The Essential Julian Hawthorne Collection. Julian Hawthorne
instantly swallowed up in the bottomless depths of the waste-barrel. A strong, cool, earthy odor rose from the garden, and was wafted past the professor's nostrils, and into the heated house. The moist brown flower-beds exhaled a fragrant thankfulness, and the grass-blades looked twice as green and twice as tall as before. Meanwhile the heavy, regular pulse of the thunder had been beating intermittently overhead, and bounding ponderously from hill-side to hill-side; and ever and anon the lightning had showed startlingly in dazzling zigzags through the omnipresent shadow. But now it seemed that there was a little less weight in the fall, and gloom in the air. The pervading freshness of the breeze made itself more unmistakably perceptible. The west began to lighten, and the rain and darkness drifted to the east. As for Professor Valeyon, if his thoughts had been in a tumult, like the elements, might they not become quiet again also?
"After all," said the old gentleman to himself, "it's not the young fellow's fault. If his father was a heartless scoundrel, it doesn't follow that he knows it. Well, the man is dead--it can't be helped now, that's certain. But what a cunningly-contrived plot it is! Shuts my mouth by confiding to me the _incognito_ and sending me the son to educate; destroys the last hope of setting an old wrong right; takes advantage, for base ends, of the deepest feelings of human hearts: not to speak of preventing the young man himself from being party to a noble and generous action. Did ever man carry such a load down to the grave!
"Suppose Margaret--no! it isn't likely she would know any thing about it. He wasn't the man to make confidants of women. She gave the message to the son, not knowing what it meant, probably. Why, he wouldn't have dared to tell her! And then inviting Cornelia--no, no! I've had some acquaintance with Margaret, and, with all her nonsense, I believe she's honest. Besides, what interest could she have to be otherwise? To be sure, she didn't give me the true reason for the _incognito_; but that's nothing; she's just the woman to tell a useless fib, and reserve the truth for important occasions only--or what she thinks such."
The professor remained a while longer at the window, abstractedly staring at the drops which hastened after one another from the wet eaves. Suddenly he turned around, and walked up to the table, flapping his slipper-heels, and settling his spectacles, as he went.
"Did any one ever speak to you of your mother, sir?" demanded he in the ear of the reading Bressant. "Confound the fellow!" passed at the same time through his mind; "does he think I'm a chair or a table?"
"My mother?" repeated the young man, looking up, and appearing somewhat surprised at the idea of his ever having possessed the article. "Oh, yes! my father once told me she was dead. It was long ago. I'd almost forgotten it."
"Told you she was dead, hey? Humph! just what I expected!" growled the old gentleman, who seemed, however, to become additionally wrathful at the intelligence. After a moment's scowl straight at his would-be pupil, he shuffled up to his chair, and sat solidly down in it. Bressant (to whom the professor had probably appeared to the full as peculiar as he to the professor), seeing signs of an approach to business in his action and attitude, tossed his book on the table, leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, and fixed his eyes directly upon the old gentleman's glasses.
"You seem to be in the habit of speaking your own mind freely, sir," observed the latter; "and I shall do the same, on this occasion at least I'm going to accept you as a pupil, and shall do my best for you; but you must understand it's by no means on your own account I do it. As far as I have seen them, I don't like your principles, your beliefs, or your nature. You're the last man I should pick out for a minister, or for any other responsible position. In every respect, except intelligence and an unlimited confidence in yourself, you seem to me unfit to be trusted. In training you for the ministry, I shall do it with the hope--not the expectation--of instilling into you some true and useful ideas and elevated thoughts. If I succeed, I shall have done the work of a whole churchful of missionaries. If I fail, I shan't recommend you to be ordained. And never forget that you will be indebted for all this to some one you've never known, and who, I am at present happy to say, don't know you. Whether or not you'll ever become acquainted is known to God alone, and I'm very glad that the matter lies entirely in His hands. Now, sir, what have you to say?"
Bressant, who had been looking steadily and curiously at the professor during the whole of this long speech, now passed his hand from his forehead down over his face and beard--a common trick of his--smiled meditatively, and said:
"I'm glad you agree to take me. I don't care for your recommendation if I have your instruction. Shall we begin to-morrow?"
There followed a discussion relative to hours, methods, and materials, which lasted very nearly until tea-time. Then, as there was still some rain falling, the professor extended to his pupil an invitation to supper, on his accepting which the old gentleman shuffled out into the entry, and called to Cornelia to come down and make the necessary preparations.
CHAPTER V.
BRESSANT PICKS A TEA-ROSE.
Supper was ready: Cornelia surveyed the table for the last time, to make sure it was all right. It was an extension-table, but the spare leaves had been removed, and it was reduced to a circle. A mellow western light from that portion of the sky unswathed in clouds streamed through the window, and did duty as a lamp. The cloth was white, and tapered down in soft folds at the corners; a pleasant profusion of sparkling china and silver, and of savory eatables, filled the circumference of the board, leaving just space enough to operate in, and no more. In the centre of the table, and perceptible both to eyes and nose on entering the room, was a tall glass dish, lined with wet green leaves, and pyramided with red strawberries. A comfortable steam ascended from the nose of the tea-pot, and vanished upward in the gloom of the ceiling; the brown toast seemed crackling to be eaten; the smooth-cut slices of marbled beef lay overlapping one another in silent plenteousness; and the knives and forks glistened to begin. Cornelia opened the entry-door, and called across to her papa in the study that supper was ready. Then she took up her position behind her chair, with one hand resting on its back, and a silent determination that the visitor, whoever he was, should be impressed with her dignity, condescension, and good looks.
"This is my daughter Cornelia. Mr. Bressant is going to be a pupil of mine, my dear," said the professor, as he and Bressant advanced into the room.
He gave his hand an introductory wave in Cornelia's direction as he spoke, but probably did not speak loud enough to be distinctly beard by his guest. Nevertheless, seeing the motion and the lady, Bressant inclined forward his shoulders with an elastic readiness of bearing which was customary with him, in spite of his unusual stature, and then took his place at the table without bestowing any further attention upon her. It passed through Cornelia's mind, as she lifted the tea-pot, that Mr. Bressant was outrageously conceited, and should be taken down at the first opportunity. She had made a very graceful courtesy, and it was not to be overlooked in that way with impunity.
"Milk and sugar, sir?" said she, interrogatively, raising her eyes to the young man's face with a somewhat gratuitous formality of manner, and holding a piece of sugar suspended over the cup.
Bressant had certainly been looking in her direction as she spoke; he had the opposite place to her at table; but instead of replying, even with a motion of the head, he, after a moment, turned to Professor Valeyon, who was gently oscillating himself in the rocking-chair he always occupied at meals, and asked him whether he knew any thing about a place in town called "Abbie's Boarding-house."
Cornelia laid down the sugar and tongs, and looked very insulted and flushed. What sort of a creature was this her papa had brought to his supper-table? Papa, who had noticed the awkward turn, and was tickled by the humor thereof, could not forbear to give evidence of amusement, insomuch that his daughter, who was by no means of a lymphatic temperament, was almost ready to leave the table, or burst into tears with injured and astonished dignity.
Bressant, with that exceeding quickness of perception which most persons with his infirmity possess under such circumstances, transferred his glance from the professor to the young lady, and at once arrived at a pretty correct understanding of the difficulty. He was not embarrassed, for it had probably never occurred to him that his deafness