ExperienceRowland passed the summer in England, staying with several old friends and two or three new ones.On his arrival, he felt it on his conscience to write to Mrs.Hudson and inform her that her son had relieved him of his tutelage.
He felt that she considered him an incorruptible Mentor, following Roderick like a shadow, and he wished to let her know the truth.But he made the truth very comfortable, and gave a succinct statement of the young man's brilliant beginnings.
He owed it to himself, he said, to remind her that he had not judged lightly, and that Roderick's present achievements were more profitable than his inglorious drudgery at Messrs.
Striker & Spooner's.He was now taking a well-earned holiday and proposing to see a little of the world.
He would work none the worse for this; every artist needed to knock about and look at things for himself.
They had parted company for a couple of months, for Roderick was now a great man and beyond the need of going about with a keeper.
But they were to meet again in Rome in the autumn, and then he should be able to send her more good news.
Meanwhile, he was very happy in what Roderick had already done--especially happy in the happiness it must have brought to her.
He ventured to ask to be kindly commended to Miss Garland.
His letter was promptly answered--to his surprise in Miss Garland's own hand.The same mail brought also an epistle from Cecilia.
The latter was voluminous, and we must content ourselves with giving an extract.
"Your letter was filled with an echo of that brilliant Roman world, which made me almost ill with envy.For a week after I got it I thought Northampton really unpardonably tame.
But I am drifting back again to my old deeps of resignation, and I rush to the window, when any one passes, with all my old gratitude for small favors.So Roderick Hudson is already a great man, and you turn out to be a great prophet?
My compliments to both of you; I never heard of anything working so smoothly.And he takes it all very quietly, and does n't lose his balance nor let it turn his head?
You judged him, then, in a day better than I had done in six months, for I really did not expect that he would settle down into such a jog-trot of prosperity.I believed he would do fine things, but I was sure he would intersperse them with a good many follies, and that his beautiful statues would spring up out of the midst of a straggling plantation of wild oats.
But from what you tell me, Mr.Striker may now go hang himself.....There is one thing, however, to say as a friend, in the way of warning.
That candid soul can keep a secret, and he may have private designs on your equanimity which you don't begin to suspect.
What do you think of his being engaged to Miss Garland?
The two ladies had given no hint of it all winter, but a fortnight ago, when those big photographs of his statues arrived, they first pinned them up on the wall, and then trotted out into the town, made a dozen calls, and announced the news.Mrs.Hudson did, at least; Miss Garland, I suppose, sat at home writing letters.
To me, I confess, the thing was a perfect surprise.
I had not a suspicion that all the while he was coming so regularly to make himself agreeable on my veranda, he was quietly preferring his cousin to any one else.Not, indeed, that he was ever at particular pains to make himself agreeable! I suppose he has picked up a few graces in Rome.But he must not acquire too many:
if he is too polite when he comes back, Miss Garland will count him as one of the lost.She will be a very good wife for a man of genius, and such a one as they are often shrewd enough to take.
She 'll darn his stockings and keep his accounts, and sit at home and trim the lamp and keep up the fire while he studies the Beautiful in pretty neighbors at dinner-parties.The two ladies are evidently very happy, and, to do them justice, very humbly grateful to you.
Mrs.Hudson never speaks of you without tears in her eyes, and I am sure she considers you a specially patented agent of Providence.
Verily, it 's a good thing for a woman to be in love:
Miss Garland has grown almost pretty.I met her the other night at a tea-party; she had a white rose in her hair, and sang a sentimental ballad in a fine contralto voice."Miss Garland's letter was so much shorter that we may give it entire:--My dear Sir,--Mrs.Hudson, as I suppose you know, has been for some time unable to use her eyes.She requests me, therefore, to answer your favor of the 22d of June.
She thanks you extremely for writing, and wishes me to say that she considers herself in every way under great obligations to you.
Your account of her son's progress and the high estimation in which he is held has made her very happy, and she earnestly prays that all may continue well with him.He sent us, a short time ago, several large photographs of his two statues, taken from different points of view.We know little about such things, but they seem to us wonderfully beautiful.
We sent them to Boston to be handsomely framed, and the man, on returning them, wrote us that he had exhibited them for a week in his store, and that they had attracted great attention.
The frames are magnificent, and the pictures now hang in a row on the parlor wall.Our only quarrel with them is that they make the old papering and the engravings look dreadfully shabby.
Mr.Striker stood and looked at them the other day full five minutes, and said, at last, that if Roderick's head was running on such things it was no wonder he could not learn to draw up a deed.
We lead here so quiet and monotonous a life that I am afraid I can tell you nothing that will interest you.
Mrs.Hudson requests me to say that the little more or less that may happen to us is of small account, as we live in our thoughts and our thoughts are fixed on her dear son.
She thanks Heaven he has so good a friend.Mrs.Hudson says that this is too short a letter, but I can say nothing more.
Yours most respectfully,Mary Garland.