The House of the Seven Gables
Any bright day, if you will put one of those rosebuds in your hair, and
come to my rooms in Central Street, I will seize the purest ray of
sunshine, and make a picture of the flower and its wearer.” He retired
towards his own solitary gable, but turned his head, on reaching the
door, and called to Phœbe, with a tone which certainly had laughter in
it, yet which seemed to be more than half in earnest.
“Be careful not to drink at Maule’s well!” said he. “Neither drink nor
bathe your face in it!”
“Maule’s well!” answered Phœbe. “Is that it with the rim of mossy
stones? I have no thought of drinking there,—but why not?”
“Oh,” rejoined the daguerreotypist, “because, like an old lady’s cup of
tea, it is water bewitched!”
He vanished; and Phœbe, lingering a moment, saw a glimmering light, and
then the steady beam of a lamp, in a chamber of the gable. On returning
into Hepzibah’s apartment of the house, she found the low-studded
parlor so dim and dusky that her eyes could not penetrate the interior.
She was indistinctly aware, however, that the gaunt figure of the old
gentlewoman was sitting in one of the straight-backed chairs, a little
withdrawn from the window, the faint gleam of which showed the blanched
paleness of her cheek, turned sideways towards a corner.
“Shall I light a lamp, Cousin Hepzibah?” she asked.
“Do, if you please, my dear child,” answered Hepzibah. “But put it on
the table in the corner of the passage. My eyes are weak; and I can
seldom bear the lamplight on them.”
What an instrument is the human voice! How wonderfully responsive to
every emotion of the human soul! In Hepzibah’s tone, at that moment,
there was a certain rich depth and moisture, as if the words,
commonplace as they were, had been steeped in the warmth of her heart.
Again, while lighting the lamp in the kitchen, Phœbe fancied that her
cousin spoke to her.
“In a moment, cousin!” answered the girl. “These matches just glimmer,
and go out.”
But, instead of a response from Hepzibah, she seemed to hear the murmur
of an unknown voice. It was strangely indistinct, however, and less
like articulate words than an unshaped sound, such as would be the
utterance of feeling and sympathy, rather than of the intellect. So
vague was it, that its impression or echo in Phœbe’s mind was that of
unreality. She concluded that she must have mistaken some other sound
for that of the human voice; or else that it was altogether in her
fancy.
She set the lighted lamp in the passage, and again entered the parlor.
Hepzibah’s form, though its sable outline mingled with the dusk, was
now less imperfectly visible. In the remoter parts of the room,
however, its walls being so ill adapted to reflect light, there was
nearly the same obscurity as before.
“Cousin,” said Phœbe, “did you speak to me just now?”
“No, child!” replied Hepzibah.
Fewer words than before, but with the same mysterious music in them!
Mellow, melancholy, yet not mournful, the tone seemed to gush up out of
the deep well of Hepzibah’s heart, all steeped in its profoundest
emotion. There was a tremor in it, too, that—as all strong feeling is
electric—partly communicated itself to Phœbe. The girl sat silently for
a moment. But soon, her senses being very acute, she became conscious
of an irregular respiration in an obscure corner of the room. Her
physical organization, moreover, being at once delicate and healthy,
gave her a perception, operating with almost the effect of a spiritual
medium, that somebody was near at hand.
“My dear cousin,” asked she, overcoming an indefinable reluctance, “is
there not some one in the room with us?”
“Phœbe, my dear little girl,” said Hepzibah, after a moment’s pause,
“you were up betimes, and have been busy all day. Pray go to bed; for I
am sure you must need rest. I will sit in the parlor awhile, and
collect my thoughts. It has been my custom for more years, child, than
you have lived!” While thus dismissing her, the maiden lady stept
forward, kissed Phœbe, and pressed her to her heart, which beat against
the girl’s bosom with a strong, high, and tumultuous swell. How came
there to be so much love in this desolate old heart, that it could
afford to well over thus abundantly?
“Goodnight, cousin,” said Phœbe, strangely affected by Hepzibah’s
manner. “If you begin to love me, I am glad!”
She retired to her chamber, but did not soon fall asleep, nor then very
profoundly. At some uncertain period in the depths of night, and, as it
were, through the thin veil of a dream, she was conscious of a footstep
mounting the stairs heavily, but not with force and decision. The voice
of Hepzibah, with a hush through it, was going up along with the
footsteps; and, again, responsive to her cousin’s voice, Phœbe heard
that strange, vague murmur, which might be likened to an indistinct
shadow of human utterance.
VII.
The Guest
When Phœbe awoke,—which she did with the early twittering of the
conjugal couple of robins in the pear-tree,—she heard movements below
stairs, and, hastening down, found Hepzibah already in the kitchen. She
stood by a window, holding a book in close contiguity to her nose, as
if with the hope of gaining an olfactory acquaintance with its
contents, since her imperfect vision made it not very easy to read
them. If any volume could have manifested its essential wisdom in the
mode suggested, it would certainly have been the one now in Hepzibah’s
hand; and the kitchen, in such an event, would forthwith have streamed
with the fragrance of venison, turkeys, capons, larded partridges,
puddings, cakes, and Christmas pies, in all manner of elaborate mixture
and concoction. It was a cookery book, full of innumerable old fashions
of English dishes, and illustrated with engravings, which represented
the arrangements of the table at such banquets as it might have
befitted a nobleman to give in the great hall of his castle. And, amid
these rich and potent devices of the culinary art (not one of which,
probably, had been tested, within the memory of any man’s grandfather),
poor Hepzibah was seeking for some nimble little titbit, which, with
what skill she had, and such materials as were at hand, she might toss
up for breakfast.
Soon, with a deep sigh, she put aside the savory volume, and inquired
of Phœbe whether old Speckle, as she called one of the hens, had laid
an egg the preceding day. Phœbe ran to see, but returned without the
expected treasure in her hand. At that instant, however, the blast of a
fish-dealer’s conch was heard, announcing his approach along the
street. With energetic raps at the shop-window, Hepzibah summoned the
man in, and made purchase of what he warranted as the finest mackerel
in his cart, and as fat a one as ever he felt with his finger so early
in the season. Requesting Phœbe to roast some coffee,—which she
casually observed was the real Mocha, and so long kept that each of the
small berries ought to be worth its weight in gold,—the maiden lady
heaped fuel into the vast receptacle of the ancient fireplace in such
quantity as soon to drive the lingering dusk out of the kitchen. The
country-girl, willing to give her utmost assistance, proposed to make
an Indian cake, after her mother’s peculiar method, of easy
manufacture, and which she could vouch for as possessing a richness,
and, if rightly prepared, a delicacy, unequalled by any other mode of
breakfast-cake. Hepzibah gladly assenting, the kitchen was soon the
scene of savory preparation. Perchance, amid their proper element of
smoke, which eddied forth from the ill-constructed chimney, the ghosts
of departed cook-maids looked wonderingly on, or peeped down the great
breadth of the flue, despising the simplicity of the projected meal,
yet ineffectually pining to thrust their shadowy hands into each
inchoate dish. The half-starved rats, at any rate, stole visibly out of
their hiding-places, and sat on their hind-legs, snuffing the fumy
atmosphere, and wistfully awaiting an opportunity to nibble.
Hepzibah had no natural turn for cookery, and, to say the truth, had
fairly incurred her present meagreness by often choosing to go without
her dinner rather than be attendant on the rotation of the spit, or
ebullition of the pot. Her zeal over the fire, therefore, was quite an
heroic test of sentiment. It was touching, and positively worthy of
tears (if Phœbe, the only spectator, except the rats and ghosts
aforesaid, had not been better employed than in shedding them), to see
her rake out a bed of fresh and glowing coals, and proceed to broil the
mackerel. Her usually pale cheeks were all ablaze with heat and hurry.
She watched the fish with as much tender care and minuteness of
attention as if,—we know not how to express it otherwise,—as if her own
heart were on the gridiron, and her immortal happiness were involved in
its being done precisely to a turn!
Life, within doors, has few pleasanter prospects than a neatly arranged
and well-provisioned breakfast-table. We come to it freshly, in the
dewy youth of the day, and when our spiritual and sensual elements are
in better accord than at a later period; so that the material delights
of the morning meal are capable of being fully enjoyed, without any
very grievous reproaches, whether gastric or conscientious, for
yielding even a trifle overmuch to the animal department of our nature.
The thoughts, too, that run around the ring of familiar guests have a
piquancy and mirthfulness, and oftentimes a vivid truth, which more
rarely find their way into the elaborate intercourse of dinner.
Hepzibah’s small and ancient table, supported on its slender and
graceful legs, and covered with a cloth of the richest damask, looked
worthy to be the scene and centre of one of the cheerfullest of
parties. The vapor of the broiled fish arose like incense from the
shrine of a barbarian idol, while the fragrance of the Mocha might have
gratified the nostrils of a tutelary Lar, or whatever power has scope
over a modern breakfast-table. Phœbe’s Indian cakes were the sweetest
offering of all,—in their hue befitting the rustic altars of the
innocent and golden age,—or, so brightly yellow were they, resembling
some of the bread which was changed to glistening gold when Midas tried
to eat it. The butter must not be forgotten,—butter which Phœbe herself
had churned, in her own rural home, and brought it to her cousin as a
propitiatory gift,—smelling of clover-blossoms, and diffusing the charm
of pastoral scenery through the dark-panelled parlor. All this, with
the quaint gorgeousness of the old china cups and saucers, and the
crested spoons, and a silver cream-jug (Hepzibah’s only other article
of plate, and shaped like the rudest porringer), set out a board at
which the stateliest of old Colonel Pyncheon’s guests need not have
scorned to take his place. But the Puritan’s face scowled down out of
the picture, as if nothing on the table pleased his appetite.
By way of contributing what grace she could, Phœbe gathered some roses
and a few other flowers, possessing either scent or beauty, and
arranged them in a glass pitcher, which, having long ago lost its
handle, was so much the fitter for a flower-vase. The early sunshine—as
fresh as that which peeped into Eve’s bower while she and Adam sat at
breakfast there—came twinkling through the branches of the pear-tree,
and fell quite across the table. All was now ready. There were chairs
and plates for three. A chair and plate for Hepzibah,—the same for
Phœbe,—but what other guest did her cousin look for?
Throughout this preparation there had been a constant tremor in
Hepzibah’s frame; an agitation so powerful that Phœbe could see the
quivering of her gaunt shadow, as thrown by the firelight on the
kitchen wall, or by the sunshine on the parlor floor. Its