第53章

There was not, for many years afterwards, a Governor of Massachusetts;and the magistrates, who had charge of such matters, saw noobjection to Esther Dudley's residence in the Province House,especially as they must otherwise have paid a hireling for taking careof the premises, which with her was a labor of love. And so theyleft her the undisturbed mistress of the old historic edifice. Manyand strange were the fables which the gossips whispered about her,in all the chimney corners of the town. Among the time-worn articlesof furniture that had been left in the mansion there was a tall,antique mirror, which was well worthy of a tale by itself, and perhapsmay hereafter be the theme of one. The gold of its heavily-wroughtframe was tarnished, and its surface so blurred, that the oldwoman's figure, whenever she paused before it, looked indistinct andghostlike. But it was the general belief that Esther could cause theGovernors of the overthrown dynasty, with the beautiful ladies who hadonce adorned their festivals, the Indian chiefs who had come up to theProvince House to hold council or swear allegiance, the grimProvincial warriors, the severe clergymen- in short, all the pageantryof gone days- all the figures that ever swept across the broad plateof glass in former times- she could cause the whole to reappear, andpeople the inner world of the mirror with shadows of old life. Suchlegends as these, together with the singularity of her isolatedexistence, her age, and the infirmity that each added winter flungupon her, made Mistress Dudley the object both of fear and pity; andit was partly the result of either sentiment that, amid all theangry license of the times, neither wrong nor insult ever fell uponher unprotected head. Indeed, there was so much haughtiness in herdemeanor towards intruders, among whom she reckoned all persons actingunder the new authorities, that it was really an affair of no smallnerve to look her in the face. And to do the people justice, sternrepublicans as they had now become, they were well content that theold gentlewoman, in her hoop petticoat and faded embroidery, shouldstill haunt the palace of ruined pride and overthrown power, thesymbol of a departed system, embodying a history in her person. SoEsther Dudley dwelt year after year in the Province House, stillreverencing all that others had flung aside, still faithful to herKing, who, so long as the venerable dame yet held her post, might besaid to retain one true subject in New England, and one spot of theempire that had been wrested from him.

And did she dwell there in utter loneliness? Rumor said, not so.

Whenever her chill and withered heart desired warmth, she was wontto summon a black slave of Governor Shirley's from the blurred mirror,and send him in search of guests who had long ago been familiar inthose deserted chambers. Forth went the sable messenger, with thestarlight or the moonshine gleaming through him, and did his errand inthe burial ground, knocking at the iron doors of tombs, or upon themarble slabs that covered them, and whispering to those within: "Mymistress, old Esther Dudley, bids you to the Province House atmidnight." And punctually as the clock of the Old South told twelvecame the shadows of the Olivers, the Hutchinsons, the Dudleys, all thegrandees of a by-gone generation, gliding beneath the portal intothe well-known mansion, where Esther mingled with them as if shelikewise were a shade. Without vouching for the truth of suchtraditions, it is certain that Mistress Dudley sometimes assembled afew of the stanch, though crestfallen, old tories, who had lingered inthe rebel town during those days of wrath and tribulation. Out of acobwebbed bottle, containing liquor that a royal Governor might havesmacked his lips over, they quaffed healths to the King, and babbledtreason to the Republic, feeling as if the protecting shadow of thethrone were still flung around them. But, draining the last drops oftheir liquor, they stole timorously homeward, and answered not againif the rude mob reviled them in the street.

Yet Esther Dudley's most frequent and favored guests were thechildren of the town. Towards them she was never stern. A kindly andloving nature, hindered elsewhere from its free course by a thousandrocky prejudices, lavished itself upon these little ones. By bribes ofgingerbread of her own making, stamped with a royal crown, she temptedtheir sunny sportiveness beneath the gloomy portal of the ProvinceHouse, and would often beguile them to spend a whole playday there,sitting in a circle round the verge of her hoop petticoat, greedilyattentive to her stories of a dead world. And when these little boysand girls stole forth again from the dark mysterious mansion, theywent bewildered, full of old feelings that graver people had longago forgotten, rubbing their eyes at the world around them as ifthey had gone astray into ancient times, and become children of thepast. At home, when their parents asked where they had loitered such aweary while, and with whom they had been at play, the children wouldtalk of all the departed worthies of the Province, as far back asGovernor Belcher and the haughty dame of Sir William Phipps. Itwould seem as though they had been sitting on the knees of thesefamous personages, whom the grave had hidden for half a century, andhad toyed with the embroidery of their rich waistcoats, or roguishlypulled the long curls of their flowing wigs. "But Governor Belcher hasbeen dead this many a year," would the mother say to her little boy.

"And did you really see him at the Province House?" "Oh yes, dearmother! yes!" the half-dreaming child would answer. "But when oldEsther had done speaking about him he faded away out of his chair."Thus, without affrighting her little guests, she led them by thehand into the chambers of her own desolate heart, and made childhood'sfancy discern the ghosts that haunted there.