_Love and Politics._
The presence of the enemy in the neighborhood convinced every one of
the necessity of taking every precaution to protect themselves and
their property. At first alarm many persons had hidden their plate and
other valuables, and many had sent their families farther inland. But
beyond the discomforts occasioned by raids, when houses were sacked
and often burned to the ground, and when slaves were enticed away,
the people of Maryland did not suffer as much as did those of lower
Virginia. Where there was no marked resistance, and where there was
no reason to suppose the heads of families were in the American army,
allowance was made for property taken, and pay given. Therefore Aunt
Martha had reason on her side when she said, “I shall simply let them
take what they want and shall expect pay for it.”
“That is not what we will do,” Lettice said. “We are not going to
pretend that we are friends, but of course it is different with you,
Aunt Martha.” Lettice had recovered from her fright and was really
enjoying life. If James lost no opportunity in visiting Sylvia’s
Ramble, neither did Robert Clinton fail to make a daily appearance at
Hopkins’s Point, till Lettice came to look for his coming as part of
her day’s pleasure. He was truly a very attractive young man, every one
conceded.
“I haven’t a word against him,” said Lettice’s brother William, “except
for his politics. You’ll not go over to the enemy, will you, sis?” he
said, pinching her cheek.
“Never!” returned Lettice, steadily. Nevertheless, the telltale blush
upon her cheek was not caused by the pink sunbonnet she wore. The
little maid of seventeen found it hard to remember her politics when
she was listening to the beguiling words of the young New Yorker, who
by this time had declared himself her devoted suitor.
“Why do you deny me, sweet Lettice?” he said. “Must I leave you
altogether? Am I so hateful to you?” This was but the night before,
when the two were coming home from a frolic at Becky Lowe’s.
“There is Rhoda, you know,” Lettice had answered in a low tone.
“Rhoda, yes; but--” he looked down as he gathered Lettice’s hand in
his--“but you see, I don’t love Rhoda, nor does she love me.”
“How do you know?” Lettice asked, wondering if it were right to allow
her hand to lie so long in his clasp.
“I know that Rhoda feels toward me as I do toward her. We are excellent
friends. I admire and respect her greatly, and to no one would I be
more ready to give my confidence, for she is discretion itself; but I
know full well who it is that has captured my heart, and besides, did
you see your brother James and Rhoda as we passed them just now? I do
not think they were thinking of either of us.”
“No, I did not notice them, I wasn’t looking; besides, Rhoda doesn’t
love James’s politics any more than I do yours.”
“Politics? What have sweet lasses like you to do with politics? Let the
men settle the affairs of the nation, and let the maidens rule in the
court of love, where they are more at home.”
Then Lettice sighed and did not draw her hand away. The witching
moonlight, the summer night, the low pleading tones of her lover--all
these cast a glamour over her, and so swayed her that it seemed that
the present alone was the only thing to consider, and Robert walked
across the fields to Sylvia’s Ramble, feeling that his wooing would
soon come to a happy ending.
And yet, the next morning Lettice said never would she go over to the
enemy. “I told Brother William I never would. I have promised him,”
she said to herself, as she ran swiftly along the path to the old
graveyard. Lutie started up from where she was sitting before one of
the cabins in the quarter, but Lettice waved her back. “I don’t want
you, Lutie,” she said. “You can go back.”
“Whar yuh gwine, Miss Letty?”
“Never mind where I am going. I don’t need you, and I don’t want you to
follow me. Stay where you are.”
“Miss Letty gwine whar she gwine. She got no use fo’ nobody dis
mawnin’,” Lutie remarked to the old woman before whose cabin she sat.
Lettice made a detour and came around by the rear of the old graveyard.
The thicket was closer here, and hid her from the view of any one
passing. She threw herself down in the long grass, hiding her face in
her arm. “I said that, and I am afraid I am growing to love him,” she
murmured. “I have made one promise to my brother, and how can I make
another to him?” She lay still a long time, and once in a while a tear
trickled down her cheek.
Presently she sat up. A sudden thought had struck her. Suppose she
could win her lover over to her side of thinking. That would be a
triumph indeed! Why shouldn’t she? Did he love her, he certainly would
not give her up; yet as she pondered upon the subject, she felt that
she was by no means certain of the success of her effort, and her face
grew grave again.
From over the hedge came a voice, calling softly, “Lettice! Sweet
Lettice, where have you hidden yourself?”
She sprang to her feet and stood where she could be seen. Robert
pressed aside the detaining vines and came up to her. “Lettice,
sweetheart, I could not stay away. Do you forgive me for coming so
early? Was it a dream? a beautiful dream which I had last night, or did
I see a light in your dear eyes? I love you so, sweet Lettice, that I
could not sleep last night for thinking of you.” He gently pushed back
the sunbonnet she had drawn over her face. “Sweetheart, you have been
weeping,” he said in a troubled tone. “Your sweet eyes are wet. What is
wrong?”
Lettice gave a little sob, and for one moment yielded to the clasp
of his arm, burying her hot face on his breast. She felt a sudden joy
to be thus near him, to hear him speak, but only for an instant she
allowed herself to remain thus, and then she sprang away, and stood a
little beyond him. “Tell me,” she said, “do you love me enough to join
the cause of my father and my brothers?”
He looked at her gloomily, and then, leaning on the tall headstone
which her movement had placed between them, he said slowly: “Do you
make that an issue between us? You love me less than you love the
platform upon which rests the opinion of certain members of your
family?”
She looked troubled in her turn. There was a long pause. An utter
stillness prevailed. Once in a while a bird darted from the faintly
rustling leaves. The distant sound of water plashing against the side
of the bay shores, or the murmur of voices from the fields struck their
ears. Lettice noted these things unconsciously, and with them the faint
odors of the growing greenness about her, and the shapes of the shadows
on the grass. She drew a long breath. “You do not love me, if you are
willing to lose me because I love my country.”
“It is my country, too. There is not a difference in our love for our
native land, but in our belief in what is good for her. I believe that
the war is unrighteous and will be the country’s ruin. I am hostile to
nothing except the war. I am for peace at any cost. You pin your faith
on your father’s beliefs, that is all; and it cannot, it shall not,
separate us.” He made a step toward her, but she drew back.
“No, no,” she cried. “While my father is fighting on the Canada border,
so far away, perhaps at this moment lying wounded, or dead,” she
whispered, “can I promise myself to one who is willing to encourage his
foes to work his destruction? No, I cannot, I cannot!”
The young man turned aside and leaned heavily against a gnarled old
tree which overshadowed them, and again there was silence. When
Robert spoke, it was very quietly. “That I would encourage a foe of
yours is a thought too terrible to contemplate; that I could ever do
aught to bring you one moment’s pang seems to me impossible. The war
cannot last. I do not give you up, I but wait till the war is over,
and then--Lettice!” He held out his hands yearningly, but she did not
move. “Promise me, dearest, promise me, that when the question is
settled, that you will no longer deny me my place, and meantime keep me
in your heart.”
“Provided you do us no wrong, provided you do nothing to bring trouble
upon us, after the war--I will--consider it.”
“Even that ray of hope is much. I make this concession, and you,
dearest, can never know what it costs: I promise to take no active part
in the measures against the carrying on of the war. I have been an
earnest partisan, I acknowledge; yet I will henceforth be a neutral.
God forgive me, if I am wrong; if to win your favor is more to me than
the approval of my countrymen. Can you not give me a proof of a like
measure of love?”
“If when the war is over, you come to me with hands unstained, and with
a conscience clean of having done no injury to our side, I think I may,
perhaps, be ready to promise you--what you ask.” She hung her head, and
the last words were in a whisper.
“And you will seal the bond, beloved, you will?” He advanced and would
have kissed her, but she retreated, crying:--
“No, no, the war is not over yet.” She spoke gayly, however, and held
out her hand, which he pressed to his lips. But just then Lutie’s
voice broke in upon them.
“Miss Letty, Miss Betty say huccome yuh fo’git yuh-alls is gwine to yo
Aunt Marthy’s to dinner? She say yuh bleedged ter come an’ git dressed
e’ssen dey leave yuh ’thout nothin’ but cold pone.” Lutie’s giggle
followed the message, and Lettice, with Robert at her side, took her
way to the house.
“Law, Letty,” cried Betty, meeting her in the hall, “you certainly are
feather-brained these days. Here I am all ready, and you are mooning
about, nobody knows where. It is high time we were off. This is to be a
state dinner, remember, and Aunt Martha will never forgive us if we are
late.”
“I didn’t know what time it was,” said Lettice, as she ran upstairs.
Aunt Martha’s state dinners were rather dreary affairs. Solemn dinings
to which dignified heads of families were invited. In this instance it
was in honor of an elderly bride that the invitations were sent out.
One of Mr. Hopkins’s cousins had taken to himself a second wife, and
Lettice did not anticipate any great joviality; yet her hopes were
high, for she had gained a great point, she considered. Robert would
be true to his promise, she knew he would; and if the war would but
end, then he would make his request of her father in proper form, and
her father would not refuse. She was entirely unworldly in her thought
of it all, and hardly gave a passing consideration to the fact that
her lover was a wealthy man, and considered an excellent match; all
that troubled her was his politics. She stopped so often, and was so
preoccupied in the making of her toilet, that Lutie finally exclaimed:--
“Yuh sholy mus’ be in lub, Miss Letty. Yuh ain’t gwine put on bofe dem
scarfs, is yuh?”
Then Lettice laughed and told Lutie she was a saucy minx, that if she
didn’t behave she should be sent out with the field hands. And Lutie,
who knew just what that threat amounted to, having frequently heard it
before, giggled and further remarked that: “Mars Clinton a mighty fine
gemman,” and when Miss Letty went to New York to live, Lutie hoped she
wasn’t “gwine be lef’ behin’,” for which speech she received a rap of
Lettice’s knuckles, and then mistress and maid descended the stairs,
the latter as proud of her young lady, in her best summer attire, as
the young lady was of herself.
It may have been that Lettice was not willing to risk sitting by
Betty’s side under the ardent gaze of her lover on the opposite seat of
the carriage, and with Betty to watch every glance of his eye, for at
the last moment she declared that she wanted Jamie to drive her over,
and would wait for him, and wouldn’t the others please go on without
her.
“You are a contrary little piece,” said Betty, out of patience. “Here
you have kept us waiting all this time, and now you won’t go with us.
Why didn’t you say so in the first place?”
“I didn’t think of it,” returned Lettice, calmly. “You flustered me so
by telling me it was late, that I forgot about Jamie.” And seeing she
was bound to have her own way, Betty and Mr. Clinton drove off without
her.
The company had all assembled when the last guests from Hopkins’s Point
reached Sylvia’s Ramble, and Lettice wished she had come earlier when
she saw that Mr. Clinton was at the gate to meet her, and that with
him in attendance she would be obliged to pass under the scrutiny of
a dozen mature cousins, each of whom felt it a prerogative to make as
many personal remarks as he or she desired; so that the girl was glad
to escape with Rhoda, who, though critical, was not so aggressively
candid as one’s relatives are likely to be.
The guests, although knowing that Mrs. Tom Hopkins was a Boston woman,
supposed her frankly siding with her husband, and therefore they did
not scruple to discuss at the dinner-table politics from their point
of view. News of the Remonstrance Act of Massachusetts had just been
received, and those favoring the war policy were hot against the Bay
State, and did not hesitate to voice their feelings.
“With our brave Lawrence not cold in his grave,” said Mr. Jacob Seth,
“the Massachusetts people adopt a resolution that it is not becoming
a moral and religious people to express any approbation of military
or naval exploits not immediately connected with the defence of their
sea-coast and their soil.”
“And it was in Boston harbor that the fight between the _Chesapeake_
and the _Shannon_ took place,” said another guest.
Rhoda bit her lip and glanced quickly at James, who regarded her with
an amused look, while Lettice’s eyes sought Robert. His face was
flushed, and he was looking steadfastly into his plate.
“Massachusetts believes the war to be caused by ambition and desire for
conquest,” put in Aunt Martha, stiffly.
“I beg your pardon, Cousin Martha,” said Mr. Seth, “we forget that
you are not a Marylander. Cousin Tom has taken such a decided stand,
that we do not realize that perhaps you may be less enthusiastic. The
women of our land whose husbands have gone to the war could scarcely be
expected to approve it.”
“It is not a cheerful subject, anyhow,” the bride remarked.
“And I am sure the occasion warrants a livelier one,” returned Mr.
Seth, gallantly. And they fell to chaffing each other, and in the end,
Lettice declared a more pleasant dinner she had never enjoyed at Aunt
Martha’s.
“I am surprised that Robert did not immediately take up the cudgels;
he is not wont to be so circumspect,” said Rhoda, musingly, as she and
Lettice were walking in the garden.
“Isn’t he?” returned Lettice. “Perhaps we are converting him to our way
of thinking.”
“That would scarcely be possible,” Rhoda replied. “He is pledged to
support his cause, and is too ardent an adherent to give in easily. My
father says he is a strong aid to him, and he depends much upon him in
various important matters, although Robert is so much the younger.”
“I suppose that is true,” said Lettice, thoughtfully. “I do not wonder,
then, that he is anxious that you should be fond of each other. How
about it, Rhoda?” she asked teasingly.
Rhoda showed no special emotion except by the nervous closing of her
hand. “When the war is over,” she replied, “these vexing, political
problems will not interfere with our decisions in other directions, as
now they must do.”
“That is very true, Rhoda,” Lettice answered softly. “Let us suppose
the war over, and each of us free to act as she would? Is there then no
reason why you should not favor Mr. Clinton? What says your heart?”
Rhoda looked her squarely in the eyes. “I admire Robert. I have known
him since I was a little child. He is entirely worthy any woman’s
regard.” Then suddenly. “And you? What does your heart say?”
Lettice looked confused; then she replied, laughing, “I’ll tell you
when the war is over.”
Rhoda regarded her gravely. “Robert Clinton will never desert his
party,” she said; “and I think he will spare no means to forward the
interests of those whose opinions he endorses.”
“Perhaps,” Lettice returned lightly; “but men are not infallible. The
best of them are mistaken sometimes, and he may yet change. Rhoda,
would or could any one in the world make you differ from your father in
politics?”
Red grew Rhoda’s cheeks. “I don’t know,” she returned faintly.