A year and five months had passed away since the evening when Lewis
Hammond held his conscience-stricken wife upon his knee, and told
her--in fervid words that singularly belied his calm and even demeanor
at other times--of his faith in and love for her, and his abhorrence
of the sin she felt in her trembling soul that she had committed. Yet
she had not the superhuman courage required to contradict a trust like
this. There was no alternative but to keep up the weary, wicked mockery.
"But in all these months she must have learned to care for him!" cries
Mrs. Common Sense. "There is nothing disagreeable about the man. He is
not brilliant; yet he has intelligence and feeling, and is certainly
attached to his wife. I have no doubt but that he indulges her in
every reasonable request, and comports himself in all respects like an
exemplary husband."
Granted, to each and every head of your description, my dear madam!
But, for all that, his obdurate wife had not come to love him. I blush
to say it; but while we are stripping hearts let us not be squeamish!
There had been seasons, lasting sometimes for weeks, when her existence
was a continual warfare between repugnance to him and her sense of
duty; when she dreaded to hear his step in the hall, and shrank
inwardly from his caress; watched and fought, until strength and mind
were well-nigh gone. Mark me! I do not deny that this was as irrational
as it was reprehensible; but I have never held up my poor Sarah as
a model of reason or propriety. From the beginning, I have made her
case a warning. The fates forbid that I should commend it to any as an
example for imitation! A passionate, proud, reticent girl; a trusting,
loving, deceived woman; a hopeless, desperate bride--whose heart lay
like a pulseless stone in her breast at the most ardent love-words of
her husband, and throbbed with wild, uncontrollable emotion at the
fraternal tone and kiss of her lost and only love--I have no plea for
her, save the words of Infinite compassion and Divine knowledge of
human nature and human woe: "Let him that is without sin among you cast
the first stone at her!"
The highly respectable firm of which Mr. Hammond was the junior member,
was adding, if not field to field, thousand to thousand, of the
wherewithal for the purchase of fields, or, what was better still, city
lots. Mrs. Lewis Hammond had set up her carriage about a year after her
marriage; said equipage being a gift from her generous husband on the
occasion of the first airing of the little "Baby Belle," as she was
always called in the family. Not until subsequent events had endowed
it with deeper and saddest interest did Sarah read Aldrich's beautiful
poem bearing the above title. Lewis' mother's name was Isabella. Her
grandchild received the same, which became "Belle" on the mother's
tongue, and then, because it was natural to say "Baby" too, the pretty
alliteration was adopted.
To a man of Lewis' domestic tastes the advent of this child was a
source of the liveliest pleasure, and the tiny inmate of his household
was another and a powerful tie, binding him to a home already dear. But
to the mother's lonely life, so bare of real comfort or joy--haunted
by memory and darkened by remorse--the precious gift came like a ray
of Heaven's purest light, a strain of angel music, saying to care,
"Sleep!" to hope, "Awake, the morning cometh!" Beneath the sunshine of
so much love, the infant throve finely, and without being a greater
prodigy than the nine hundred and ninety-nine miracles of beauty and
sprightliness who, with it, composed the thousand "blessed babies"
of the day, was still a pretty, engaging creature, whose gurgling
laugh and communicative "coo" beguiled the mother's solitude and made
cheerful the lately silent house.
It was late in the June afternoon, and arrayed in clean white frock,
broad sash, and shoulder-knots of pink ribbon, the small lady sat on
her mother's lap at the front window, awaiting the appearance of
the husband and father. Sarah had altered much since her marriage;
"improved wonderfully," said her acquaintances. There was still in
her mien a touch of haughtiness; in her countenance the look that
spoke profound thought and introspection. Still, when in repose, her
brow had a cast of seriousness that bordered on melancholy; but over
her features had passed a change like that wrought by the sculptor's
last stroke to the statue. The mould was the same--the chiselling
more clear and fine. Especially after the birth of her child was this
refining process most apparent in its effects. There was a softness in
her smile, a gentle sweetness in her voice, as she now talked to the
babe, directing its attention to the window, lest the father's approach
should be unnoticed, and he disappointed in his shout of welcome.
"How affected! gotten up for show!" sneered the childless Mrs. Bond, as
she rolled by in her carriage, on her way to her handsome, cheerless
home and its cross master.
"She has chosen her position well, at all events," rejoined her
companion, a neighbor and gossip, who had taken Lucy's place in
Victoria's confidence.
"Ridiculous!" She spat out the ejaculation from the overflowing of her
spleen. "I could laugh at her airs, if they did not make me mad! One
would think, to see her as she sits there, that she had decked herself
and the child to please a man that she doted upon--like the good wives
we read of in novels."
"And why shouldn't she be fond of him? He is a good-hearted fellow, and
lets her do pretty much as she pleases, I imagine, besides waiting on
her like any lover. I often meet them riding out together. That is more
than your husband or mine ever does, my dear."
"They go quite as often as we desire their company, I fancy. Mine
does, I know. Perhaps if we had the reason for parading our conjugal
devotion that Mrs. Hammond has, we might wheedle our lawful lords into
taking a seat alongside of us once in a while. There's nothing like
keeping up appearances, particularly if the reality is lacking. If
Lewis Hammond knew some of the pretty stories I could tell him about
Sarah's love-scrapes, he would not look so sublimely contented with his
three-story paradise. The elegant clothes he piles upon that squaw of
his are preposterous, and she carries them off as if she had dressed
well all her days. I tell you, she never looked decent until she put on
her wedding-dress. You have heard of the fainting-scene that took place
that morning, I suppose? Old Mother Hunt said it was 'sensibility,'
and 'nervous agitation;' the company laid it to the heat of the room;
and I laughed in my sleeve, and said nothing. If that woman aggravates
me much more, I will remind her of some passages in her experience she
does not dream that I know."
"Do tell me what you mean? I am dying of curiosity! Did she flirt very
hard before she was married?"
"She never had the chance. Lewis Hammond was her only offer."
"What was the matter, then?"
"I can't tell you now. It is too long a story. The next time she frets
me, as she does whenever she crosses my path, maybe you will hear the
romance. Shall I set you down at your door, or will you enliven me
by spending the evening with me? I do not expect other company, and
George falls asleep over his newspaper as soon as he has despatched his
dinner. Come in, and I will show you the loveliest sofa-pillow you ever
beheld; a new pattern I have just finished."
"Thank you! I would accept the invitation with pleasure, but I have not
been home since breakfast, and James makes such a fuss if he does not
find me in the nursery, tending that whimpering baby, when he comes up
at night, that it is as much as my life is worth to stay out after six
o'clock. Anything for peace, you know; and since we wives are slaves,
it is best to keep on the blind side of our masters."
The day had been warm down town, and as Lewis Hammond stepped from the
stage at the corner nearest his house, he felt jaded and dispirited--a
physical depression, augmented by a slight headache. A business
question which he had talked over with Mr. Marlow, before leaving
the store, contributed its weight of thoughtfulness, and he was not
conscious how near he was to his dwelling until, aroused by a sharp tap
upon the window-pane, he glanced up at the animated tableau framed by
the sash--the smiling mother, and the babe leaping and laughing, and
stretching its hands towards him.
"This is the sweetest refreshment a man can ask after his day of toil,"
he said, when, having kissed his wife and child, he took the latter
in his arms. He was not addicted to complimentary speeches, and while
his esteem and attachment for his chosen partner were even stronger
than they had been in the heart of the month-old bridegroom, he was
less apt to express them to her now than then. In one respect, and
only one, his wedded life had brought him disappointment. Unreserved
confidence and demonstrative affection on his side failed to draw forth
similar exhibitions of feeling from Sarah. Kind, thoughtful, dutiful,
scrupulously faithful to him and his interests in word, look, and deed,
she ever was. Yet he saw that she was a changed being from the fond,
impulsive daughter, whose ministry in her father's sick-room had won
for her a husband's love. Her reception of his affectionate advances
was passive--a reception merely, without apparent return. Never, and he
had ceased now to ask it, had she once said to him the phrase he had
craved to hear--"I love you!" Yet he would as soon have questioned the
reality of his existence as that she did love him. He held inviolate
his trust in the motive that had induced her to become his wife,
and in this calm confidence he was fain to rest, in the absence of
protestations that would have gladdened his soul, while they could
hardly have strengthened his faith in her affection.
Few wives, however loving, have been more truly cherished than was
Sarah, and of this she was partially aware. If she had remained
ignorant of Lewis' sentiments and wishes with regard to herself, until
the grieved and unrequited love had subsided into the dull aching that
does not, like a green wound, create, by its very smart, a species
of excitement that helps one bear the pain; had he glided gradually
into the joyless routine of her life's duties, and abided his time of
speaking until he had made himself necessary to her comfort and peace,
he might have won a willing bride. But what omniscient spirit was there
to instruct and caution him? He met and loved her, supposing her to be
as free as himself; like an honest, upright man, he told that love,
and, without a misgiving placed his honor and his happiness in her
hands.
Sarah could not have told why she revolved all this in her unquiet
mind as he sat near her, playing with their child; yet she did think
of their strange sad history, and from the review arose a feeling
of pity, sincere, almost tender for him, so worthy and so deceived.
She remembered with abasement of spirit how often she had been ready
to hate him as the instrument of her bondage; how wrathful words
had arisen to her lips at the moment of his greatest kindness; how
patiently he had borne her coldness; how unflagging was his care of
and for her. Over the dark, turbulent gulf of the unforgotten past
that sundered their hearts, she longed, as she had never done before,
to call to him, and confessing her sin against Heaven and against him,
to implore pardon for the sake of the spotless babe that smiled into
the father's face with its mother's eyes. Would he be merciful? Slowly
and emphatically memory repeated in her ear his denunciation of the
unloving wife, and courage died before the menaced curse.
"Fudge! Fiddlesticks! what frippery nonsense!" cry out, in a vehement
storm of indignation, a bevy of the Common Sense connection. "Are we
not staid and respectable matrons all? Do we not rear our daughters
virtuously, and teach our sons to honor father as well as mother? Yet
who of us troubles herself with raking in the cold ashes of her 'long
ago' for the bones of some dead and gone love--a girlish folly of
which she would be ashamed now? What cares Mr. Common Sense, among his
day-books and ledgers, in his study or in his office, how many times
his now correct helpmeet pledged eternal fidelity to other lovers
before she put her last crop of wild oats into the ground, and settled
for life with him? What if some of us, may be all, if driven hard,
should admit that when we stood up before the minister we underwent
certain qualms--call them pangs, if you like--at the thought of Tom
This, or Harry That, or Dick The Other, who, if circumstances had
permitted, we would have preferred should occupy the place of 'The
man whom we actually held by the hand!' While men can choose their
mates, and women can only take such as propose to them, these things
will happen. After all, who is hurt? You aver that none of you are,
mesdames, and we would not call your word in question. Ladies so
conscientious must, of necessity, be veracious, even in love affairs."
"I am a thoughtless animal!" said Lewis at the dinner-table. "There is
a letter from Lucy! Open it--don't mind me! I will crack your nuts for
you while you read it."
There was a troubled look in Sarah's eye when she laid it down. "Lucy
says they are certainly coming North this year--that we may look for
them in a week from the date of this. This is rather sooner than mother
expected them. Her housecleaning is late this season, in consequence of
her rheumatic spell in May."
"Let them come straight here! What should prevent them? There is an
abundance of room for them--baby, nurse, and all. It will be a grand
arrangement!" said Lewis, heartily.
Sarah was backward in replying. "Father and mother may object. I would
not wound them by interference with their guests."
"I will answer that mother will thank us to take care of them until her
scrubbing and scalding are done. And Lucy would not be willing to risk
her baby's health in a damp house."
"I will go and see mother to-morrow about it," concluded Sarah. She
still appeared dubious as to the expediency of the proposed step, a
thoughtfulness that did not wear away during the whole evening.
The Bensons had not visited New York the preceding year. They were
detained at the South by a combination of causes, the principal of
which was the long and fatal illness of Philip's mother. Lucy had
written repeatedly of her intense desire to see her home once more,
declaiming against the providences that had thwarted their projects,
like an impatient, unreasonable child.
"Philip says it is not convenient for him to go just yet," said her
letter to her sister, "and that our part of the country is as healthy
as Saratoga itself; but I have vowed that I will not wait one day
beyond the time I have set. It sets me wild to think of being in
Broadway again--of visiting and shopping, and seeing you all. We have
been so dull here since Mrs. Benson's death, and Philip is as solemn as
a judge. One of his married sisters will stay with the old gentleman
while we are away. O Sarah, I am sick of housekeeping and baby-nursing!
It will do well enough for me when I need spectacles and a wig; but
now, while I am young enough to enjoy life, it is insufferable!"
"Not very domestic, is she?" observed Lewis, folding up the letter,
which Sarah had handed him. "Ah! it is not every man who has such a
gem of a wife as I have! It appears to me that the married women of
these days are not satisfied unless they have a string of beaux as long
as that of a popular single belle. How is it, little one? Do you ever
catch yourself wishing that your husband were not such an old-fashioned
piece of constancy, and would give some other fellow a chance to say a
pretty thing, when you are in company?"
"I do not complain," said Sarah, demurely.
"Not in words, perhaps; your patience is wonderful in everything. But
how do you feel when you see your old neighbor, Mrs. Bond, waltzing
every set with the gayest gallant in the ball-room, while your jailor
does not like to have you 'polk' at all, and favors your dancing only
with men whom he knows to be respectable?"
"I feel that Mr. Hammond is a sensible man, and careful of his wife's
reputation, even in trifles, while Mr. Bond"--
"Go on! finish your sentence!"
"And his lady are a well-matched pair!"
Much as she disliked Victoria, and knowing that she was hated still
by her, Sarah deemed it a necessary and common act of courtesy to her
sister's friend to call and apprise her of Lucy's probable visit.
"It is not convenient for mother to receive them for a week yet, on
account of certain household arrangements," she stated, in making
known the object of her visit to her ancient enemy. "So you will find
Lucy at our house, where her friends will be received as if they were
my own."
"You are very polite, I am sure!" replied Mrs. Bond, smothering her
displeasure at Sarah's studied civility, and noting, with her quick,
reptile perceptions, that she was to be tolerated as she fancied Sarah
would imply, merely as Lucy's early associate. "And the Bensons are to
be with you! I shall call immediately upon their arrival. Poor, dear
Lucy! I long to see her. She has had a vast deal of trouble since her
marriage--has she not?"
"Except the death of her mother-in-law, she has had nothing to trouble
her that I have heard of," answered Sarah, rising to go.
"My dear creature! what do you call the wear and tear of managing a
husband, and a pack of unruly servants, and looking after a baby? And
she was such a belle! I wonder if she is much broken!"
"Come and see!"
Mrs. Hammond was at the parlor door.
"I will--most assuredly! How do you like their being quartered upon
you? What does that pattern husband of yours say to this?"
"Madam!" said Sarah, surprised and offended by the rude query.
"Oh! I don't mean that it would not be very delightful to you to have
your sister with you; but there was a foolish rumor, about the time of
your marriage, that you and Mr. Benson had some kind of a love-passage
down in the country; and I thought that Mr. Hammond, with his
particularly nice notions, might retain an unpleasant recollection of
the story, which would prevent him from being on brotherly terms with
his old rival. Men are terribly unreasonable mortals, and perfect Turks
in jealousy! We cannot be too careful not to provoke their suspicions."
Not for the universe would Sarah have betrayed any feeling at this
insolence, save a righteous and dignified resentment at its base
insinuations; but the ungovernable blood streamed in crimson violence
to her temples, and her voice shook when she would have held it firm.
"Mr. Hammond is not one to be influenced by malicious gossip, Mrs.
Bond, if, indeed, the report you have taken the liberty of repeating
was ever circulated except by its author. I cannot thank you for your
warning, as I recognize no occasion for jealousy in my conduct or
character. I am accountable for my actions to my conscience and my
husband, and I release you from what you have assumed to be your duty
of watching and criticising my personal affairs. Good-morning."
"I struck a sore spot! no doubt of that!" soliloquized Mrs. Bond,
recalling Sarah's start of pain and blush at the indelicate allusion
to Philip Benson. "That woman stirs up all the bile in my system if I
talk two minutes with her. If there were half the material to work upon
in that vain, weak Lucy, that there is in this sister, I would have my
revenge. As for Lewis Hammond, he is a love-sick fool!"
Sarah's cheeks had not lost their flush, nor had her heart ceased
its angry throbbings, when she reached home. In the solitude of her
chamber, she summoned strength and resolution to ask herself the
question, so long avoided, shunned, as she had imagined, in prudence,
as she now began to fear, in dread of a truthful reply.
When she married Lewis Hammond, she loved another. Fearful as was this
sin, it would be yet more terrible were she now to discover a lurking
fondness, an unconquered weakness for that other, in the heart of the
trusted wife, the mother who, from that guilty bosom, nourished the
little being that was, as yet, the embodiment of unsullied purity.
It was a trying and a perilous task, to unfold deliberately, to pry
searchingly into the record of that one short month that had held all
the bloom and fragrance of her life's spring season; to linger over
souvenirs and compare sensations--a painful and revolting process; but,
alas! the revulsion was not at memories of that olden time; and as this
appalling conviction dawned upon her, her heart died within her.
The nurse was arranging Baby Belle for the possible reception of her
unknown aunt and uncle, that afternoon, when Mrs. Hammond came into
the nursery, her face as pale and set as marble, and silently lifted
the child from the girl's lap to her own. For one instant her cheek
was laid against the velvet of the babe's; the ringlets of fair hair
mingled with her dark locks, before she set about completing its
unfinished toilette. With a nicety and care that would have seemed
overstrained, had other than mother's hands been busied in the work,
the stockings and slippers were fitted on the plump feet; the sunny
curls rolled around the fingers of the tiring woman, and brushed back
from the brow; the worked cambric robe lowered cautiously over the
head, lest the effect of the coiffure should be marred; the sleeves
looped up with bands of coral and gold, a necklace, belonging to the
same set, clasped around the baby's white throat, and she was ready for
survey.
"Now, Baby Belle and mamma will go down to meet papa!"
And with the little one still clinging to her neck, she met, in the
lower hall, her husband ushering in Lucy and Philip Benson.