XIII Alice Pyncheon
THERE was a message brought, one day, from the worshipful GervaysePyncheon to young Matthew Maule, the carpenter, desiring his immediatepresence at the House of the Seven Gables.
"And what does your master want with me?" said the carpenter to Mr.Pyncheon's black servant. "Does the house need any repair? Well itmay, by this time; and no blame to my father who built it, neither! Iwas reading the old Colonel's tombstone, no longer ago than lastSabbath; and, reckoning from that date, the house has stoodseven-and-thirty years. No wonder if there should be a job to do onthe roof."
"Don't know what massa wants," answered Scipio. "The house is a berrygood house, and old Colonel Pyncheon think so too, I reckon;--else whythe old man haunt it so, and frighten a poor nigga, As he does?"
"Well, well, friend Scipio; let your master know that I'm coming," saidthe carpenter with a laugh. "For a fair, workmanlike job, he'll findme his man. And so the house is haunted, is it? It will take a tighterworkman than I am to keep the spirits out of the Seven Gables. Even ifthe Colonel would be quiet," he added, muttering to himself, "my oldgrandfather, the wizard, will be pretty sure to stick to the Pyncheonsas long as their walls hold together."
"What's that you mutter to yourself, Matthew Maule?" asked Scipio."And what for do you look so black at me?"
"No matter, darky," said the carpenter. "Do you think nobody is tolook black but yourself? Go tell your master I'm coming; and if youhappen to see Mistress Alice, his daughter, give Matthew Maule's humblerespects to her. She has brought a fair face from Italy,--fair, andgentle, and proud,--has that same Alice Pyncheon!"
"He talk of Mistress Alice!" cried Scipio, as he returned from hiserrand. "The low carpenter-man! He no business so much as to look ather a great way off!"
This young Matthew Maule, the carpenter, it must be observed, was aperson little understood, and not very generally liked, in the townwhere he resided; not that anything could be alleged against hisintegrity, or his skill and diligence in the handicraft which heexercised. The aversion (as it might justly be called) with which manypersons regarded him was partly the result of his own character anddeportment, and partly an inheritance.
He was the grandson of a former Matthew Maule, one of the earlysettlers of the town, and who had been a famous and terrible wizard inhis day. This old reprobate was one of the sufferers when CottonMather, and his brother ministers, and the learned judges, and otherwise men, and Sir William Phipps, the sagacious governor, made suchlaudable efforts to weaken the great enemy of souls, by sending amultitude of his adherents up the rocky pathway of Gallows Hill. Sincethose days, no doubt, it had grown to be suspected that, in consequenceof an unfortunate overdoing of a work praiseworthy in itself, theproceedings against the witches had proved far less acceptable to theBeneficent Father than to that very Arch Enemy whom they were intendedto distress and utterly overwhelm. It is not the less certain,however, that awe and terror brooded over the memories of those whodied for this horrible crime of witchcraft. Their graves, in thecrevices of the rocks, were supposed to be incapable of retaining theoccupants who had been so hastily thrust into them. Old Matthew Maule,especially, was known to have as little hesitation or difficulty inrising out of his grave as an ordinary man in getting out of bed, andwas as often seen at midnight as living people at noonday. Thispestilent wizard (in whom his just punishment seemed to have wrought nomanner of amendment) had an inveterate habit of haunting a certainmansion, styled the House of the Seven Gables, against the owner ofwhich he pretended to hold an unsettled claim for ground-rent. Theghost, it appears,--with the pertinacity which was one of hisdistinguishing characteristics while alive,--insisted that he was therightful proprietor of the site upon which the house stood. His termswere, that either the aforesaid ground-rent, from the day when thecellar began to be dug, should be paid down, or the mansion itselfgiven up; else he, the ghostly creditor, would have his finger in allthe affairs of the Pyncheons, and make everything go wrong with them,though it should be a thousand years after his death. It was a wildstory, perhaps, but seemed not altogether so incredible to those whocould remember what an inflexibly obstinate old fellow this wizardMaule had been.
Now, the wizard's grandson, the young Matthew Maule of our story, waspopularly supposed to have inherited some of his ancestor'squestionable traits. It is wonderful how many absurdities werepromulgated in reference to the young man. He was fabled, for example,to have a strange power of getting into people's dreams, and regulatingmatters there according to his own fancy, pretty much like thestage-manager of a theatre. There was a great deal of talk among theneighbors, particularly the petticoated ones, about what they calledthe witchcraft of Maule's eye. Some said that he could look intopeople's minds; others, that, by the marvellous power of this eye, hecould draw people into his own mind, or send them, if he pleased, to doerrands to his grandfather, in the spiritual world; others, again, thatit was what is termed an Evil Eye, and possessed the valuable facultyof blighting corn, and drying children into mummies with the heartburn.But, after all, what worked most to the young carpenter's disadvantagewas, first, the reserve and sternness of his natural disposition, andnext, the fact of his not being a church-communicant, and the suspicionof his holding heretical tenets in matters of religion and polity.
After receiving Mr. Pyncheon's message, the carpenter merely tarried tofinish a small job, which he happened to have in hand, and then tookhis way towards the House of the Seven Gables. This noted edifice,though its style might be getting a little out of fashion, was still asrespectable a family residence as that of any gentleman in town. Thepresent owner, Gervayse Pyncheon, was said to have contracted a disliketo the house, in consequence of a shock to his sensibility, in earlychildhood, from the sudden death of his grandfather. In the very actof running to climb Colonel Pyncheon's knee, the boy had discovered theold Puritan to be a corpse. On arriving at manhood, Mr. Pyncheon hadvisited England, where he married a lady of fortune, and hadsubsequently spent many years, partly in the mother country, and partlyin various cities on the continent of Europe. During this period, thefamily mansion had been consigned to the charge of a kinsman, who wasallowed to make it his home for the time being, in consideration ofkeeping the premises in thorough repair. So faithfully had thiscontract been fulfilled, that now, as the carpenter approached thehouse, his practised eye could detect nothing to criticise in itscondition. The peaks of the seven gables rose up sharply; the shingledroof looked thoroughly water-tight; and the glittering plaster-workentirely covered the exterior walls, and sparkled in the October sun,as if it had been new only a week ago.
The house had that pleasant aspect of life which is like the cheeryexpression of comfortable activity in the human countenance. You couldsee, at once, that there was the stir of a large family within it. Ahuge load of oak-wood was passing through the gateway, towards theoutbuildings in the rear; the fat cook--or probably it might be thehousekeeper--stood at the side door, bargaining for some turkeys andpoultry which a countryman had brought for sale. Now and then amaid-servant, neatly dressed, and now the shining sable face of aslave, might be seen bustling across the windows, in the lower part ofthe house. At an open window of a room in the second story, hangingover some pots of beautiful and delicate flowers,--exotics, but whichhad never known a more genial sunshine than that of the New Englandautumn,--was the figure of a young lady, an exotic, like the flowers,and beautiful and delicate as they. Her presence imparted anindescribable grace and faint witchery to the whole edifice. In otherrespects, it was a substantial, jolly-looking mansion, and seemed fitto be the residence of a patriarch, who might establish his ownheadquarters in the front gable and assign one of the remainder to eachof his six children, while the great chimney in the centre shouldsymbolize the old fellow's hospitable heart, which kept them all warm,and made a great whole of the seven smaller ones.
There was a vertical sundial on the front gable; and as the carpenterpassed
beneath it, he looked up and noted the hour.
"Three o'clock!" said he to himself. "My father told me that dial wasput up only an hour before the old Colonel's death. How truly it haskept time these seven-and-thirty years past! The shadow creeps andcreeps, and is always looking over the shoulder of the sunshine!"
It might have befitted a craftsman, like Matthew Maule, on being sentfor to a gentleman's house, to go to the back door, where servants andwork-people were usually admitted; or at least to the side entrance,where the better class of tradesmen made application. But thecarpenter had a great deal of pride and stiffness in his nature; and,at this moment, moreover, his heart was bitter with the sense ofhereditary wrong, because he considered the great Pyncheon House to bestanding on soil which should have been his own. On this very site,beside a spring of delicious water, his grandfather had felled thepine-trees and built a cottage, in which children had been born to him;and it was only from a dead man's stiffened fingers that ColonelPyncheon had wrested away the title-deeds. So young Maule wentstraight to the principal entrance, beneath a portal of carved oak, andgave such a peal of the iron knocker that you would have imagined thestern old wizard himself to be standing at the threshold.
Black Scipio answered the summons in a prodigious, hurry; but showedthe whites of his eyes in amazement on beholding only the carpenter.
"Lord-a-mercy, what a great man he be, this carpenter fellow!" mumbledScipio, down in his throat. "Anybody think he beat on the door withhis biggest hammer!"
"Here I am!" said Maule sternly. "Show me the way to your master'sparlor."
As he stept into the house, a note of sweet and melancholy musicthrilled and vibrated along the passage-way, proceeding from one of therooms above stairs. It was the harpsichord which Alice Pyncheon hadbrought with her from beyond the sea. The fair Alice bestowed most ofher maiden leisure between flowers and music, although the former wereapt to droop, and the melodies were often sad. She was of foreigneducation, and could not take kindly to the New England modes of life,in which nothing beautiful had ever been developed.
As Mr. Pyncheon had been impatiently awaiting Maule's arrival, blackScipio, of course, lost no time in ushering the carpenter into hismaster's presence. The room in which this gentleman sat was a parlor ofmoderate size, looking out upon the garden of the house, and having itswindows partly shadowed by the foliage of fruit-trees. It was Mr.Pyncheon's peculiar apartment, and was provided with furniture, in anelegant and costly style, principally from Paris; the floor (which wasunusual at that day) being covered with a carpet, so skilfully andrichly wrought that it seemed to glow as with living flowers. In onecorner stood a marble woman, to whom her own beauty was the sole andsufficient garment. Some pictures--that looked old, and had a mellowtinge diffused through all their artful splendor--hung on the walls.Near the fireplace was a large and very beautiful cabinet of ebony,inlaid with ivory; a piece of antique furniture, which Mr. Pyncheon hadbought in Venice, and which he used as the treasure-place for medals,ancient coins, and whatever small and valuable curiosities he hadpicked up on his travels. Through all this variety of decoration,however, the room showed its original characteristics; its low stud,its cross-beam, its chimney-piece, with the old-fashioned Dutch tiles;so that it was the emblem of a mind industriously stored with foreignideas, and elaborated into artificial refinement, but neither larger,nor, in its proper self, more elegant than before.
There were two objects that appeared rather out of place in this veryhandsomely furnished room. One was a large map, or surveyor's plan, ofa tract of land, which looked as if it had been drawn a good many yearsago, and was now dingy with smoke, and soiled, here and there, with thetouch of fingers. The other was a portrait of a stern old man, in aPuritan garb, painted roughly, but with a bold effect, and a remarkablystrong expression of character.
At a small table, before a fire of English sea-coal, sat Mr. Pyncheon,sipping coffee, which had grown to be a very favorite beverage with himin France. He was a middle-aged and really handsome man, with a wigflowing down upon his shoulders; his coat was of blue velvet, with laceon the borders and at the button-holes; and the firelight glistened onthe spacious breadth of his waistcoat, which was flowered all over withgold. On the entrance of Scipio, ushering in the carpenter, Mr.Pyncheon turned partly round, but resumed his former position, andproceeded deliberately to finish his cup of coffee, without immediatenotice of the guest whom he had summoned to his presence. It was notthat he intended any rudeness or improper neglect,--which, indeed, hewould have blushed to be guilty of,--but it never occurred to him thata person in Maule's station had a claim on his courtesy, or wouldtrouble himself about it one way or the other.
The carpenter, however, stepped at once to the hearth, and turnedhimself about, so as to look Mr. Pyncheon in the face.
"You sent for me," said he. "Be pleased to explain your business, thatI may go back to my own affairs."
"Ah! excuse me," said Mr. Pyncheon quietly. "I did not mean to taxyour time without a recompense. Your name, I think, is Maule,--Thomasor Matthew Maule,--a son or grandson of the builder of this house?"
"Matthew Maule," replied the carpenter,--"son of him who built thehouse,--grandson of the rightful proprietor of the soil."
"I know the dispute to which you allude," observed Mr. Pyncheon withundisturbed equanimity. "I am well aware that my grandfather wascompelled to resort to a suit at law, in order to establish his claimto the foundation-site of this edifice. We will not, if you please,renew the discussion. The matter was settled at the time, and by thecompetent authorities,--equitably, it is to be presumed,--and, at allevents, irrevocably. Yet, singularly enough, there is an incidentalreference to this very subject in what I am now about to say to you.And this same inveterate grudge,--excuse me, I mean no offence,--thisirritability, which you have just shown, is not entirely aside from thematter."
"If you can find anything for your purpose, Mr. Pyncheon," said thecarpenter, "in a man's natural resentment for the wrongs done to hisblood, you are welcome to it."
"I take you at your word, Goodman Maule," said the owner of the SevenGables, with a smile, "and will proceed to suggest a mode in which yourhereditary resentments--justifiable or otherwise--may have had abearing on my affairs. You have heard, I suppose, that the Pyncheonfamily, ever since my grandfather's days, have been prosecuting a stillunsettled claim to a very large extent of territory at the Eastward?"
"Often," replied Maule,--and it is said that a smile came over hisface,--"very often,--from my father!"
"This claim," continued Mr. Pyncheon, after pausing a moment, as if toconsider what the carpenter's smile might mean, "appeared to be on thevery verge of a settlement and full allowance, at the period of mygrandfather's decease. It was well known, to those in his confidence,that he anticipated neither difficulty nor delay. Now, ColonelPyncheon, I need hardly say, was a practical man, well acquainted withpublic and private business, and not at all the person to cherishill-founded hopes, or to attempt the following out of an impracticablescheme. It is obvious to conclude, therefore, that he had grounds, notapparent to his heirs, for his confident anticipation of success in thematter of this Eastern claim. In a word, I believe,--and my legaladvisers coincide in the belief, which, moreover, is authorized, to acertain extent, by the family traditions,--that my grandfather was inpossession of some deed, or other document, essential to this claim,but which has since disappeared."
"Very likely," said Matthew Maule,--and again, it is said, there was adark smile on his face,--"but what can a poor carpenter have to do withthe grand affairs of the Pyncheon family?"
"Perhaps nothing," returned Mr. Pyncheon, "possibly much!"
Here ensued a great many words between Matthew Maule and the proprietorof the Seven Gables, on the subject which the latter had thus broached.It seems (although Mr. Pyncheon had some hesitation in referring tostories so exceedingly absurd in their aspect) that the popular beliefpointed to some mysterious connection and dependence, existi
ng betweenthe family of the Maules and these vast unrealized possessions of thePyncheons. It was an ordinary saying that the old wizard, hangedthough he was, had obtained the best end of the bargain in his contestwith Colonel Pyncheon; inasmuch as he had got possession of the greatEastern claim, in exchange for an acre or two of garden-ground. A veryaged woman, recently dead, had often used the metaphorical expression,in her fireside talk, that miles and miles of the Pyncheon lands hadbeen shovelled into Maule's grave; which, by the bye, was but a veryshallow nook, between two rocks, near the summit of Gallows Hill.Again, when the lawyers were making inquiry for the missing document,it was a by-word that it would never be found, unless in the wizard'sskeleton hand. So much weight had the shrewd lawyers assigned to thesefables, that (but Mr. Pyncheon did not see fit to inform the carpenterof the fact) they had secretly caused the wizard's grave to besearched. Nothing was discovered, however, except that, unaccountably,the right hand of the skeleton was gone.
Now, what was unquestionably important, a portion of these popularrumors could be traced, though rather doubtfully and indistinctly, tochance words and obscure hints of the executed wizard's son, and thefather of this present Matthew Maule. And here Mr. Pyncheon couldbring an item of his own personal evidence into play. Though but achild at the time, he either remembered or fancied that Matthew'sfather had had some job to perform on the day before, or possibly thevery morning of the Colonel's decease, in the private room where he andthe carpenter were at this moment talking. Certain papers belonging toColonel Pyncheon, as his grandson distinctly recollected, had beenspread out on the table.
Matthew Maule understood the insinuated suspicion.
"My father," he said,--but still there was that dark smile, making ariddle of his countenance,--"my father was an honester man than thebloody old Colonel! Not to get his rights back again would he havecarried off one of those papers!"
"I shall not bandy words with you," observed the foreign-bred Mr.Pyncheon, with haughty composure. "Nor will it become me to resent anyrudeness towards either my grandfather or myself. A gentleman, beforeseeking intercourse with a person of your station and habits, willfirst consider whether the urgency of the end may compensate for thedisagreeableness of the means. It does so in the present instance."
He then renewed the conversation, and made great pecuniary offers tothe carpenter, in case the latter should give information leading tothe discovery of the lost document, and the consequent success of theEastern claim. For a long time Matthew Maule is said to have turned acold ear to these propositions. At last, however, with a strange kindof laugh, he inquired whether Mr. Pyncheon would make over to him theold wizard's homestead-ground, together with the House of the SevenGables, now standing on it, in requital of the documentary evidence sourgently required.
The wild, chimney-corner legend (which, without copying all itsextravagances, my narrative essentially follows) here gives an accountof some very strange behavior on the part of Colonel Pyncheon'sportrait. This picture, it must be understood, was supposed to be sointimately connected with the fate of the house, and so magically builtinto its walls, that, if once it should be removed, that very instantthe whole edifice would come thundering down in a heap of dusty ruin.All through the foregoing conversation between Mr. Pyncheon and thecarpenter, the portrait had been frowning, clenching its fist, andgiving many such proofs of excessive discomposure, but withoutattracting the notice of either of the two colloquists. And finally,at Matthew Maule's audacious suggestion of a transfer of theseven-gabled structure, the ghostly portrait is averred to have lostall patience, and to have shown itself on the point of descendingbodily from its frame. But such incredible incidents are merely to bementioned aside.
"Give up this house!" exclaimed Mr. Pyncheon, in amazement at theproposal. "Were I to do so, my grandfather would not rest quiet in hisgrave!"
"He never has, if all stories are true," remarked the carpentercomposedly. "But that matter concerns his grandson more than it doesMatthew Maule. I have no other terms to propose."
Impossible as he at first thought it to comply with Maule's conditions,still, on a second glance, Mr. Pyncheon was of opinion that they mightat least be made matter of discussion. He himself had no personalattachment for the house, nor any pleasant associations connected withhis childish residence in it. On the contrary, after seven-and-thirtyyears, the presence of his dead grandfather seemed still to pervade it,as on that morning when the affrighted boy had beheld him, with soghastly an aspect, stiffening in his chair. His long abode in foreignparts, moreover, and familiarity with many of the castles and ancestralhalls of England, and the marble palaces of Italy, had caused him tolook contemptuously at the House of the Seven Gables, whether in pointof splendor or convenience. It was a mansion exceedingly inadequate tothe style of living which it would be incumbent on Mr. Pyncheon tosupport, after realizing his territorial rights. His steward mightdeign to occupy it, but never, certainly, the great landed proprietorhimself. In the event of success, indeed, it was his purpose to returnto England; nor, to say the truth, would he recently have quitted thatmore congenial home, had not his own fortune, as well as his deceasedwife's, begun to give symptoms of exhaustion. The Eastern claim oncefairly settled, and put upon the firm basis of actual possession, Mr.Pyncheon's property--to be measured by miles, not acres--would be worthan earldom, and would reasonably entitle him to solicit, or enable himto purchase, that elevated dignity from the British monarch. LordPyncheon!--or the Earl of Waldo!--how could such a magnate be expectedto contract his grandeur within the pitiful compass of seven shingledgables?
In short, on an enlarged view of the business, the carpenter's termsappeared so ridiculously easy that Mr. Pyncheon could scarcely forbearlaughing in his face. He was quite ashamed, after the foregoingreflections, to propose any diminution of so moderate a recompense forthe immense service to be rendered.
"I consent to your proposition, Maule!" cried he. "Put me in possessionof the document essential to establish my rights, and the House of theSeven Gables is your own!"
According to some versions of the story, a regular contract to theabove effect was drawn up by a lawyer, and signed and sealed in thepresence of witnesses. Others say that Matthew Maule was contentedwith a private written agreement, in which Mr. Pyncheon pledged hishonor and integrity to the fulfillment of the terms concluded upon.The gentleman then ordered wine, which he and the carpenter dranktogether, in confirmation of their bargain. During the whole precedingdiscussion and subsequent formalities, the old Puritan's portrait seemsto have persisted in its shadowy gestures of disapproval; but withouteffect, except that, as Mr. Pyncheon set down the emptied glass, hethought he beheld his grandfather frown.
"This sherry is too potent a wine for me; it has affected my brainalready," he observed, after a somewhat startled look at the picture."On returning to Europe, I shall confine myself to the more delicatevintages of Italy and France, the best of which will not beartransportation."
"My Lord Pyncheon may drink what wine he will, and wherever hepleases," replied the carpenter, as if he had been privy to Mr.Pyncheon's ambitious projects. "But first, sir, if you desire tidingsof this lost document, I must crave the favor of a little talk withyour fair daughter Alice."
"You are mad, Maule!" exclaimed Mr. Pyncheon haughtily; and now, atlast, there was anger mixed up with his pride. "What can my daughterhave to do with a business like this?"
Indeed, at this new demand on the carpenter's part, the proprietor ofthe Seven Gables was even more thunder-struck than at the coolproposition to surrender his house. There was, at least, an assignablemotive for the first stipulation; there appeared to be none whateverfor the last. Nevertheless, Matthew Maule sturdily insisted on theyoung lady being summoned, and even gave her father to understand, in amysterious kind of explanation,--which made the matter considerablydarker than it looked before,--that the only chance of acquiring therequisite knowledge was through the clear, crystal medium of a pure andvirgin intellige
nce, like that of the fair Alice. Not to encumber ourstory with Mr. Pyncheon's scruples, whether of conscience, pride, orfatherly affection, he at length ordered his daughter to be called. Hewell knew that she was in her chamber, and engaged in no occupationthat could not readily be laid aside; for, as it happened, ever sinceAlice's name had been spoken, both her father and the carpenter hadheard the sad and sweet music of her harpsichord, and the airiermelancholy of her accompanying voice.
So Alice Pyncheon was summoned, and appeared. A portrait of this younglady, painted by a Venetian artist, and left by her father in England,is said to have fallen into the hands of the present Duke ofDevonshire, and to be now preserved at Chatsworth; not on account ofany associations with the original, but for its value as a picture, andthe high character of beauty in the countenance. If ever there was alady born, and set apart from the world's vulgar mass by a certaingentle and cold stateliness, it was this very Alice Pyncheon. Yetthere was the womanly mixture in her; the tenderness, or, at least, thetender capabilities. For the sake of that redeeming quality, a man ofgenerous nature would have forgiven all her pride, and have beencontent, almost, to lie down in her path, and let Alice set her slenderfoot upon his heart. All that he would have required was simply theacknowledgment that he was indeed a man, and a fellow-being, moulded ofthe same elements as she.
As Alice came into the room, her eyes fell upon the carpenter, who wasstanding near its centre, clad in green woollen jacket, a pair of loosebreeches, open at the knees, and with a long pocket for his rule, theend of which protruded; it was as proper a mark of the artisan'scalling as Mr. Pyncheon's full-dress sword of that gentleman'saristocratic pretensions. A glow of artistic approval brightened overAlice Pyncheon's face; she was struck with admiration--which she madeno attempt to conceal--of the remarkable comeliness, strength, andenergy of Maule's figure. But that admiring glance (which most othermen, perhaps, would have cherished as a sweet recollection all throughlife) the carpenter never forgave. It must have been the devil himselfthat made Maule so subtile in his preception.
"Does the girl look at me as if I were a brute beast?" thought he,setting his teeth. "She shall know whether I have a human spirit; andthe worse for her, if it prove stronger than her own!"
"My father, you sent for me," said Alice, in her sweet and harp-likevoice. "But, if you have business with this young man, pray let me goagain. You know I do not love this room, in spite of that Claude, withwhich you try to bring back sunny recollections."
"Stay a moment, young lady, if you please!" said Matthew Maule. "Mybusiness with your father is over. With yourself, it is now to begin!"
Alice looked towards her father, in surprise and inquiry.
"Yes, Alice," said Mr. Pyncheon, with some disturbance and confusion."This young man--his name is Matthew Maule--professes, so far as I canunderstand him, to be able to discover, through your means, a certainpaper or parchment, which was missing long before your birth. Theimportance of the document in question renders it advisable to neglectno possible, even if improbable, method of regaining it. You willtherefore oblige me, my dear Alice, by answering this person'sinquiries, and complying with his lawful and reasonable requests, sofar as they may appear to have the aforesaid object in view. As Ishall remain in the room, you need apprehend no rude nor unbecomingdeportment, on the young man's part; and, at your slightest wish, ofcourse, the investigation, or whatever we may call it, shallimmediately be broken off."
"Mistress Alice Pyncheon," remarked Matthew Maule, with the utmostdeference, but yet a half-hidden sarcasm in his look and tone, "will nodoubt feel herself quite safe in her father's presence, and under hisall-sufficient protection."
"I certainly shall entertain no manner of apprehension, with my fatherat hand," said Alice with maidenly dignity. "Neither do I conceivethat a lady, while true to herself, can have aught to fear fromwhomsoever, or in any circumstances!"
Poor Alice! By what unhappy impulse did she thus put herself at once onterms of defiance against a strength which she could not estimate?
"Then, Mistress Alice," said Matthew Maule, handing achair,--gracefully enough, for a craftsman, "will it please you only tosit down, and do me the favor (though altogether beyond a poorcarpenter's deserts) to fix your eyes on mine!"
Alice complied, She was very proud. Setting aside all advantages ofrank, this fair girl deemed herself conscious of a power--combined ofbeauty, high, unsullied purity, and the preservative force ofwomanhood--that could make her sphere impenetrable, unless betrayed bytreachery within. She instinctively knew, it may be, that somesinister or evil potency was now striving to pass her barriers; norwould she decline the contest. So Alice put woman's might againstman's might; a match not often equal on the part of woman.
Her father meanwhile had turned away, and seemed absorbed in thecontemplation of a landscape by Claude, where a shadowy andsun-streaked vista penetrated so remotely into an ancient wood, that itwould have been no wonder if his fancy had lost itself in the picture'sbewildering depths. But, in truth, the picture was no more to him atthat moment than the blank wall against which it hung. His mind washaunted with the many and strange tales which he had heard, attributingmysterious if not supernatural endowments to these Maules, as well thegrandson here present as his two immediate ancestors. Mr. Pyncheon'slong residence abroad, and intercourse with men of wit andfashion,--courtiers, worldings, and free-thinkers,--had done muchtowards obliterating the grim Puritan superstitions, which no man ofNew England birth at that early period could entirely escape. But, onthe other hand, had not a whole community believed Maule's grandfatherto be a wizard? Had not the crime been proved? Had not the wizard diedfor it? Had he not bequeathed a legacy of hatred against the Pyncheonsto this only grandson, who, as it appeared, was now about to exercise asubtle influence over the daughter of his enemy's house? Might notthis influence be the same that was called witchcraft?
Turning half around, he caught a glimpse of Maule's figure in thelooking-glass. At some paces from Alice, with his arms uplifted in theair, the carpenter made a gesture as if directing downward a slow,ponderous, and invisible weight upon the maiden.
"Stay, Maule!" exclaimed Mr. Pyncheon, stepping forward. "I forbidyour proceeding further!"
"Pray, my dear father, do not interrupt the young man," said Alice,without changing her position. "His efforts, I assure you, will provevery harmless."
Again Mr. Pyncheon turned his eyes towards the Claude. It was then hisdaughter's will, in opposition to his own, that the experiment shouldbe fully tried. Henceforth, therefore, he did but consent, not urgeit. And was it not for her sake far more than for his own that hedesired its success? That lost parchment once restored, the beautifulAlice Pyncheon, with the rich dowry which he could then bestow, mightwed an English duke or a German reigning-prince, instead of some NewEngland clergyman or lawyer! At the thought, the ambitious fatheralmost consented, in his heart, that, if the devil's power were neededto the accomplishment of this great object, Maule might evoke him.Alice's own purity would be her safeguard.
With his mind full of imaginary magnificence, Mr. Pyncheon heard ahalf-uttered exclamation from his daughter. It was very faint and low;so indistinct that there seemed but half a will to shape out the words,and too undefined a purport to be intelligible. Yet it was a call forhelp!--his conscience never doubted it;--and, little more than awhisper to his ear, it was a dismal shriek, and long reechoed so, inthe region round his heart! But this time the father did not turn.
After a further interval, Maule spoke.
"Behold your daughter," said he.
Mr. Pyncheon came hastily forward. The carpenter was standing erect infront of Alice's chair, and pointing his finger towards the maiden withan expression of triumphant power, the limits of which could not bedefined, as, indeed, its scope stretched vaguely towards the unseen andthe infinite. Alice sat in an attitude of profound repose, with thelong brown lashes drooping over her eyes.
"There she is!" said the
carpenter. "Speak to her!"
"Alice! My daughter!" exclaimed Mr. Pyncheon. "My own Alice!"
She did not stir.
"Louder!" said Maule, smiling.
"Alice! Awake!" cried her father. "It troubles me to see you thus!Awake!"
He spoke loudly, with terror in his voice, and close to that delicateear which had always been so sensitive to every discord. But the soundevidently reached her not. It is indescribable what a sense of remote,dim, unattainable distance betwixt himself and Alice was impressed onthe father by this impossibility of reaching her with his voice.
"Best touch her!" said Matthew Maule "Shake the girl, and roughly, too!My hands are hardened with too much use of axe, saw, and plane,--else Imight help you!"
Mr. Pyncheon took her hand, and pressed it with the earnestness ofstartled emotion. He kissed her, with so great a heart-throb in thekiss, that he thought she must needs feel it. Then, in a gust of angerat her insensibility, he shook her maiden form with a violence which,the next moment, it affrighted him to remember. He withdrew hisencircling arms, and Alice--whose figure, though flexible, had beenwholly impassive--relapsed into the same attitude as before theseattempts to arouse her. Maule having shifted his position, her facewas turned towards him slightly, but with what seemed to be a referenceof her very slumber to his guidance.
Then it was a strange sight to behold how the man of conventionalitiesshook the powder out of his periwig; how the reserved and statelygentleman forgot his dignity; how the gold-embroidered waistcoatflickered and glistened in the firelight with the convulsion of rage,terror, and sorrow in the human heart that was beating under it.
"Villain!" cried Mr. Pyncheon, shaking his clenched fist at Maule."You and the fiend together have robbed me of my daughter. Give herback, spawn of the old wizard, or you shall climb Gallows Hill in yourgrandfather's footsteps!"
"Softly, Mr. Pyncheon!" said the carpenter with scornful composure."Softly, an' it please your worship, else you will spoil those richlace-ruffles at your wrists! Is it my crime if you have sold yourdaughter for the mere hope of getting a sheet of yellow parchment intoyour clutch? There sits Mistress Alice quietly asleep. Now let MatthewMaule try whether she be as proud as the carpenter found her awhilesince."
He spoke, and Alice responded, with a soft, subdued, inwardacquiescence, and a bending of her form towards him, like the flame ofa torch when it indicates a gentle draught of air. He beckoned withhis hand, and, rising from her chair,--blindly, but undoubtingly, astending to her sure and inevitable centre,--the proud Alice approachedhim. He waved her back, and, retreating, Alice sank again into herseat.
"She is mine!" said Matthew Maule. "Mine, by the right of thestrongest spirit!"
In the further progress of the legend, there is a long, grotesque, andoccasionally awe-striking account of the carpenter's incantations (ifso they are to be called), with a view of discovering the lostdocument. It appears to have been his object to convert the mind ofAlice into a kind of telescopic medium, through which Mr. Pyncheon andhimself might obtain a glimpse into the spiritual world. He succeeded,accordingly, in holding an imperfect sort of intercourse, at oneremove, with the departed personages in whose custody the so muchvalued secret had been carried beyond the precincts of earth. Duringher trance, Alice described three figures as being present to herspiritualized perception. One was an aged, dignified, stern-lookinggentleman, clad as for a solemn festival in grave and costly attire,but with a great blood-stain on his richly wrought band; the second, anaged man, meanly dressed, with a dark and malign countenance, and abroken halter about his neck; the third, a person not so advanced inlife as the former two, but beyond the middle age, wearing a coarsewoollen tunic and leather breeches, and with a carpenter's rulesticking out of his side pocket. These three visionary characterspossessed a mutual knowledge of the missing document. One of them, intruth,--it was he with the blood-stain on his band,--seemed, unless hisgestures were misunderstood, to hold the parchment in his immediatekeeping, but was prevented by his two partners in the mystery fromdisburdening himself of the trust. Finally, when he showed a purposeof shouting forth the secret loudly enough to be heard from his ownsphere into that of mortals, his companions struggled with him, andpressed their hands over his mouth; and forthwith--whether that he werechoked by it, or that the secret itself was of a crimson hue--there wasa fresh flow of blood upon his band. Upon this, the two meanly dressedfigures mocked and jeered at the much-abashed old dignitary, andpointed their fingers at the stain.
At this juncture, Maule turned to Mr. Pyncheon.
"It will never be allowed," said he. "The custody of this secret, thatwould so enrich his heirs, makes part of your grandfather'sretribution. He must choke with it until it is no longer of any value.And keep you the House of the Seven Gables! It is too dear bought aninheritance, and too heavy with the curse upon it, to be shifted yetawhile from the Colonel's posterity."
Mr. Pyncheon tried to speak, but--what with fear and passion--couldmake only a gurgling murmur in his throat. The carpenter smiled.
"Aha, worshipful sir!--so you have old Maule's blood to drink!" said hejeeringly.
"Fiend in man's shape! why dost thou keep dominion over my child?"cried Mr. Pyncheon, when his choked utterance could make way. "Give meback my daughter. Then go thy ways; and may we never meet again!"
"Your daughter!" said Matthew Maule. "Why, she is fairly mine!Nevertheless, not to be too hard with fair Mistress Alice, I will leaveher in your keeping; but I do not warrant you that she shall never haveoccasion to remember Maule, the carpenter."
He waved his hands with an upward motion; and, after a few repetitionsof similar gestures, the beautiful Alice Pyncheon awoke from herstrange trance. She awoke without the slightest recollection of hervisionary experience; but as one losing herself in a momentary reverie,and returning to the consciousness of actual life, in almost as briefan interval as the down-sinking flame of the hearth should quiver againup the chimney. On recognizing Matthew Maule, she assumed an air ofsomewhat cold but gentle dignity, the rather, as there was a certainpeculiar smile on the carpenter's visage that stirred the native prideof the fair Alice. So ended, for that time, the quest for the losttitle-deed of the Pyncheon territory at the Eastward; nor, though oftensubsequently renewed, has it ever yet befallen a Pyncheon to set hiseye upon that parchment.
But, alas for the beautiful, the gentle, yet too haughty Alice! Apower that she little dreamed of had laid its grasp upon her maidensoul. A will, most unlike her own, constrained her to do its grotesqueand fantastic bidding. Her father as it proved, had martyred his poorchild to an inordinate desire for measuring his land by miles insteadof acres. And, therefore, while Alice Pyncheon lived, she was Maule'sslave, in a bondage more humiliating, a thousand-fold, than that whichbinds its chain around the body. Seated by his humble fireside, Maulehad but to wave his hand; and, wherever the proud lady chanced tobe,--whether in her chamber, or entertaining her father's statelyguests, or worshipping at church,--whatever her place or occupation,her spirit passed from beneath her own control, and bowed itself toMaule. "Alice, laugh!"--the carpenter, beside his hearth, would say;or perhaps intensely will it, without a spoken word. And, even were itprayer-time, or at a funeral, Alice must break into wild laughter."Alice, be sad!"--and, at the instant, down would come her tears,quenching all the mirth of those around her like sudden rain upon abonfire. "Alice, dance."--and dance she would, not in such court-likemeasures as she had learned abroad, but some high-paced jig, orhop-skip rigadoon, befitting the brisk lasses at a rustic merry-making.It seemed to be Maule's impulse, not to ruin Alice, nor to visit herwith any black or gigantic mischief, which would have crowned hersorrows with the grace of tragedy, but to wreak a low, ungenerous scornupon her. Thus all the dignity of life was lost. She felt herself toomuch abased, and longed to change natures with some worm!
One evening, at a bridal party (but not her own; for, so lost fromself-control, she would have deemed it sin to ma
rry), poor Alice wasbeckoned forth by her unseen despot, and constrained, in her gossamerwhite dress and satin slippers, to hasten along the street to the meandwelling of a laboring-man. There was laughter and good cheer within;for Matthew Maule, that night, was to wed the laborer's daughter, andhad summoned proud Alice Pyncheon to wait upon his bride. And so shedid; and when the twain were one, Alice awoke out of her enchantedsleep. Yet, no longer proud,--humbly, and with a smile all steeped insadness,--she kissed Maule's wife, and went her way. It was aninclement night; the southeast wind drove the mingled snow and raininto her thinly sheltered bosom; her satin slippers were wet throughand through, as she trod the muddy sidewalks. The next day a cold;soon, a settled cough; anon, a hectic cheek, a wasted form, that satbeside the harpsichord, and filled the house with music! Music inwhich a strain of the heavenly choristers was echoed! Oh; joy! ForAlice had borne her last humiliation! Oh, greater joy! For Alice waspenitent of her one earthly sin, and proud no more!
The Pyncheons made a great funeral for Alice. The kith and kin werethere, and the whole respectability of the town besides. But, last inthe procession, came Matthew Maule, gnashing his teeth, as if he wouldhave bitten his own heart in twain,--the darkest and wofullest man thatever walked behind a corpse! He meant to humble Alice, not to kill her;but he had taken a woman's delicate soul into his rude gripe, to playwith--and she was dead!