Elsie Venner CHAPTER X.The Doctor Calls on Elsie Venner
by Oliver Wendell Holmes
If that primitive physician, Chiron, M. D., appears as a Centaur, as
we look at him through the lapse of thirty centuries, the modern
country-doctor, if he could be seen about thirty miles off, could not
be distinguished from a wheel-animalcule. He inhabits a wheel-
carriage. He thinks of stationary dwellings as Long Tom Coffin did
of land in general; a house may be well enough for incidental
purposes, but for a "stiddy" residence give him a "kerridge." If he
is classified in the Linnaean scale, he must be set down thus: Genus
Homo; Species Rotifer infusorius, the wheel-animal of infusions.
The Dudley mansion was not a mile from the Doctor's; but it never
occurred to him to think of walking to see any of his patients'
families, if he had any professional object in his visit. Whenever
the narrow sulky turned in at a gate, the rustic who was digging
potatoes, or hoeing corn, or swishing through the grass with his
scythe, in wave-like crescents, or stepping short behind a loaded
wheelbarrow, or trudging lazily by the side of the swinging, loose-
throated, short-legged oxen, rocking along the road as if they had
just been landed after a three-months' voyage, the toiling native,
whatever he was doing, stopped and looked up at the house the Doctor
was visiting.
"Somebody sick over there t' Haynes's. Guess th' old man's ailin'
ag'in. Winder's half-way open in the chamber,--should n' wonder 'f
he was dead and laid aout. Docterin' a'n't no use, when y' see th'
winders open like that. Wahl, money a'n't much to speak of to th'
old man naow! He don' want but tew cents,--'n' old Widah Peake, she
knows what he wants them for!"
Or again,--
"Measles raound pooty thick. Briggs's folks buried two children with
'em lass' week. Th' of Doctor, he'd h' ker'd 'em threugh. Struck in
'n' p'dooced mo't'f'cation,--so they say."
This is only meant as a sample of the kind of way they used to think
or talk, when the narrow sulky turned in at the gate of some house
where there was a visit to be made.
Oh, that narrow sulky! What hopes, what fears, what comfort, what
anguish, what despair, in the roll of its coming or its parting
wheels! In the spring, when the old people get the coughs which give
them a few shakes and their lives drop in pieces like the ashes of a
burned thread which have kept the threadlike shape until they were
stirred,--in the hot summer noons, when the strong man comes in from
the fields, like the son of the Shunamite, crying, "My head, my
head,"--in the dying autumn days, when youth and maiden lie fever-
stricken in many a household, still-faced, dull-eyed, dark-flushed,
dry-lipped, low-muttering in their daylight dreams, their fingers
moving singly like those of slumbering harpers,--in the dead winter,
when the white plague of the North has caged its wasted victims,
shuddering as they think of the frozen soil which must be quarried
like rock to receive them, if their perpetual convalescence should
happen to be interfered with by any untoward accident,--at every
season, the narrow sulky rolled round freighted with unmeasured
burdens of joy and woe.
The Doctor drove along the southern foot of The Mountain. The
"Dudley Mansion" was near the eastern edge of this declivity, where
it rose steepest, with baldest cliffs and densest patches of
overhanging wood. It seemed almost too steep to climb, but a
practised eye could see from a distance the zigzag lines of the
sheep-paths which scaled it like miniature Alpine roads. A few
hundred feet up The Mountain's side was a dark deep dell, unwooded,
save for a few spindling, crazy-looking hackmatacks or native
larches, with pallid green tufts sticking out fantastically all over
them. It shelved so deeply, that, while the hemlock-tassels were
swinging on the trees around its border, all would be still at its
springy bottom, save that perhaps a single fern would wave slowly
backward and forward like a sabre with a twist as of a feathered
oar,--and this when not a breath could be felt, and every other stem
and blade were motionless. There was an old story of one having
perished here in the winter of '86, and his body having been found in
the spring,--whence its common name of "Dead-Man's Hollow." Higher
up there were huge cliffs with chasms, and, it was thought, concealed
caves, where in old times they said that Tories lay hid,--some hinted
not without occasional aid and comfort from the Dudleys then living
in the mansion-house. Still higher and farther west lay the accursed
ledge,--shunned by all, unless it were now and then a daring youth,
or a wandering naturalist who ventured to its edge in the hope of
securing some infantile Crotalus durissus, who had not yet cut his
poison teeth.
Long, long ago, in old Colonial times, the Honorable Thomas Dudley,
Esquire, a man of note and name and great resources, allied by
descent to the family of "Tom Dudley," as the early Governor is
sometimes irreverently called by our most venerable, but still
youthful antiquary,--and to the other public Dudleys, of course,--of
all of whom he made small account, as being himself an English
gentleman, with little taste for the splendors of provincial office,
early in the last century, Thomas Dudley had built this mansion. For
several generations it had been dwelt in by descendants of the same
name, but soon after the Revolution it passed by marriage into the
hands of the Venners, by whom it had ever since been held and
tenanted.
As the doctor turned an angle in the road, all at once the stately
old house rose before him. It was a skilfully managed effect, as it
well might be, for it was no vulgar English architect who had planned
the mansion and arranged its position and approach. The old house
rose before the Doctor, crowning a terraced garden, flanked at the
left by an avenue of tall elms. The flower-beds were edged with box,
which diffused around it that dreamy balsamic odor, full of ante-
natal reminiscences of a lost Paradise, dimly fragrant as might be
the bdellium of ancient Havilah, the land compassed by the river
Pison that went out of Eden. The garden was somewhat neglected, but
not in disgrace,--and in the time of tulips and hyacinths, of roses,
of "snowballs," of honeysuckles, of lilacs, of syringas, it was rich
with blossoms.
From the front-windows of the mansion the eye reached a far blue
mountain-summit,--no rounded heap, such as often shuts in a village-
landscape, but a sharp peak, clean-angled as Ascutney from the
Dartmouth green. A wide gap through miles of woods had opened this
distant view, and showed more, perhaps, than all the labors of the
architect and the landscape-gardener the large style of the early
Dudleys.
The great stone-chimney of the mansion-house was the centre from
which all the artificial features of the scene appeared to flow. The
roofs, the gables, the dormer-windows, the porches, the clustered
offices in the rear, all seemed to crowd about the great chimney. To
this central pillar the paths all converged. The single poplar
behind the house,--Nature is jealous of proud chimneys, and always
loves to put a poplar near one, so that it may fling a leaf or two
down its black throat every autumn,--the one tall poplar behind the
house seemed to nod and whisper to the grave square column, the elms
to sway their branches towards it. And when the blue smoke rose from
its summit, it seemed to be wafted away to join the azure haze which
hung around the peak in the far distance, so that both should bathe
in a common atmosphere.
Behind the house were clumps of lilacs with a century's growth upon
them, and looking more like trees than like shrubs. Shaded by a
group of these was the ancient well, of huge circuit, and with a low
arch opening out of its wall about ten feet below the surface,--
whether the door of a crypt for the concealment of treasure, or of a
subterranean passage, or merely of a vault for keeping provisions
cool in hot weather, opinions differed.
On looking at the house, it was plain that it was built with Old-
World notions of strength and durability, and, so far as might be,
with Old-World materials. The hinges of the doors stretched out like
arms, instead of like hands, as we make them. The bolts were massive
enough for a donjon-keep. The small window-panes were actually
inclosed in the wood of the sashes instead of being stuck to them
with putty, as in our modern windows. The broad staircase was of
easy ascent, and was guarded by quaintly turned and twisted
balusters. The ceilings of the two rooms of state were moulded with
medallion-portraits and rustic figures, such as may have been seen by
many readers in the famous old Philipse house,--Washington's head-
quarters,--in the town of Yorkers. The fire-places, worthy of the
wide-throated central chimney, were bordered by pictured tiles, some
of them with Scripture stories, some with Watteau-like figures,--tall
damsels in slim waists and with spread enough of skirt for a modern
ballroom, with bowing, reclining, or musical swains of what everybody
calls the "conventional" sort,--that is, the swain adapted to genteel
society rather than to a literal sheep-compelling existence.
The house was furnished, soon after it was completed, with many heavy
articles made in London from a rare wood just then come into fashion,
not so rare now, and commonly known as mahogany. Time had turned it
very dark, and the stately bedsteads and tall cabinets and claw-
footed chairs and tables were in keeping with the sober dignity of
the ancient mansion. The old "hangings" were yet preserved in the
chambers, faded, but still showing their rich patterns,--properly
entitled to their name, for they were literally hung upon flat wooden
frames like trellis-work, which again were secured to the naked
partitions.
There were portraits of different date on the walls of the various
apartments, old painted coats-of-arms, bevel-edged mirrors, and in
one sleeping-room a glass case of wax-work flowers and spangly
symbols, with a legend signifying that E. M. (supposed to be
Elizabeth Mascarene) wished not to be "forgot"
"When I am dead and lay'd in dust
And all my bones are"---
Poor E. M.! Poor everybody that sighs for earthly remembrance in a
planet with a core of fire and a crust of fossils!
Such was the Dudley mansion-house,--for it kept its ancient name in
spite of the change in the line of descent. Its spacious apartments
looked dreary and desolate; for here Dudley Venner and his daughter
dwelt by themselves, with such servants only as their quiet mode of
life required. He almost lived in his library, the western room on
the ground-floor. Its window looked upon a small plat of green, in
the midst of which was a single grave marked by a plain marble slab.
Except this room, and the chamber where he slept, and the servants'
wing, the rest of the house was all Elsie's. She was always a
restless, wandering child from her early years, and would have her
little bed moved from one chamber to another,--flitting round as the
fancy took her. Sometimes she would drag a mat and a pillow into one
of the great empty rooms, and, wrapping herself in a shawl, coil up
and go to sleep in a corner. Nothing frightened her; the "haunted"
chamber, with the torn hangings that flapped like wings when there
was air stirring, was one of her favorite retreats. She had been a
very hard creature to manage. Her father could influence, but not
govern her. Old Sophy, born of a slave mother in the house, could do
more with her than anybody, knowing her by long instinctive study.
The other servants were afraid of her. Her father had sent for
governesses, but none of them ever stayed long. She made them
nervous; one of them had a strange fit of sickness; not one of them
ever came back to the house to see her. A young Spanish woman who
taught her dancing succeeded best with her, for she had a passion for
that exercise, and had mastered some of the most difficult dances.
Long before this period, she had manifested some most extraordinary
singularities of taste or instinct. The extreme sensitiveness of her
father on this point prevented any allusion to them; but there were
stories floating round, some of them even getting into the papers,--
without her name, of course,--which were of a kind to excite intense
curiosity, if not more anxious feelings. This thing was certain,
that at the age of twelve she was missed one night, and was found
sleeping in the open air under a tree, like a wild creature. Very
often she would wander off by day, always without a companion,
bringing home with her a nest, a flower, or even a more questionable
trophy of her ramble, such as showed that there was no place where
she was afraid to venture. Once in a while she had stayed out over
night, in which case the alarm was spread, and men went in search of
her, but never successfully,--so--that some said she hid herself in
trees, and others that she had found one of the old Tory caves.
Some, of course, said she was a crazy girl, and ought to be sent to
an Asylum. But old Dr. Kittredge had shaken his head, and told them
to bear with her, and let her have her way as much as they could, but
watch her, as far as possible, without making her suspicious of them.
He visited her now and then, under the pretext of seeing her father
on business, or of only making a friendly call.
The Doctor fastened his horse outside the gate, and walked up the
garden-alley. He stopped suddenly with a start. A strange sound
had jarred upon his ear. It was a sharp prolonged rattle,
continuous, but rising and falling as if in rhythmical cadence. He
moved softly towards the open window from which the sound seemed to
proceed.
Elsie was alone in the room, dancing one of those wild Moorish
fandangos, such as a matador hot from the Plaza de Toros of Seville
or Madrid might love to lie and gaze at. She was a figure to look
upon in silence. The dancing frenzy must have seized upon her while
she was dressing; for she was in her bodice, bare-armed, her hair
floating unbound far below the waist of her barred or banded skirt.
She had caught up her castanets, and rattled them as she danced with
a kind of passionate fierceness, her lithe body undulating with
flexuous grace, her diamond eyes glittering, her round arms wreathing
and unwinding, alive and vibrant to the tips of the slender fingers.
Some passion seemed to exhaust itself in this dancing paroxysm; for
all at once she reeled from the middle of the floor, and flung
herself, as it were in a careless coil, upon a great tiger's-skin
which was spread out in one corner of the apartment.
The old Doctor stood motionless, looking at her as she lay panting on
the tawny, black-lined robe of the dead monster which stretched out
beneath her, its rude flattened outline recalling the Terror of the
Jungle as he crouched for his fatal spring. In a few moments her
head drooped upon her arm, and her glittering eyes closed,--she was
sleeping. He stood looking at her still, steadily, thoughtfully,
tenderly. Presently he lifted his hand to his forehead, as if
recalling some fading remembrance of other years.
"Poor Catalina!"
This was all he said. He shook his head,--implying that his visit
would be in vain to-day,--returned to his sulky, and rode away, as if
in a dream.