It is a heavy annoyance to a writer, who endeavours to represent nature, its various attitudes and circumstances, in a reasonably correct outline and true coloring, that so much of the mean and ludicrous should be hopelessly mixed up with the purest pathos which life anywhere supplies to him.
What tragic dignity, for example, can be wrought into a scene like this!
How can we elevate our history of retribution for the sin of long ago, when, as one of our most prominent figures, we are compelled to introduce—not a young and lovely woman, nor even the stately remains of beauty, storm-shattered by affliction—but a gaunt, sallow, rusty-jointed maiden, in a long-waisted silk gown, and with the strange horror of a turban on her head!
Her visage is not even ugly. It is redeemed from insignificance only by the contraction of her eyebrows into a near-sighted scowl. And finally, her great life-trial seems to be that, after sixty years of idleness, she finds it convenient to earn comfortable bread by setting up a shop in a small way.
Nevertheless, if we look through all the heroic fortunes of mankind, we shall find this same entanglement of something mean and trivial with whatever is noblest in joy or sorrow.
Life is made up of marble and mud. And without all the deeper trust in a comprehensive sympathy above us, we might hence be led to suspect the insult of a sneer, as well as an immitigable frown, on the iron countenance of fate.
What is called poetic insight is the gift of discerning, in this sphere of strangely mingled elements, the beauty and the majesty which are compelled to assume a garb so sordid.
Chapter Three.
The First Customer
Miss Hepzibah Pyncheon sat in the oaken elbow-chair, with her hands over her face, giving way to that heavy down-sinking of the heart which most persons have experienced, when the image of hope itself seems ponderously molded of lead, on the eve of an enterprise at once doubtful and momentous.
She was suddenly startled by the tinkling alarum—high, sharp, and irregular—of a little bell.
The maiden lady arose upon her feet, as pale as a ghost at cockcrow; for she was an enslaved spirit, and this the talisman to which she owed obedience.
This little bell—to speak in plainer terms—being fastened over the shop door, was so contrived as to vibrate by means of a steel spring, and thus convey notice to the inner regions of the house, when any customer should cross the threshold. Its ugly and spiteful little din (heard now for the first time, perhaps, since Hepzibah's periwigged predecessor had retired from trade) at once set every nerve of her body in responsive and tumultuous vibration.
The crisis was upon her!
Her first customer was at the door!
Without giving herself time for a second thought, she rushed into the shop, pale, wild, desperate in gesture and expression, scowling portentously, and looking far better qualified to do fierce battle with a housebreaker, than to stand smiling behind the counter, bartering small wares for a copper recompense.
Any ordinary customer, indeed would have turned his back and fled.
And yet there was nothing fierce in Hepzibah's poor old heart; nor had she, at the moment, a single bitter thought against the world at large, or one individual man or woman.
She wished them all well, but wished, too, that she herself were done with them, and in her quiet grave.
The applicant by this time stood within the doorway.
Coming freshly, as he did, out of the morning light, he appeared to have brought some of its cheery influences into the shop along with him.
It was a slender young man, not more than one or two and twenty years old, with rather a grave and thoughtful expression, for his years, but likewise a springy alacrity and vigor. These qualities were not only perceptible physically, in his make and motions, but made themselves felt almost immediately in his character.
A brown beard, not too silken in its texture, fringed his chin, but as yet without completely hiding it; he wore a short moustache, too, and his dark, high-featured countenance looked all the better for these natural ornaments.
As for his dress, it was of the simplest kind; a summer sack of cheap and ordinary material, thin, checkered pantaloons, and straw hat, by no means of the finest braid.
Oak Hall might have supplied his entire equipment. He was chiefly marked as a gentleman—if such, indeed, he made any claim to be—by the rather remarkable whiteness and nicety of his clean linen.
He met the scowl of old Hepzibah without apparent alarm, as having heretofore encountered it, and found it harmless.
"So, my dear Miss Pyncheon," said the daguerreotypist—for it was that sole other occupant of the seven-gabled mansion—"I am glad to see that you have not shrunk from your good purpose.
I merely look in to offer my best wishes, and to ask if I can assist you any further in your preparations."
People in difficulty and distress, or in any manner at odds with the world, can endure a vast amount of harsh treatment, and perhaps be only the stronger for it; whereas, they give way at once before the simplest expression of what they perceive to be genuine sympathy.
So it proved with poor Hepzibah; for, when she saw the young man's smile—looking so much the brighter on a thoughtful face—and heard his kindly tone, she broke first into a hysterical giggle, and then began to sob.
"Ah, Mr. Holgrave," cried she, as soon as she could speak,
"I never can go through with it!
Never, never, never!
I wish I were dead, and in the old family tomb, with all my forefathers! With my father, and my mother, and my sister!
Yes, and with my brother, who had far better find me there than here!
The world is too chill and hard—and I am too old, and too feeble, and too hopeless!"
"O, believe me, Miss Hepzibah," said the young man, quietly, "these feelings will not trouble you any longer, after you are once fairly in the midst of your enterprise.
They are unavoidable at this moment, standing, as you do, on the outer verge of your long seclusion, and peopling the world with ugly shapes, which you will soon find to be as unreal as the giants and ogres of a child's story book.
I find nothing so singular in life, as that everything appears to lose its substance, the instant one actually grapples with it.
So it will be with what you think so terrible."
"But I am a woman!" said Hepzibah, piteously.
"I was going to say, a lady—but I consider that as past."
"Well: no matter if it be past!" answered the artist, a strange gleam of half-hidden sarcasm flashing through the kindness of his manner.
"Let it go!
You are the better without it.
I speak frankly, my dear Miss Pyncheon: for are we not friends? I look upon this as one of the fortunate days of your life.
It ends an epoch and begins one.
Hitherto, the life-blood has been gradually chilling in your veins, as you sat aloof, within your circle of gentility, while the rest of the world was fighting out its battle with one kind of necessity or another.
Henceforth you will at least have the sense of healthy and natural effort for a purpose, and of lending your strength—be it great or small—to the united struggle of mankind.
This is success—all the success that anybody meets with!" "It is natural enough, Mr. Holgrave, that you should have ideas like these," rejoined Hepzibah, drawing up her gaunt figure, with slightly offended dignity. "You are a man, a young man, and brought up, I suppose, as almost everybody is nowadays, with a view to seeking your fortune. But I was born a lady, and have always lived one; no matter in what narrowness of means, always a lady!" "But I was not born a gentleman; neither have I lived like one," said Holgrave, slightly smiling; "so, my dear madam, you will hardly expect me to sympathise with sensibilities of this kind; though, unless I deceive myself, I have some imperfect comprehension of them. These names of gentleman and lady had a meaning, in the past history of the world, and conferred privileges, desirable or otherwise, on those entitled to bear them. In the present—and still more in the future condition of society—they imply, not privilege, but restriction!" "These are new notions," said the old gentlewoman, shaking her head. "I shall never understand them; neither do I wish it." "We will cease to speak of them, then," replied the artist, with a friendlier smile than his last one, "and I will leave you to feel whether it is not better to be a true woman than a lady. Do you really think, Miss Hepzibah, that any lady of your family has ever done a more heroic thing since this house was built, than you are performing in it today? Never; and if the Pyncheons had always acted so nobly, I doubt whether an old wizard Maule's anathema, of which you told me once, would have had much weight with Providence against them." "Ah!—no, no!" said Hepzibah, not displeased at this allusion to the sombre dignity of an inherited curse. "If old Maule's ghost or a descendant of his, could see me behind the counter today he would call it the fulfilment of his worst wishes. But I thank you for your kindness, Mr. Holgrave, and will do my utmost to be a good shopkeeper."