Home as Found, James Fenimore Cooper [bookreader txt] 📗

such a man as this Mr. Dodge, who has thrust

himself and his ignorance together into the village, lately, as an

expounder of truth, and a ray of light to the blind. Well, sir, I

said to myself, if this man be the man I know him to be as a man, can

he be any thing better as an editor?"

 

"That was a home question put to yourself, commodore; how did you

answer it?"

 

"The answer was satisfactory, sir, to myself, whatever it might be to

other people. I stopped his paper, and set up for myself. Just about

that time the sogdollager nibbled, and instead of trying to be a

great man, over the shoulders of the patriots and sages of the land,

I endeavoured to immortalize myself by hooking him. I go to the

elections now, for that I feel to be a duty, but instead of allowing

a man like this Mr. Dodge to tell me how to vote, I vote for the man

in public that I would trust in private."

 

"Excellent! I honour you more and more every minute I pass in your

society. We will now drink to the future happiness of those who will

become brides and bridegrooms to-morrow. If all men were as

philosophical and as learned as you, commodore, the human race would

be in a fairer way than they are to-day."

 

"Just so; I drink to them with all my heart. Is it not surprising,

sir, that people like Mrs. Abbott and Mr. Dodge should have it in

their power to injure such as those whose happiness we have just had

the honour of commemorating in advance?"

 

"Why, commodore, a fly may bite an elephant, if he can find a weak

spot in his hide. I do not altogether understand the history of the

marriage of John Effingham, myself; but we see the issue of it has

been a fine son. Now I hold that when a man fairly marries, he is

bound to own it, the same as any other crime; for he owes it to those

who have not been as guilty as himself, to show the world that he no

longer belongs to them."

 

"Just so; but we have flies in this part of the world that will bite

through the toughest hide."

 

"That comes from there being no quarter-deck in your social ship,

commodore. Now aboard of a well-regulated packet, all the thinking is

done aft; they who are desirous of knowing whereabouts the vessel is,

being compelled to wait till the observations are taken, or to sit

down in their ignorance. The whole difficulty comes from the fact

that sensible people live so far apart in this quarter of the world,

that fools have more room than should fall to their share. You

understand me, commodore?"

 

"Just so," said the commodore, laughing, and winking. "Well, it is

fortunate that there are some people who are not quite as weak-minded

as some other people. I take it, Captain Truck, that you will be

present at the wedding?"

 

The captain now winked in his turn, looked around him to make sure no

one was listening, and laying a finger on his nose, he answered, in a

much lower key than was usual for him--

 

"You can keep a secret, I know, commodore. Now what I have to say is

not to be told to Mrs. Abbott, in order that it may be repeated and

multiplied, but is to be kept as snug as your bait, in the bait-box."

 

"You know your man, sir."

 

"Well then, about ten minutes before the clock strikes nine, to-

morrow morning, do you slip into the gallery of New St. Paul's, and

you shall see beauty and modesty, when 'unadorned, adorned the most.'

You comprehend?"

 

"Just so," and the hand was flourished even more than usual.

 

"It does not become us bachelors to be too lenient to matrimony, but

I should be an unhappy man, were I not to witness the marriage of

Paul Powis to Eve Effingham."

 

Here both the worthies, "freshened the nip," as Captain Truck called

it, and then the conversation soon got to be too philosophical and

contemplative for this unpretending record of events and ideas.

 

Chapter XXIX

 

"Then plainly know, my heart's dear love is set On the fair

daughter of rich Capulet; As mine on hers, so hers is set on mine;

And all combined, save what thou must confine By holy marriage."

 

ROMEO AND JULIET.

 

The morning chosen for the nuptials of Eve and Grace arrived, and all

the inmates of the Wigwam were early afoot, though the utmost care

had been taken to prevent the intelligence of the approaching

ceremony from getting into the village. They little knew, however,

how closely they were watched; the mean artifices that were resorted

to by some who called themselves their neighbours, to tamper with

servants, to obtain food for conjecture, and to justify to themselves

their exaggerations, falsehoods, and frauds. The news did leak out,

as will presently be seen, and through a channel that may cause the

reader, who is unacquainted with some of the peculiarities of

American life, a little surprise.

 

We have frequently alluded to Annette, the _femme de chambre_

that had followed Eve from Europe, although we have had no occasion

to dwell on her character, which was that of a woman of her class, as

they are well known to exist in France. Annette was young, had

bright, sparkling black eyes, was well made, and had the usual

tournure and manner of a Parisian grisette. As it is the besetting

weakness of all provincial habits to mistake graces for grace,

flourishes for elegance, and exaggeration for merit, Annette soon

acquired a reputation in her circle, as a woman of more than usual

claims to distinction. Her attire was in the height of the fashion,

being of Eve's cast-off clothes, and of the best materials, and

attire is also a point that is not without its influence on those who

are unaccustomed to the world.

 

As the double ceremony was to take place before breakfast, Annette

was early employed about the person of her young mistress, adorning

it in the bridal robes. While she worked at her usual employment, the

attendant appeared unusually agitated, and several times pins were

badly pointed, and new arrangements had to supersede or to supply the

deficiencies of her mistakes. Eve was always a model of patience, and

she bore with these little oversights with a quiet that would have

given Paul an additional pledge of her admirable self-command, as

well as of a sweetness of temper that, in truth, raised her almost

above the commoner feelings of mortality.

 

"_Vous etes un peu agitee, ce matin, ma bonne Annette_," she

merely observed, when her maid had committed a blunder more material

than common.

 

"_J'espere que Mademoiselle a ete contente de moi, jusqu' a

present_," returned Annette, vexed with her own awkwardness, and

speaking in the manner in which it is usual to announce an intention

to quit a service.

 

"Certainly, Annette, you have conducted yourself well, and are very

expert in your _metier_. But why do you ask this question, just

at this moment?"

 

"_Parceque_--because--with mademoiselle's permission, I intended

to ask for my _conge_."

 

"_Conge_! Do you think of quitting me, Annette?"

 

"It would make me happier than anything else to die in the service of

mademoiselle, but we are all subject to our destiny"--the

conversation was in French--"and mine compels me to cease my services

as a _femme de chambre_."

 

"This is a sudden, and for one in a strange country, an extraordinary

resolution. May I ask, Annette, what you propose to do?"

 

Here, the woman gave herself certain airs, endeavoured to blush, did

look at the carpet with a studied modesty that might have deceived

one who did not know the genus, and announced her intention to get

married, too, at the end of the present month.

 

"Married!" repeated Eve--"surely not to old Pierre, Annette!"

 

"Pierre, Mademoiselle! I shall not condescend to look at Pierre.

_Je vais me marier avec un avocat_."

 

"_Un avocat_!"

 

"_Oui, Mademoiselle_. I will marry myself with Monsieur

Aristabule Bragg, if Mademoiselle shall permit."

 

Eve was perfectly mute with astonishment, notwithstanding the proofs

she had often seen of the wide range that the ambition of an American

of a certain class allows itself. Of course, she remembered the

conversation on the Point, and it would not have been in nature, had

not a mistress who had been so lately wooed, felt some surprise at

finding her discarded suitor so soon seeking consolation in the

smiles of her own maid. Still her surprise was less than that which

the reader will probably experience at this announcement; for, as has

just been said, she had seen too much of the active and pliant

enterprise of the lover, to feel much wonder at any of his moral

_tours de force_. Even Eve, however, was not perfectly acquainted

with the views and policy that had led Aristabulus to seek this

consummation to his matrimonial schemes, which must be explained

explicitly, in order that they may be properly understood.

 

Mr. Bragg had no notion of any distinctions in the world, beyond

those which came from money, and political success. For the first he

had a practical deference that was as profound as his wishes for its

enjoyments; and for the last he felt precisely the sort of reverence,

that one educated under a feudal system, would feel for a feudal

lord. The first, after several unsuccessful efforts, he had found

unattainable by means of matrimony, and he turned his thoughts

towards Annette, whom he had for some months held in reserve, in the

event of his failing with Eve and Grace, for on both these heiresses

had he entertained designs, as a _pis aller_. Annette was a

dress-maker of approved taste, her person was sufficiently

attractive, her broken English gave piquancy to thoughts of no great

depth, she was of a suitable age, and he had made her proposals and

been accepted, as soon as it was ascertained that Eve and Grace were

irretrievably lost to him. Of course, the Parisienne did not hesitate

an instant about becoming the wife of _un avocat;_ for,

agreeably to her habits, matrimony was a legitimate means of

bettering her condition in life. The plan was soon arranged. They

were to be married as soon as Annette's month's notice had expired,

and then they were to emigrate to the far west, where Mr. Bragg

proposed to practise law, or keep school, or to go to Congress, or to

turn trader, or to saw lumber, or, in short, to turn his hand to any

thing that offered; while Annette was to help along with the _menage_,

by making dresses, and teaching French; the latter occupation

promising to be somewhat peripatetic, the population being

scattered, and few of the dwellers in the interior deeming it

necessary to take more than a quarter's instruction in any of the

higher branches of education; the object being to _study_, as it

is called, and not to _know_. Aristabulus, who was filled with

_go-aheadism_, would have shortened the delay, but this Annette

positively resisted; her _esprit de corps_ as a servant, and all

her notions of justice, repudiating the notion that the connexion

which had existed so long between Eve and herself, was to be cut off

at a moment's warning. So diametrically were the ideas of the

_fiances_ opposed to each other, on this point, that at one time it

threatened a rupture, Mr. Bragg asserting the natural independence of

man to a degree that would have rendered him independent of all

obligations that were not effectually enacted by the law, and Annette

maintaining the dignity of a European _femme de chambre,_ whose

sense of propriety demanded that she should not quit her place

without giving a month's warning. The affair was happily decided by

Aristabulus's receiving a commission to tend a store, in the absence

of its owner; Mr. Effingham, on a hint from his daughter, having

profited by the annual expiration of the engagement, to bring their

connexion to an end.

 

This termination to the passion of Mr. Bragg would have afforded Eve

a good deal of amusement at any other moment; but a bride cannot be

expected to give too much of her attention to the felicity and

prospects of those who have no natural or acquired claims to her

affection. The cousins met, attired for the ceremony, in Mr.

Effingham's room, where he soon came in person, to lead them to the

drawing-room. It is seldom that two more lovely young women are

brought together on similar occasions. As Mr. Effingham stood between

them, holding a hand of each, his moistened eyes turned from one to

the other in honest pride, and in an admiration that even his

tenderness could not restrain. The _toilettes_ were as simple as

the marriage ceremony will permit; for it was intended that there

should be no unnecessary parade; and, perhaps, the delicate beauty of

each of the brides was rendered the more attractive by this

simplicity, as it has