The Guardian Angel

O >> Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. >> The Guardian Angel


During her stay at the great school, she made but one visit to Oxbow
Village. She did not try to startle the good people with her
accomplishments, but they were surprised at the change which had taken
place in her. Her dress was hardly more showy, for she was but a
school-girl, but it fitted her more gracefully. She had gained a
softness of expression, and an ease in conversation, which produced their
effect on all with whom she came in contact. Her aunt's voice lost
something of its plaintiveness in talking with her. Miss Cynthia
listened with involuntary interest to her stories of school and
school-mates. Master Byles Gridley accepted her as the great success of
his life, and determined to make her his chief heiress, if there was any
occasion for so doing. Cyprian told Bathsheba that Myrtle must come to
be a great lady. Gifted Hopkins confessed to Susan Posey that he was
afraid of her, since she had been to the great city school. She knew too
much and looked too much like a queen, for a village boy to talk with.

Mr. William Murray Bradshaw tried all his fascinations upon her, but she
parried compliments so well, and put off all his nearer advances so
dexterously, that he could not advance beyond the region of florid
courtesy, and never got a chance, if so disposed, to risk a question
which he would not ask rashly, believing that, if Myrtle once said No,
there would be little chance of her ever saying Yes.




CHAPTER XXIV.

MUSTERING OF FORCES.

Not long after the tableau performance had made Myrtle Hazard's name
famous in the school and among the friends of the scholars, she received
the very flattering attention of a call from Mrs. Clymer Ketchum, of 24
Carat Place. This was in consequence of a suggestion from Mr. Livingston
Jenkins, a particular friend of the family.

"They've got a demonish splendid school-girl over there," he said to that
lady, "made the stunningest looking Pocahontas at the show there the
other day. Demonish plucky looking filly as ever you saw. Had a row with
another girl,--gave the war-whoop, and went at her with a knife.
Festive,--hey? Say she only meant to scare her,--looked as if she meant
to stick her, anyhow. Splendid style. Why can't you go over to the shop
and make 'em trot her out?"

The lady promised Mr. Livingston Jenkins that she certainly would, just
as soon as she could find a moment's leisure,--which, as she had nothing
in the world to do, was not likely to be very soon. Myrtle in the mean
time was busy with her studies, little dreaming what an extraordinary
honor was awaiting her.

That rare accident in the lives of people who have nothing to do, a
leisure morning, did at last occur. An elegant carriage, with a coachman
in a wonderful cape, seated on a box lofty as a throne, and wearing a
hat-band as brilliant as a coronet, stopped at the portal of Madam
Delacoste's establishment. A card was sent in bearing the open sesame
of Mrs. Clymer Ketchum, the great lady of 24 Carat Place. Miss Myrtle
Hazard was summoned as a matter of course, and the fashionable woman and
the young girl sat half an hour together in lively conversation.

Myrtle was fascinated by her visitor, who had that flattering manner
which, to those not experienced in the world's ways, seems to imply
unfathomable depths of disinterested devotion. Then it was so delightful
to look upon a perfectly appointed woman,--one who was as artistically
composed as a poem or an opera,--in whose costume a kind of various
rhythm undulated in one fluent harmony, from the spray that nodded on her
bonnet to the rosette that blossomed on her sandal. As for the lady, she
was captivated with Myrtle. There is nothing that your fashionable
woman, who has ground and polished her own spark of life into as many and
as glittering social facets as it will bear, has a greater passion for
than a large rough diamond, which knows nothing of the sea of light it
imprisons, and which it will be her pride to have cut into a brilliant
under her own eye, and to show the world for its admiration and her own
reflected glory. Mrs. Clymer Ketchum had taken the entire inventory of
Myrtle's natural endowments before the interview was over. She had no
marriageable children, and she was thinking what a killing bait Myrtle
would be at one of her stylish parties.

She soon got another letter from Mr. William Murray Bradshaw, which
explained the interest he had taken in Madam Delacoste's school,--all
which she knew pretty nearly beforehand, for she had found out a good
part of Myrtle's history in the half-hour they had spent in company.

"I had a particular reason for my inquiries about the school," he wrote.
"There is a young girl there I take an interest in. She is handsome and
interesting; and--though it is a shame to mention such a thing has
possibilities in the way of fortune not to be undervalued. Why can't you
make her acquaintance and be civil to her? A country girl, but fine old
stock, and will make a figure some time or other, I tell you. Myrtle
Hazard,--that's her name. A mere schoolgirl. Don't be malicious and
badger me about her, but be polite to her. Some of these country girls
have got 'blue blood' in them, let me tell you, and show it plain
enough."

("In huckleberry season!") said Mrs. Ciymer Ketchum, in a
parenthesis,--and went on reading.

"Don't think I'm one of your love-in-a-cottage sort, to have my head
turned by a village beauty. I've got a career before me, Mrs. K., and I
know it. But this is one of my pets, and I want you to keep an eye on
her. Perhaps when she leaves school you wouldn't mind asking her to come
and stay with you a little while. Possibly I may come and see how she is
getting on if you do,--won't that tempt you, Mrs. C. K.?"

Mrs. Clymer Ketchum wrote back to her relative how she had already made
the young lady's acquaintance.

"Livingston Jerkins (you remember him) picked her out of the whole lot of
girls as the 'prettiest filly in the stable.' That's his horrid way of
talking. But your young milkmaid is really charming, and will come into
form like a Derby three-year-old. There, now, I've caught that odious
creature's horse-talk, myself. You're dead in love with this girl,
Murray, you know you are.

"After all, I don't know but you're right. You would make a good country
lawyer enough, I don't doubt. I used to think you had your ambitions,
but never mind. If you choose to risk yourself on 'possibilities,' it is
not my affair, and she's a beauty, there's no mistake about that.

"There are some desirable partis at the school with your dulcinea. There
's Rose Bugbee. That last name is a good one to be married from. Rose
is a nice girl,--there are only two of them. The estate will cut up like
one of the animals it was made out of, you know,--the sandwich-quadruped.
Then there 's Berengaria. Old Topping owns the Planet Hotel among other
things,--so big, they say, there's always a bell ringing from somebody's
room day and night the year round. Only child--unit and six
ciphers carries diamonds loose in her pocket--that's the story
--good-looking--lively--a little slangy called Livingston Jerkins
'Living Jingo' to his face one day. I want you to see my lot before you
do anything serious. You owe something to the family, Mr. William Murray
Bradshaw! But you must suit yourself, after all: if you are contented
with a humble position in life, it is nobody's business that I know of.
Only I know what life is, Murray B. Getting married is jumping
overboard, any way you look at it, and if you must save some woman from
drowning an old maid, try to find one with a cork jacket, or she 'll
carry you down with her."

Murray Bradshaw was calculating enough, but he shook his head over this
letter. It was too demonish cold-blooded for him, he said to himself.
(Men cannot pardon women for saying aloud what they do not hesitate to
think in silence themselves.) Never mind,--he must have Mrs. Clymer
Ketchum's house and influence for his own purposes. Myrtle Hazard must
become her guest, and then if circumstances were favorable, he was
certain obtaining her aid in his project.

The opportunity to invite Myrtle to the great mansion presented itself
unexpectedly. Early in the spring of 1861 there were some cases of
sickness in Madam Delacoste's establishment, which led to closing the
school for a while. Mrs. Clymer Ketchum took advantage of the dispersion
of the scholars to ask Myrtle to come and spend some weeks with her.
There were reasons why this was more agreeable to the young girl than
returning to Oxbow Village, and she very gladly accepted the invitation.

It was very remarkable that a man living as Master Byles Gridley had
lived for so long a time should all at once display such liberality as he
showed to a young woman who had no claim upon him, except that he had
rescued her from the consequences of her own imprudence and warned her
against impending dangers. Perhaps he cared more for her than if the
obligation had been the other way,--students of human nature say it is
commonly so. At any rate, either he had ampler resources than it was
commonly supposed, or he was imprudently giving way to his generous
impulses, or he thought he was making advances which would in due time be
returned to him. Whatever the reason was, he furnished her with means,
not only for her necessary expenses, but sufficient to afford her many of
the elegances which she would be like to want in the fashionable society
with which she was for a short time to mingle.

Mrs. Clymer Ketchum was so well pleased with the young lady she was
entertaining, that she thought it worth while to give a party while
Myrtle was staying with her. She had her jealousies and rivalries, as
women of the world will, sometimes, and these may have had their share in
leading her to take the trouble a large party involved. She was tired of
the airs of Mrs. Pinnikle, who was of the great Apex family, and her
terribly accomplished daughter Rhadamartha, and wanted to crush the young
lady, and jaundice her mother, with a girl twice as brilliant and ten
times handsomer. She was very willing, also, to take the nonsense out of
the Capsheaf girls, who thought themselves the most stylish personages of
their city world, and would bite their lips well to see themselves
distanced by a country miss.

In the mean time circumstances were promising to bring into Myrtle's
neighborhood several of her old friends and admirers. Mrs. Clymer
Ketchum had written to Murray Bradshaw that she had asked his pretty
milkmaid to come and stay awhile with her, but he had been away on
business, and only arrived in the city a day or two before the party. But
other young fellows had found out the attractions of the girl who was
"hanging out at the Clymer Ketchum concern," and callers were plenty,
reducing tete-a-tetes in a corresponding ratio. He did get one
opportunity, however, and used it well. They had so many things to talk
about in common, that she could not help finding him good company. She
might well be pleased, for he was an adept in the curious art of being
agreeable, as other people are in chess or billiards, and had made a
special study of her tastes, as a physician studies a patient's
constitution. What he wanted was to get her thoroughly interested in
himself, and to maintain her in a receptive condition until such time as
he should be ready for a final move. Any day might furnish the decisive
motive; in the mean time he wished only to hold her as against all
others.

It was well for her, perhaps, that others had flattered her into a
certain consciousness of her own value. She felt her veins full of the
same rich blood as that which had flushed the cheeks of handsome Judith
in the long summer of her triumph. Whether it was vanity, or pride, or
only the instinctive sense of inherited force and attraction, it was the
best of defences. The golden bracelet on her wrist seemed to have
brought as much protection with it as if it had been a shield over her
heart.

But far away in Oxbow Village other events were in preparation. The
"fugitive pieces" of Mr. Gifted Hopkins had now reached a number so
considerable, that, if collected and printed in large type, with plenty
of what the unpleasant printers call "fat,"--meaning thereby blank
spaces,--upon a good, substantial, not to say thick paper, they might
perhaps make a volume which would have substance enough to bear the
title, printed lengthwise along the back, "Hopkins's Poems." Such a
volume that author had in contemplation. It was to be the literary event
of the year 1861.

He could not mature such a project, one which he had been for some time
contemplating, without consulting Mr. Byles Gridley, who, though he had
not unfrequently repressed the young poet's too ardent ambition, had yet
always been kind and helpful.

Mr. Gridley was seated in his large arm-chair, indulging himself in the
perusal of a page or two of his own work before repeatedly referred to.
His eye was glistening, for it had dust rested on the following passage:

"There is infinite pathos in unsuccessful authorship. The book that
perishes unread is the deaf mute of literature. The great asylum of
Oblivion is full of such, making inaudible signs to each other in leaky
garrets and unattainable dusty upper shelves."

He shut the book, for the page grew a little dim as he finished this
elegiac sentence, and sighed to think how much more keenly he felt its
truth than when it was written,--than on that memorable morning when he
saw the advertisement in all the papers, "This day published, 'Thoughts
on the Universe.' By Byles Gridley, A. M."

At that moment he heard a knock at his door. He closed his eyelids
forcibly for ten seconds, opened them, and said cheerfully, "Come in!"

Gifted Hopkins entered. He had a collection of manuscripts in his hands
which it seemed to him would fill a vast number of pages. He did not
know that manuscript is to type what fresh dandelions are to the dish of
greens that comes to table, of which last Nurse Byloe, who considered
them very wholesome spring grazing for her patients, used to say that
they "biled down dreadful."

"I have brought the autographs of my poems, Master Gridley, to consult
you about making arrangements for publication. They have been so well
received by the public and the leading critics of this part of the State,
that I think of having them printed in a volume. I am going to the city
for that purpose. My mother has given her consent. I wish to ask you
several business questions. Shall I part with the copyright for a
downright sum of money, which I understand some prefer doing, or publish
on shares, or take a percentage on the sales? These, I believe, are the
different ways taken by authors."

Mr. Gridley was altogether too considerate to reply with the words which
would most naturally have come to his lips. He waited as if he were
gravely pondering the important questions just put to him, all the while
looking at Gifted with a tenderness which no one who had not buried one
of his soul's children could have felt for a young author trying to get
clothing for his new-born intellectual offspring.

"I think," he said presently, "you had better talk with an intelligent
and liberal publisher, and be guided by his advice. I can put you in
correspondence with such a person, and you had better trust him than me a
great deal. Why don't you send your manuscript by mail?"

"What, Mr. Gridley? Trust my poems, some of which are unpublished, to
the post-office? No, sir, I could never make up my mind to such a risk.
I mean to go to the city myself, and read them to some of the leading
publishers. I don't want to pledge myself to any one of them. I should
like to set them bidding against each other for the copyright, if I sell
it at all."

Mr. Gridley gazed upon the innocent youth with a sweet wonder in his eyes
that made him look like an angel, a little damaged in the features by
time, but full of celestial feelings.

"It will cost you something to make this trip, Gifted. Have you the
means to pay for your journey and your stay at a city hotel?"

Gifted blushed. "My mother has laid by a small sum for me," he said.
"She knows some of my poems by heart, and she wants to see them all in
print."

Master Gridley closed his eyes very firmly again, as if thinking, and
opened them as soon as the foolish film had left them. He had read many
a page of "Thoughts on the Universe" to his own old mother, long, long
years ago, and she had often listened with tears of modest pride that
Heaven had favored her with a son so full of genius.

"I 'll tell you what, Gifted," he said. "I have been thinking for a good
while that I would make a visit to the city, and if you have made up your
mind to try what you can do with the publishers, I will take you with me
as a companion. It will be a saving to you and your good mother, for I
shall bear the expenses of the expedition."

Gifted Hopkins came very near going down on his knees. He was so
overcome with gratitude that it seemed as if his very coattails wagged
with his emotion.

"Take it quietly," said Master Gridley. "Don't make a fool of yourself.
Tell your mother to have some clean shirts and things ready for you, and
we will be off day after to-morrow morning."

Gifted hastened to impart the joyful news to his mother, and to break the
fact to Susan Posey that he was about to leave them for a while, and rush
into the deliriums and dangers of the great city.

Susan smiled. Gifted hardly knew whether to be pleased with her
sympathy, or vexed that she did not take his leaving more to heart. The
smile held out bravely for about a quarter of a minute. Then there came
on a little twitching at the corners of the mouth. Then the blue eyes
began to shine with a kind of veiled glimmer. Then the blood came up
into her cheeks with a great rush, as if the heart had sent up a herald
with a red flag from the citadel to know what was going on at the
outworks. The message that went back was of discomfiture and
capitulation. Poor Susan was overcome, and gave herself up to weeping
and sobbing.

The sight was too much for the young poet. In a wild burst of passion he
seized her hand, and pressed it to his lips, exclaiming, "Would that you
could be mine forever!" and Susan forgot all that she ought to have
remembered, and, looking half reproachfully but half tenderly through her
tears, said, in tones of infinite sweetness, "O Gifted!"




CHAPTER XXV.

THE POET AND THE PUBLISHER.

It was settled that Master Byles Gridley and Mr. Gifted Hopkins should
leave early in the morning of the day appointed, to take the nearest
train to the city. Mrs. Hopkins labored hard to get them ready, so that
they might make a genteel appearance among the great people whom they
would meet in society. She brushed up Mr. Gridley's best black suit, and
bound the cuffs of his dress-coat, which were getting a little worried.
She held his honest-looking hat to the fire, and smoothed it while it was
warm, until one would have thought it had just been ironed by the hatter
himself. She had his boots and shoes brought into a more brilliant
condition than they had ever known: if Gifted helped, it was to his
credit as much as if he had shown his gratitude by polishing off a copy
of verses in praise of his benefactor.

When she had got Mr. Gridley's encumbrances in readiness for the journey,
she devoted herself to fitting out her son Gifted. First, she had down
from the garret a capacious trunk, of solid wood, but covered with
leather, and adorned with brass-headed nails, by the cunning disposition
of which, also, the paternal initials stood out on the rounded lid, in
the most conspicuous manner. It was his father's trunk, and the first
thing that went into it, as the widow lifted the cover, and the
smothering shut-up smell struck an old chord of associations, was a
single tear-drop. How well she remembered the time when she first
unpacked it for her young husband, and the white shirt bosoms showed
their snowy plaits! O dear, dear!

But women decant their affection, sweet and sound, out of the old bottles
into the new ones,--off from the lees of the past generation, clear and
bright, into the clean vessels just made ready to receive it. Gifted
Hopkins was his mother's idol, and no wonder. She had not only the
common attachment of a parent for him, as her offspring, but she felt
that her race was to be rendered illustrious by his genius, and thought
proudly of the time when some future biographer would mention her own
humble name, to be held in lasting remembrance as that of the mother of
Hopkins.

So she took great pains to equip this brilliant but inexperienced young
man with everything he could by any possibility need during his absence.
The great trunk filled itself until it bulged with its contents like a
boa-constrictor who has swallowed his blanket. Best clothes and common
clothes, thick clothes and thin clothes, flannels and linens, socks and
collars, with handkerchiefs enough to keep the pickpockets busy for a
week, with a paper of gingerbread and some lozenges for gastralgia, and
"hot drops," and ruled paper to write letters on, and a little Bible, and
a phial with hiera picra, and another with paregoric, and another with
"camphire" for sprains and bruises.

--Gifted went forth equipped for every climate from the tropic to the
pole, and armed against every malady from Ague to Zoster. He carried
also the paternal watch, a solid silver bull's-eye, and a large
pocketbook, tied round with a long tape, and, by way of precaution,
pinned into his breast-pocket. He talked about having a pistol, in case
he were attacked by any of the ruffians who are so numerous in the city,
but Mr. Gridley told him, No! he would certainly shoot himself, and he
shouldn't think of letting him take a pistol.

They went forth, Mentor and Telemachus, at the appointed time, to dare
the perils of the railroad and the snares of the city. Mrs. Hopkins was
firm up to near the last moment, when a little quiver in her voice set
her eyes off, and her face broke up all at once, so that she had to hide
it behind her handkerchief. Susan Posey showed the truthfulness of her
character in her words to Gifted at parting. "Farewell," she said, "and
think of me sometimes while absent. My heart is another's, but my
friendship, Gifted--my friendship--"

Both were deeply affected. He took her hand and would have raised it to
his lips; but she did not forget herself, and gently withdrew it,
exclaiming, "O Gifted!" this time with a tone of tender reproach which
made him feel like a profligate. He tore himself away, and when at a
safe distance flung her a kiss, which she rewarded with a tearful smile.

Master Byles Gridley must have had some good dividends from some of his
property of late. There is no other way of accounting for the handsome
style in which he did things on their arrival in the city. He went to a
tailor's and ordered a new suit to be sent home as soon as possible, for
he knew his wardrobe was a little rusty. He looked Gifted over from head
to foot, and suggested such improvements as would recommend him to the
fastidious eyes of the selecter sort of people, and put him in his own
tailor's hands, at the same time saying that all bills were to be sent to
him, B. Gridley, Esq., parlor No. 6, at the Planet Hotel. Thus it came
to pass that in three days from their arrival they were both in an
eminently presentable condition. In the mean time the prudent Mr.
Gridley had been keeping the young man busy, and amusing himself by
showing him such of the sights of the city and its suburbs as he thought
would combine instruction with entertainment.

When they were both properly equipped and ready for the best company, Mr.
Gridley said to the young poet, who had found it very hard to contain his
impatience, that they would now call together on the publisher to whom he
wished to introduce him, and they set out accordingly.

"My name is Gridley," he said with modest gravity, as he entered the
publisher's private room. "I have a note of introduction here from one
of your authors, as I think he called himself, a very popular writer for
whom you publish."

The publisher rose and came forward in the most cordial and respectful
manner. "Mr. Gridley? Professor Byles Gridley,--author of 'Thoughts on
the Universe'?"

The brave-hearted old man colored as if he had been a young girl. His
dead book rose before him like an apparition. He groped in modest
confusion for an answer. "A child I buried long ago, my dear sir," he
said. "Its title-page was its tombstone. I have brought this young
friend with me,--this is Mr. Gifted Hopkins of Oxbow Village,--who wishes
to converse with you about--"

"I have come, sir--" the young poet began, interrupting him.

"Let me look at your manuscript, if you please, Mr. Popkins," said the
publisher, interrupting in his turn.