Chapter 7 THE GOVERNOR'S HALL
Hester Prynne went one day to the mansion of Governor Bellingham, with a pair of gloves
which she had fringed and embroidered to his order, and which were to be worn on some great
occasion of state; for, though the chances of a popular election had caused this former
ruler to descend a step or two from the highest rank, he still held an honourable and influential
place among the colonial magistracy.
Another and far more important reason than the delivery of a pair of embroidered gloves,
impelled Hester, at this time, to seek an interview with a personage of so much power
and activity in the affairs of the settlement. It had reached her ears that there was a design
on the part of some of the leading inhabitants, cherishing the more rigid order of principles
in religion and government, to deprive her of her child. On the supposition that Pearl,
as already hinted, was of demon origin, these good people not unreasonably argued that a
Christian interest in the mother's soul required them to remove such a stumbling-block from
her path. If the child, on the other hand, were really capable of moral and religious
growth, and possessed the elements of ultimate salvation, then, surely, it would enjoy all
the fairer prospect of these advantages by being transferred to wiser and better guardianship
than Hester Prynne's. Among those who promoted the design, Governor Bellingham was said to
be one of the most busy. It may appear singular, and, indeed, not a little ludicrous, that
an affair of this kind, which in later days would have been referred to no higher jurisdiction
than that of the select men of the town, should then have been a question publicly discussed,
and on which statesmen of eminence took sides. At that epoch of pristine simplicity, however,
matters of even slighter public interest, and of far less intrinsic weight than the
welfare of Hester and her child, were strangely mixed up with the deliberations of legislators
and acts of state. The period was hardly, if at all, earlier than that of our story,
when a dispute concerning the right of property in a pig not only caused a fierce and bitter
contest in the legislative body of the colony, but resulted in an important modification
of the framework itself of the legislature.
Full of concern, therefore—but so conscious of her own right that it seemed scarcely an
unequal match between the public on the one side, and a lonely woman, backed by the sympathies
of nature, on the other—Hester Prynne set forth from her solitary cottage. Little Pearl,
of course, was her companion. She was now of an age to run lightly along by her mother's
side, and, constantly in motion from morn till sunset, could have accomplished a much
longer journey than that before her. Often, nevertheless, more from caprice than necessity,
she demanded to be taken up in arms; but was soon as imperious to be let down again, and
frisked onward before Hester on the grassy pathway, with many a harmless trip and tumble.
We have spoken of Pearl's rich and luxuriant beauty—a beauty that shone with deep and
vivid tints, a bright complexion, eyes possessing intensity both of depth and glow, and hair
already of a deep, glossy brown, and which, in after years, would be nearly akin to black.
There was fire in her and throughout her: she seemed the unpremeditated offshoot of
a passionate moment. Her mother, in contriving the child's garb, had allowed the gorgeous
tendencies of her imagination their full play, arraying her in a crimson velvet tunic of
a peculiar cut, abundantly embroidered in fantasies and flourishes of gold thread. So
much strength of colouring, which must have given a wan and pallid aspect to cheeks of
a fainter bloom, was admirably adapted to Pearl's beauty, and made her the very brightest
little jet of flame that ever danced upon the earth.
But it was a remarkable attribute of this garb, and indeed, of the child's whole appearance,
that it irresistibly and inevitably reminded the beholder of the token which Hester Prynne
was doomed to wear upon her bosom. It was the scarlet letter in another form: the scarlet
letter endowed with life! The mother herself—as if the red ignominy were so deeply scorched
into her brain that all her conceptions assumed its form—had carefully wrought out the similitude,
lavishing many hours of morbid ingenuity to create an analogy between the object of her
affection and the emblem of her guilt and torture. But, in truth, Pearl was the one
as well as the other; and only in consequence of that identity had Hester contrived so perfectly
to represent the scarlet letter in her appearance.
As the two wayfarers came within the precincts of the town, the children of the Puritans
looked up from their play,—or what passed for play with those sombre little urchins—and
spoke gravely one to another.
"Behold, verily, there is the woman of the scarlet letter: and of a truth, moreover,
there is the likeness of the scarlet letter running along by her side! Come, therefore,
and let us fling mud at them!"
But Pearl, who was a dauntless child, after frowning, stamping her foot, and shaking her
little hand with a variety of threatening gestures, suddenly made a rush at the knot
of her enemies, and put them all to flight. She resembled, in her fierce pursuit of them,
an infant pestilence—the scarlet fever, or some such half-fledged angel of judgment—whose
mission was to punish the sins of the rising generation. She screamed and shouted, too,
with a terrific volume of sound, which, doubtless, caused the hearts of the fugitives to quake
within them. The victory accomplished, Pearl returned quietly to her mother, and looked
up, smiling, into her face.
Without further adventure, they reached the dwelling of Governor Bellingham. This was
a large wooden house, built in a fashion of which there are specimens still extant in
the streets of our older towns now moss-grown, crumbling to decay, and melancholy at heart
with the many sorrowful or joyful occurrences, remembered or forgotten, that have happened
and passed away within their dusky chambers. Then, however, there was the freshness of
the passing year on its exterior, and the cheerfulness, gleaming forth from the sunny
windows, of a human habitation, into which death had never entered. It had, indeed, a
very cheery aspect, the walls being overspread with a kind of stucco, in which fragments
of broken glass were plentifully intermixed; so that, when the sunshine fell aslant-wise
over the front of the edifice, it glittered and sparkled as if diamonds had been flung
against it by the double handful. The brilliancy might have be fitted Aladdin's palace rather
than the mansion of a grave old Puritan ruler. It was further decorated with strange and
seemingly cabalistic figures and diagrams, suitable to the quaint taste of the age which
had been drawn in the stucco, when newly laid on, and had now grown hard and durable, for
the admiration of after times.
Pearl, looking at this bright wonder of a house began to caper and dance, and imperatively
required that the whole breadth of sunshine should be stripped off its front, and given
her to play with.
"No, my little Pearl!" said her mother; "thou must gather thine own sunshine. I have none
to give thee!"
They approached the door, which was of an arched form, and flanked on each side by a
narrow tower or projection of the edifice, in both of which were lattice-windows, the
wooden shutters to close over them at need. Lifting the iron hammer that hung at the portal,
Hester Prynne gave a summons, which was answered by one of the Governor's bond servant—a
free-born Englishman, but now a seven years' slave. During that term he was to be the property
of his master, and as much a commodity of bargain and sale as an ox, or a joint-stool.
The serf wore the customary garb of serving-men at that period, and long before, in the old
hereditary halls of England.
"Is the worshipful Governor Bellingham within?" inquired Hester.
"Yea, forsooth," replied the bond-servant, staring with wide-open eyes at the scarlet
letter, which, being a new-comer in the country, he had never before seen. "Yea, his honourable
worship is within. But he hath a godly minister or two with him, and likewise a leech. Ye
may not see his worship now."
"Nevertheless, I will enter," answered Hester Prynne; and the bond-servant, perhaps judging
from the decision of her air, and the glittering symbol in her bosom, that she was a great
lady in the land, offered no opposition.
So the mother and little Pearl were admitted into the hall of entrance. With many variations,
suggested by the nature of his building materials, diversity of climate, and a different mode
of social life, Governor Bellingham had planned his new habitation after the residences of
gentlemen of fair estate in his native land. Here, then, was a wide and reasonably lofty
hall, extending through the whole depth of the house, and forming a medium of general
communication, more or less directly, with all the other apartments. At one extremity,
this spacious room was lighted by the windows of the two towers, which formed a small recess
on either side of the portal. At the other end, though partly muffled by a curtain, it
was more powerfully illuminated by one of those embowed hall windows which we read of
in old books, and which was provided with a deep and cushioned seat. Here, on the cushion,
lay a folio tome, probably of the Chronicles of England, or other such substantial literature;
even as, in our own days, we scatter gilded volumes on the centre table, to be turned
over by the casual guest. The furniture of the hall consisted of some ponderous chairs,
the backs of which were elaborately carved with wreaths of oaken flowers; and likewise
a table in the same taste, the whole being of the Elizabethan age, or perhaps earlier,
and heirlooms, transferred hither from the Governor's paternal home. On the table—in
token that the sentiment of old English hospitality had not been left behind—stood a large pewter
tankard, at the bottom of which, had Hester or Pearl peeped into it, they might have seen
the frothy remnant of a recent draught of ale.
On the wall hung a row of portraits, representing the forefathers of the Bellingham lineage,
some with armour on their breasts, and others with stately ruffs and robes of peace. All
were characterised by the sternness and severity which old portraits so invariably put on,
as if they were the ghosts, rather than the pictures, of departed worthies, and were gazing
with harsh and intolerant criticism at the pursuits and enjoyments of living men.
At about the centre of the oaken panels that lined the hall was suspended a suit of mail,
not, like the pictures, an ancestral relic, but of the most modern date; for it had been
manufactured by a skilful armourer in London, the same year in which Governor Bellingham
came over to New England. There was a steel head-piece, a cuirass, a gorget and greaves,
with a pair of gauntlets and a sword hanging beneath; all, and especially the helmet and
breastplate, so highly burnished as to glow with white radiance, and scatter an illumination
everywhere about upon the floor. This bright panoply was not meant for mere idle show,
but had been worn by the Governor on many a solemn muster and training field, and had
glittered, moreover, at the head of a regiment in the Pequod war. For, though bred a lawyer,
and accustomed to speak of Bacon, Coke, Noye, and Finch, as his professional associates,
the exigencies of this new country had transformed Governor Bellingham into a soldier, as well
as a statesman and ruler.
Little Pearl, who was as greatly pleased with the gleaming armour as she had been with the
glittering frontispiece of the house, spent some time looking into the polished mirror
of the breastplate.
"Mother," cried she, "I see you here. Look! Look!"
Hester looked by way of humouring the child; and she saw that, owing to the peculiar effect
of this convex mirror, the scarlet letter was represented in exaggerated and gigantic
proportions, so as to be greatly the most prominent feature of her appearance. In truth,
she seemed absolutely hidden behind it. Pearl pointed upwards also, at a similar picture
in the head-piece; smiling at her mother, with the elfish intelligence that was so familiar
an expression on her small physiognomy. That look of naughty merriment was likewise reflected
in the mirror, with so much breadth and intensity of effect, that it made Hester Prynne feel
as if it could not be the image of her own child, but of an imp who was seeking to mould
itself into Pearl's shape.
"Come along, Pearl," said she, drawing her away, "Come and look into this fair garden.
It may be we shall see flowers there; more beautiful ones than we find in the woods."
Pearl accordingly ran to the bow-window, at the further end of the hall, and looked along
the vista of a garden walk, carpeted with closely-shaven grass, and bordered with some
rude and immature attempt at shrubbery. But the proprietor appeared already to have relinquished
as hopeless, the effort to perpetuate on this side of the Atlantic, in a hard soil, and
amid the close struggle for subsistence, the native English taste for ornamental gardening.
Cabbages grew in plain sight; and a pumpkin-vine, rooted at some distance, had run across the
intervening space, and deposited one of its gigantic products directly beneath the hall
window, as if to warn the Governor that this great lump of vegetable gold was as rich an
ornament as New England earth would offer him. There were a few rose-bushes, however,
and a number of apple-trees, probably the descendants of those planted by the Reverend
Mr. Blackstone, the first settler of the peninsula; that half mythological personage who rides
through our early annals, seated on the back of a bull.
Pearl, seeing the rose-bushes, began to cry for a red rose, and would not be pacified.
"Hush, child—hush!" said her mother, earnestly. "Do not cry, dear little Pearl! I hear voices
in the garden. The Governor is coming, and gentlemen along with him."
In fact, adown the vista of the garden avenue, a number of persons were seen approaching
towards the house. Pearl, in utter scorn of her mother's attempt to quiet her, gave an
eldritch scream, and then became silent, not from any notion of obedience, but because
the quick and mobile curiosity of her disposition was excited by the appearance of those new
personages.