Beauty and The Beast - Bayard Taylor (story read aloud .TXT) 📗

in the hushed house. The father restrained his happy wonder in his concern for the imperilled life of the mother; he guessed that she had anticipated death, and she now hung by a thread so slight that her simple will might snap it. But her will, fortunately, was as faint as her consciousness; she gradually drifted out of danger, taking her returning strength with a passive acquiescence rather than with joy. She was hardly paler than her wont, but the lurking shadow seemed to have vanished from her eyes, and John Vincent felt that her features had assumed a new expression, the faintly perceptible stamp of some spiritual change.

 

It was a happy day for him when, propped against his breast and gently held by his warm, strong arm, the twin boys were first brought to be laid upon her lap. Two staring, dark-faced creatures, with restless fists and feet, they were alike in every least feature of their grotesque animality. Phebe placed a hand under the head of each, and looked at them for a long time in silence.

“Why is this?” she said, at last, taking hold of a narrow pink ribbon, which was tied around the wrist of one.

“He’s the oldest, sure,” the nurse answered. “Only by fifteen minutes or so, but it generally makes a difference when twins come to be named; and you may see with your own eyes that there’s no telling of ‘em apart otherways.”

“Take off the ribbon, then,” said Phebe quietly; “I know them.”

“Why, ma’am, it’s always done, where they’re so like! And I’ll never be able to tell which is which; for they sleep and wake and feed by the same clock. And you might mistake, after all, in giving ‘em names—”

“There is no oldest or youngest, John; they are two and yet one: this is mine, and this is yours.”

“I see no difference at all, Phebe,” said John; “and how can we divide them?”

“We will not divide,” she answered; “I only meant it as a sign.”

She smiled, for the first time in many days. He was glad of heart, but did not understand her. “What shall we call them?” he asked. “Elias and Reuben, after our fathers?”

“No, John; their names must be David and Jonathan.”

And so they were called. And they grew, not less, but more alike, in passing through the stages of babyhood. The ribbon of the older one had been removed, and the nurse would have been distracted, but for Phebe’s almost miraculous instinct. The former comforted herself with the hope that teething would bring a variation to the two identical mouths; but no! they teethed as one child. John, after desperate attempts, which always failed in spite of the headaches they gave him, postponed the idea of distinguishing one from the other, until they should be old enough to develop some dissimilarity of speech, or gait, or habit. All trouble might have been avoided, had Phebe consented to the least variation in their dresses; but herein she was mildly immovable.

“Not yet,” was her set reply to her husband; and one day, when he manifested a little annoyance at her persistence, she turned to him, holding a child on each knee, and said with a gravity which silenced him thenceforth: “John, can you not see that our burden has passed into them? Is there no meaning in this—that two children who are one in body and face and nature, should be given to us at our time of life, after such long disappointment and trouble? Our lives were held apart; theirs were united before they were born, and I dare not turn them in different directions. Perhaps I do not know all that the Lord intended to say to us, in sending them; but His hand is here!”

“I was only thinking of their good,” John meekly answered. “If they are spared to grow up, there must be some way of knowing one from the other.”

“THEY will not need it, and I, too, think only of them. They have taken the cross from my heart, and I will lay none on theirs. I am reconciled to my life through them, John; you have been very patient and good with me, and I will yield to you in all things but in this. I do not think I shall live to see them as men grown; yet, while we are together, I feel clearly what it is right to do. Can you not, just once, have a little faith without knowledge, John?”

“I’ll try, Phebe,” he said. “Any way, I’ll grant that the boys belong to you more than to me.”

Phebe Vincent’s character had verily changed. Her attacks of semi-hysterical despondency never returned; her gloomy prophecies ceased. She was still grave, and the trouble of so many years never wholly vanished from her face; but she performed every duty of her life with at least a quiet willingness, and her home became the abode of peace; for passive content wears longer than demonstrative happiness.

David and Jonathan grew as one boy: the taste and temper of one was repeated in the other, even as the voice and features. Sleeping or waking, grieved or joyous, well or ill, they lived a single life, and it seemed so natural for one to answer to the other’s name, that they probably would have themselves confused their own identities, but for their mother’s unerring knowledge. Perhaps unconsciously guided by her, perhaps through the voluntary action of their own natures, each quietly took the other’s place when called upon, even to the sharing of praise or blame at school, the friendships and quarrels of the playground. They were healthy and happy lads, and John Vincent was accustomed to say to his neighbors, “They’re no more trouble than one would be; and yet they’re four hands instead of two.”

Phebe died when they were fourteen, saying to them, with almost her latest breath, “Be one, always!” Before her husband could decide whether to change her plan of domestic education, they were passing out of boyhood, changing in voice, stature, and character with a continued likeness which bewildered and almost terrified him. He procured garments of different colors, but they were accustomed to wear each article in common, and the result was only a mixture of tints for both. They were sent to different schools, to be returned the next day, equally pale, suffering, and incapable of study. Whatever device was employed, they evaded it by a mutual instinct which rendered all external measures unavailing. To John Vincent’s mind their resemblance was an accidental misfortune, which had been confirmed through their mother’s fancy. He felt that they were bound by some deep, mysterious tie, which, inasmuch as it might interfere with all practical aspects of life, ought to be gradually weakened. Two bodies, to him, implied two distinct men, and it was wrong to permit a mutual dependence which prevented either from exercising his own separate will and judgment.

But, while he was planning and pondering, the boys became young men, and he was an old man. Old, and prematurely broken; for he had worked much, borne much, and his large frame held only a moderate measure of vital force. A great weariness fell upon him, and his powers began to give way, at first slowly, but then with accelerated failure. He saw the end coming, long before his sons suspected it; his doubt, for their sakes, was the only thing which made it unwelcome. It was “upon his mind” (as his Quaker neighbors would say) to speak to them of the future, and at last the proper moment came.

It was a stormy November evening. Wind and rain whirled and drove among the trees outside, but the sitting-room of the old farmhouse was bright and warm. David and Jonathan, at the table, with their arms over each other’s backs and their brown locks mixed together, read from the same book: their father sat in the ancient rocking-chair before the fire, with his feet upon a stool. The housekeeper and hired man had gone to bed, and all was still in the house.

John waited until he heard the volume closed, and then spoke.

“Boys,” he said, “let me have a bit of talk with you. I don’t seem to get over my ailments rightly,—never will, maybe. A man must think of things while there’s time, and say them when they HAVE to be said. I don’t know as there’s any particular hurry in my case; only, we never can tell, from one day to another. When I die, every thing will belong to you two, share and share alike, either to buy another farm with the money out, or divide this: I won’t tie you up in any way. But two of you will need two farms for two families; for you won’t have to wait twelve years, like your mother and me.”

“We don’t want another farm, father!” said David and Jonathan together.

“I know you don’t think so, now. A wife seemed far enough off from me when I was your age. You’ve always been satisfied to be with each other, but that can’t last. It was partly your mother’s notion; I remember her saying that our burden had passed into you. I never quite understood what she meant, but I suppose it must rather be the opposite of what WE had to bear.”

The twins listened with breathless attention while their father, suddenly stirred by the past, told them the story of his long betrothal.

“And now,” he exclaimed, in conclusion, “it may be putting wild ideas into your two heads, but I must say it! THAT was where I did wrong—wrong to her and to me,—in waiting! I had no right to spoil the best of our lives; I ought to have gone boldly, in broad day, to her father’s house, taken her by the hand, and led her forth to be my wife. Boys, if either of you comes to love a woman truly, and she to love you, and there is no reason why God (I don’t say man) should put you asunder, do as I ought to have done, not as I did! And, maybe, this advice is the best legacy I can leave you.”

“But, father,” said David, speaking for both, “we have never thought of marrying.”

“Likely enough,” their father answered; “we hardly ever think of what surely comes. But to me, looking back, it’s plain. And this is the reason why I want you to make me a promise, and as solemn as if I was on my death-bed. Maybe I shall be, soon.”

Tears gathered in the eyes of the twins. “What is it, father?” they both said.

“Nothing at all to any other two boys, but I don’t know how YOU’ll take it. What if I was to ask you to live apart for a while?”

“Oh father!” both cried. They leaned together, cheek pressing cheek, and hand clasping hand, growing white and trembling. John Vincent, gazing into the fire, did not see their faces, or his purpose might have been shaken.

“I don’t say NOW,” he went on. “After a while, when—well, when I’m dead. And I only mean a beginning, to help you toward what HAS to be. Only a month; I don’t want to seem hard to you; but that’s little, in all conscience. Give me your word: say, `For mother’s sake!’”

There was a long pause. Then David and Jonathan said, in low, faltering voices, “For mother’s sake, I promise.”

“Remember that you were only boys to her. She might have made all this seem easier, for women have reasons for things no man can answer. Mind, within a year after I’m gone!”

He rose and tottered out of the room.

The twins looked at each other: David said, “Must we?” and Jonathan, “How can