed vexation; for she was by nature as hostile to mystery as the sunshine to a dark corner.
"You puzzle me more than ever!"