Chapter 4 PATIENT WAITING.

Five or six weeks now glided slowly by, without working any change in either the circumstances or the relations of the characters with whom this history has to do. Bergan still shivered in the chill remoteness of position into which he had been flung, partly by his fault and partly by his misfortune. Not only between him and his relatives, but dividing him from the whole reputable outside world, there seemed to be a gulf fixed, impassable save to formal courtesies and commonplace usages. Anything warmer, more personal, more exacting, sought in vain for an eligible crossing place; and, if it leaped the gray chasm, it was only to lose itself among chill, elusive shapes of mist, on the opposite side.

Thus excluded from the only society for which he cared, Bergan did not, as a weaker character might have done, betake himself for consolation to the lower circles of vice and dissipation that would have welcomed him rapturously. He could better afford to stand alone, he thought, than to throw himself into arms whose embrace would soil, and whose seeming support was an insidious undermining. Besides, it was much more in accordance with his character to regard the exclusion from which he suffered as a challenge to be answered, an adversary to be overcome, rather than a verdict to be acquiesced in. He would prove to the world that it had been mistaken.

Day after day, therefore, he spent in his office,—as many a new-fledged lawyer has done before him,—waiting with what patience he might for the clients that never came, and reading hard, by way of preparation for the cases that never presented themselves. It was dull and lonely work; yet it did him good service, in giving him time for thought and reflection, and in making him acquainted with his own resources of will, courage, patience, and energy.

The only persons who came within the circle of loneliness that surrounded him, were Mrs. Lyte, Cathie, and Dr. Remy. The first showed him much gentle, unobtrusive kindness, chiefly manifesting itself in a motherly oversight of his rooms and prevision of his wants. The second fluttered in and out of his office, like a bird or a butterfly, affording him much amusing, and often opportune, distraction from hard study or sober-hued thought. But neither of these two, for obvious reasons, could give him just the close, helpful friendship, of which he stood in need.

Neither did he find it in Dr. Remy. Though he met the physician daily, and often engaged with him in hour-long colloquies upon all sorts of topics, he never felt that he really knew him any better than on the first day of their acquaintance. The doctor's peculiar frankness, which had seemed, at first sight, to promise such facility of intimacy, proved to be really more of the nature of an elastic barrier, yielding everywhere to the slightest pressure, but nowhere completely giving way. Or, it might be still more fitly characterized as a deceitful quagmire, wherein the curious explorer sank indefinitely, but never touched solid bottom.

Not that the doctor was at all reticent in regard to the main facts of his outward life. In a desultory way he had furnished Bergan with a sufficiently distinct outline sketch of his somewhat eventful career, up to the present moment,—a career which, for shifts and turns, outdid that of Gil Blas. According to this, he was born in New Orleans, the posthumous son of a French refugee, by an American wife. When he was twelve years old, his mother had presented him with a stepfather. The gift proved so little to his taste that, two years later, he ran away from the pair, and flung himself into that El Dorado of boyish imagination—life at sea. In one capacity or another, during the next twelve years, he not only contrived to visit most of the countries of Europe, but also by dint of natural aptitude for study, to pick up a language or two, and to acquaint himself with the essential part of a college curriculum. It now occurred to him to return to New Orleans, and claim the modest patrimony awaiting him there, in the hands of his father's executors. He found that his stepfather had been dead for three or four years, and his mother, after having exhausted her own scanty resources, was sinking, with her two children, into the dreary depths of poverty. It cost her some effort to recognize the slender stripling of her memory in the brown, bearded, broad-shouldered man, who now presented himself before her as her son. However, his identity was satisfactorily established, both by certain indisputable personal marks, and by the presumptive evidence of his willingness to assume the burden of her support.

His next step had been to place himself in a lawyer's office, where, in virtue of close application, he made months do the work of years. Admitted by-and-by to the Bar, he had practised his profession for a brief space, but finding the legal life not wholly to his taste, he had flung it aside; and with the ready facility which had characterized his whole career, had betaken himself to the study and the practice of medicine. Here, he averred, he had found his true vocation, the rightful mistress of his intellect, and should undergo no more transformations, and indulge in no more wanderings.

So far, Dr. Remy gave quite as frank an account of himself as could be expected or desired. But when it came to his inner life of thought, opinion, principle, his frankness was of the sort that obscures, rather than explains. It put forth jest and earnest, reason and sophistry, airy spirituality and dead materialism, with equal readiness, and with as much show of interest in one as the other. If Bergan caught at what seemed to be substance, it turned to shadow in his grasp. If he grappled with apparent earnest, it quickly resolved itself into a hollow helmet of sudden championship, or a thin mask of irony. He was often startled with a doubt whether the doctor had any settled opinions or principles. He pulled down, but he built not up; he attacked, but he rarely defended,—or, if he defended a thing to-day, more likely than not, he would assault it to-morrow. All Bergan's own opinions and beliefs seemed to lose their consistency in the universal solvent of the doctor's talk, and only took shape again after a protracted process of precipitation, in his own mind and heart.

If the latter organ made any part of Doctor Remy's bodily system, it never manifested itself to Bergan by any noticeable throb or sensible warmth. The young man was often puzzled by the question whence came the doctor's evident interest in himself, since it seemed so plain that it did not spring from any warm personal liking. He felt himself to be the object of his careful study, frequently; of his spontaneous affection and sympathy, never. He could not but wonder at such an amount and duration of a purely intellectual interest,—for such he decided it to be,—when it promised so little result.

However, the doctor's was the only society, worthy of the name, that was offered to him; his, too, the only friendship, or semblance thereof, that came within his reach. He gratefully availed himself of both, even while conscious that neither fully met his wants, or would have been the object of his deliberate choice. Without this resource, the flow of Bergan's life would have been characterized by a drearier monotony, even, than at present.

The first slight break in its placid current, occurred one morning, on his return from breakfasting at the hotel. To his surprise, Vic was tied before Mrs. Lyte's gate, arching her neck, and twisting her ears about, in her usual wild and nervous fashion. In most confiding proximity to her restless heels, Brick lay fast asleep on the sunshiny sward.

Roused by the sound of approaching footsteps, the latter sprang to his feet, and donned the palm-leaf debris that he termed his hat, in time to doff it in deferential acknowledgment of Bergan's surprised greeting.

"Why, Brick! how do you do? Is anything the matter at the Hall?"

"No, massa Harry, nothing 't all. Only, ole massa, he say we's gittin lazy,—Vic an' me;—an' he tought you'd better be gettin' some good out ob us, dan to leab us in de stable—no, I mean, in the cabin, no, one in de stable and turrer in de cabin—a-eatin' our heads off;—dat's jes' what he said, massa. So he clared us off in a hurry, an' tole us to gib you his lub, and tell you dat he 'sposed you'd kinder forgotten 'bout us."

There could be no question but that the overture was kindly meant, on the Major's part, but it was one that Bergan could not possibly accept. Judging from present indications, it would be long before his professional income would suffice for his own support, to say nothing of the additional expense of a servant and horse. Besides, he had never regarded either Brick or the filly as actual gifts, but only convenient loans, for his use while at the Hall. Any other view of the matter would, by no means, have suited his independent character. And, if this had been the case before the rupture with his uncle, it was doubly so, now. Major Bergan must not be suffered to think that his resentment had given way, or that his good will had been restored, by the aid of any gifts, however valuable, or kindly bestowed.

Yet he would be glad to send his uncle a friendly message, to show that he was really grateful for his kindness, and ready to accept any overture which would not burden him with too heavy a sense of obligation. To ensure its safe delivery, without the risk of hopeless travesty, at Brick's hands, he went to his desk, and wrote:


"DEAR UNCLE: Thank you for sending me your love; that is a thing which I am glad to get and keep. But I cannot keep either Brick or Vic,—I have no present use for them, and no means of providing for them, if I had. Besides, I never regarded either as mine, except while I remained at the Hall. Many thanks, all the same, for your kind intentions.

"Your affectionate nephew,
        'HARRY.'"


The signature was written only after considerable hesitation. His note would be sure to fail of the desired conciliatory effect, if it wholly ignored the name upon which his uncle had so strenuously insisted. Yet he could not bring himself to incorporate it with his lawful sign-manual. He was forced to compromise matters by thus using it as a sort of sobriquet.

Giving the note to Brick, he bade him take it straightway to his master. The negro's face instantly fell; then, it brightened again with the light of a plausible explanation.

"I 'spec I'se to come back, arter I'se 'livered it?" he asked, anxiously.

"No, Brick," Bergan gravely answered. "I cannot afford to keep you; it is as much as I can do, just now, to keep myself."

"But, massa Harry," remonstrated Brick, "don't you know I 'longs to you? I'se your nigger, sure as deff; ole massa gib me to you, an' tole me to wait on you, don' you 'member? An' how's I a goin' to wait on you, I'd jes' like to know, wid tree good miles atween us? 'Sides, I'd feel so mortify to go right back dar, like a dog dat don' own no massa, arter I done tole 'em all I's coming to lib wid you."

It was not without difficulty that Brick was convinced of the inevitableness of his return to Major Bergan. Not only did his heart yearn to be in the service of his young master, but he was fully persuaded that he could help, rather than hinder, his fortunes. He forcibly expressed his willingness to work his fingers off in the cause, and gravely proposed to put himself on a course of semi-starvation, in the matter of "keep." All this being of no avail, he was finally forced to mount Vic, and turn homeward, a picture of the blackest despair.

On the way, his mind was illumined with a gleam of hope. Like all the negroes of the plantation, he had large faith in the occult power of old Rue. His present journey, he well knew, was mainly owing to her influence. If she could be made to see the propriety of his immediate return to Bergan's service, as he did, no doubt she could find a way to bring it to pass. And her conversion to his views could be effected, he shrewdly thought, by a skilful use of Bergan's confession of straitened circumstances, as well as a certain suggestive increase of gravity that he had observed in the young man's manner. His smile had not come quite so readily and brightly to his lips as in the old days at Bergan Hall. No doubt he was poor, lonely, and troubled. He needed some one to take care of him, and watch over him. And who so eligible to this position as himself? For Brick had inherited his grandmother's devotion to the Bergan blood, and believed that the chief end of his being was to live and die loyally in its service. Moreover, his young master had not only taken tenacious hold of his affections, but also of that still stronger faculty of the negro mind—his imagination. Though he might be a distressed knight, just at present, Brick's faith was firm that his time of triumph was not far off; and then, he wanted to be "there to see!"

He lost no time, therefore, in presenting himself before Rue, on his arrival at Bergan Hall. And so dexterously did he work upon her love and pride, by the deplorable picture that he drew of Bergan's sadness and poverty, that the faithful old nurse straightway betook herself to her master, and never left him till she had persuaded him to mount his horse, and set forth, at a brisk trot, toward Berganton.

In truth, the Major was only too glad to be so persuaded. His anger towards his nephew had quickly burned out, by reason of its own fury; and in thinking the matter over, he had come to be more tickled by the young man's prowess than he had, at first, been displeased by his flight.

"You should have seen him knocking those fellows around, like so many ninepins!" he exclaimed, exultingly, to Rue. "I couldn't have done it more neatly myself, in my best days. I tell you, he is a true Bergan at bottom, if he has got a few crinks and cranks at top. What a pity he could not make up his mind to stay quietly on the old place, where he belongs; and which he might have done what he pleased with, if he had only taken me on the right tack! But he'll come back—he'll come back! Estates like Bergan Hall don't grow on every bush. It won't take him long to find out that he can't raise one from the law. And then, he'll be glad to come back to me; and I'll receive him as the father did the prodigal son!"

But, as time rolled on, and Bergan did not appear to claim this welcome, the Major began to feel a chagrin that would quickly have been intensified into anger, but for the happy suggestion that the young man delayed merely because he was dubious as to his reception. This view of the matter was an excellent salve to whatever of bitter or wounded feeling the Major still retained. Bergan longing, yet fearing, to return to him, was a vision that gently soothed his pride, while it appealed powerfully to his sympathies.

Matters having reached this point, he yielded easily to Rue's suggestion that Bergan's horse and servant should be sent to him, as a hint that hostilities had ceased. And though their prompt return was, at first, new matter of wrath, Bergan's note, Brick's report, and Rue's representations and entreaties, availed to smother the half-kindled flame, and send him forth toward Berganton in a most forgiving and patronizing frame of mind. He was ready to make any concessions to his nephew's principles and habits. If Bergan would but return to the Hall, he might dictate his own terms, and order his life in his own way. The Major had missed him more than he would have been willing to allow. The old place had not seemed the same without him. Its present had lost a strong element of cheer and energy, and its future had faded into dimness.

Arriving, in due time, at Mrs. Lyte's gate, the Major dismounted, and was about to enter, when his eyes fell on the little tin plate, in Bergan's office window, which has before been mentioned. If it had been the head of Medusa, with all its supernatural powers intact, it could scarcely have wrought a more complete change in the expression of his face. First, he glared at it in incredulous wonder; then, he nearly choked with inarticulate rage; finally, words came to his relief. To the consternation of Mrs. Lyte, and the intense gratification of the crowd of boys and negroes which quickly gathered at a safe distance, he proceeded to pour forth a volley of the bitterest curses that he could frame upon the author of what he chose to consider an insult to himself, and a disgrace to his lineage.

"That I should live to see the name of Bergan on a snip of a tin sign, like that!" he growled, shaking his fist at the offending plate, and trembling with rage;—"what right had the scoundrel to put it there, I should like to know? 'Attorney at Law,' indeed!—he shall have law enough, since he likes it so well! I'll sue him for trespass, libel, forgery,—I'll horsewhip him, and then have him indicted for assault and battery,—I'll—." But here his indignation choked him, for a moment.

Recovering his voice, his anger took a new direction. "'Bergan Arling,' indeed!" he muttered,—"I suppose he was ashamed of the 'Harry,' though he could put it at the end of his note,—smooth-faced hypocrite that he is! Where is he?" he went on, lifting his voice. "Why don't he come out, and face me, like a man? Must I go in and drag him out, by the nape of the neck,—the mean, sneaking, insulting puppy!"

"Mr. Arling is out, I regret to say," said Dr. Remy, appearing in the doorway, and confronting the furious Major with his cool, cynical smile. "He went out for a walk some fifteen or twenty minutes ago. If he were here, no doubt it would give him great pleasure to meet you."

Major Bergan scowled in a way to show how willingly he would transfer his wrath to this timely object, if he could only find a reasonable excuse. But, discovering not the shadow of one in the doctor's polite, careless manner, he contented himself with growling,—

"Out, is he? I wish he were out of the county—and a good riddance! When will he be in?"

"Not under an hour or two," answered the doctor, wisely postponing the era of Bergan's return to the utmost limit.

"Umph! that's the way he spends his time, is it? loafing about the country when he should be in his office! Well, I've got something to do, besides wait for him. Just tell him, will you? that I owe him a good, sound horse-whipping, and I'll pay it to him the first time I meet him."

"I will take charge of your kind message with pleasure," returned the doctor, blandly. "Any further commands?"

"No!" roared the Major, with a dim suspicion that he was being made to appear ridiculous,—"not unless you like to come out and take the horsewhipping yourself. On the whole, I'd just as soon give it to you."

"Many thanks," replied the doctor, with imperturbable coolness. "But I could not consent to appropriate anything designed for Mr. Arling."

"If it hurts your conscience, you can pass it over to him," rejoined Major Bergan, with grim humor.

"It would lose its flavor at second-hand," said the doctor, smiling.

"It would be your own fault, if it did," responded the Major. "At any rate, take care that my message don't lose anything, on the way. And while you're about it, just tell him that he shall never have Bergan Hall, nor an inch of ground that belongs to it, never! I'll give it to—Astra Lyte, first!"

The doctor slightly shrugged his shoulders, as an intimation that the Major's disposition of his property was a matter that did not interest him; but the latter mistook it for a sign of incredulity.

"I will! I swear I will!" he repeated, with an oath. "And why shouldn't I?" he went on, after a slight pause, as if the sudden idea had unexpectedly commended itself to him,—"why shouldn't I? Her father was my cousin; and he had Bergan blood in his veins, too, through his mother; and he was a right good fellow, besides. Where is she?"

"Miss Lyte is in New York, on a visit," replied the doctor.

"Umph! I should like to see her. Is she growing up bright and handsome?"

"She is both," returned the doctor, briefly.

"Then, she shall have it!" exclaimed the Major, with sudden decision. "I'll go home, and make my will. Tell Harry so, for his comfort, when he comes back."

And the Major, delighted that he had bethought himself of a revenge so swift and ample, mounted his horse, and rode off.

On Bergan's return, the scene was described to him by Doctor Remy, with a minuteness and accuracy of detail and coloring that did great credit to that gentleman's powers both of observation and description. Nevertheless, there was something of cynicism, or of satire, that grated on his listener's ear; and he finally stopped the doctor's flow of eloquence with the question,—

"Who is Astra Lyte?"

The doctor looked at him, with much surprise. "Is it possible that you have not yet heard of her?" he asked. "She is Mrs. Lyte's eldest daughter; and a genius, too,—or, at least, an artist;—they are not always synonymous terms, I believe. But where have you been living, not to have become acquainted with her name before this? It is always on Mrs. Lyte's lips; at least, she is ready to talk of her by the hour, with a little encouragement."

"My conversations with Mrs. Lyte have not been many nor long," replied Bergan. "An artist, did you say?"

But Doctor Remy had fallen into a fit of thought. He merely answered the question by a nod; and very shortly, he left Bergan to his own reflections.