Hepzibah troubled her auditor, moreover, by innumerable
sins of emphasis, which he seemed to detect, without any reference to
the meaning; nor, in fact, did he appear to take much note of the sense
of what she read, but evidently felt the tedium of the lecture, without
harvesting its profit. His sister's voice, too, naturally harsh, had,
in the course of her sorrowful lifetime, contracted a kind of croak,
which, when it once gets into the human throat, is as ineradicable as
sin. In both sexes, occasionally, this lifelong croak, accompanying
each word of joy or sorrow, is one of the symptoms of a settled
melancholy; and wherever it occurs, the whole history of misfortune is
conveyed in its slightest accent. The effect is as if the voice had
been dyed black; or,--if we must use a more moderate simile,--this
miserable croak, running through all the variations of the voice, is
like a black silken thread, on which the crystal beads of speech are
strung, and whence they take their hue. Such voices have put on
mourning for dead hopes; and they ought to die and be buried along with
them!
Discerning that Clifford was not gladdened by her efforts, Hepzibah
searched about the house for the means of more exhilarating pastime.
At one time, her eyes chanced to rest on Alice Pyncheon's harpsichord.
It was a moment of great peril; for,--despite the traditionary awe that
had gathered over this instrument of music, and the dirges which
spiritual fingers were said to play on it,--the devoted sister had
solemn thoughts of thrumming on its chords for Clifford's benefit, and
accompanying the performance with her voice. Poor Clifford! Poor
Hepzibah! Poor harpsichord! All three would have been miserable
together. By some good agency,--possibly, by the unrecognized
interposition of the long-buried Alice herself,--the threatening
calamity was averted.
But the worst of all--the hardest stroke of fate for Hepzibah to
endure, and perhaps for Clifford, too was his invincible distaste for
her appearance. Her features, never the most agreeable, and now harsh
with age and grief, and resentment against the world for his sake; her
dress, and especially her turban; the queer and quaint manners, which
had unconsciously grown upon her in solitude,--such being the poor
gentlewoman's outward characteristics, it is no great marvel, although
the mournfullest of pities, that the instinctive lover of the Beautiful
was fain to turn away his eyes. There was no help for it. It would be
the latest impulse to die within him. In his last extremity, the
expiring breath stealing faintly through Clifford's lips, he would
doubtless press Hepzibah's hand, in fervent recognition of all her
lavished love, and close his eyes,--but not so much to die, as to be
constrained to look no longer on her face! Poor Hepzibah! She took
counsel with herself what might be done, and thought of putting ribbons
on her turban; but, by the instant rush of several guardian angels, was
withheld from an experiment that could hardly have proved less than
fatal to the beloved object of her anxiety.