stinging sensation of shame, he admitted the conviction, that he
_feared_ his sister. He had long worn her fetters unconsciously, but
now, when for the first time they galled and restrained him, his pride
and his heart rebelled against the hand that bound him in thraldom.
Grace retired that night, with a thousand bright hopes hovering round
her pillow. Roland then was her first benefactor. It was he, who had
awakened the interest of Mr. Worthington, and directed him to her
retreat. He, the handsome and noble-looking youth, whose dark piercing
eyes had kindled in her such yearnings after the world from which she
was excluded, and who for four years had been the morning and evening
star on the horizon of her memory. She knew something of this before,
but she had never realized it so fully as now; for he had himself
confirmed it, by words, which, though simple in themselves, were
unutterably eloquent, accompanied by such looks--she blushed even in
the darkness, as she caught herself involuntarily repeating, "and have
I found my pretty Shakeress at last?" For two or three days, Roland
avoided being alone with Lucy, but to his surprise, she did not seem
to desire an opportunity to renew her warnings. On the contrary, she
was more kind and affectionate towards Grace than she had ever been
before, who, in the confidingness of innocence, relied on her unwonted
testimonies of favour, as the harbingers of her dearest wishes.
"Grace," said Lucy--they were alone and secure of interruption, for
Mr. Worthington and Roland were both absent on business--"Grace, are
you willing to tell me of what you are now thinking?" Grace
started--she had fallen into an unconscious revery, and her work lay
idly in her lap; her cheeks glowed painfully, but with that habitual
reverence for truth which always distinguished her, she answered, "I
was thinking of Roland." Unprepared for such perfect ingenuousness,
Lucy hesitated a moment, and conscience upbraided her for the part she
was about to act, but again fixing her keen eye on a countenance as
transparent as crystal, she continued: "Has Roland ever told you that
he loved you?" Grace crimsoned still more deeply from wounded modesty
and shame, while she answered in a low voice, "Never!" "Then," said
the inquisitor, drawing a relieving breath, "Grace, your task is easy,
and I rejoice that he has made it so; you must not think of Roland,
you must not love him, for he never can be to you anything more than
he now is." Grace turned deadly pale, but she did not speak, and Lucy
went on--"My brother was my father's only son, and is sole heir of a
name long conspicuous for its honours. Our parents died when we were
both young; but I, as the elder, became the guardian and guide. To me,
on his death-bed, my father committed my young brother, charging me
with the solemnity of that awful hour, to guard his honour from stain,
and his name from degradation. My father was a proud and haughty man,
and he has transmitted to his children a portion of his own spirit.
Grace, you have told me all the circumstances of your life; you know
there is mystery, but you may not know in your extreme simplicity,
that there may be disgrace in your birth. The golden chain that
wreathes your neck, shows that your mother was not born to poverty.
Why then did she flee from her friends, to bury herself in solitude
with the dark and cruel man you called father; and why are you an
alien from your kindred? You ought to know these truths, which the
mistaken kindness of your friends conceals from you, and I reveal them
to you, that you may not encourage hopes that never can be realized;
to convince you, you can never be the wife of Roland. For myself, hear
me, Grace, to the end--if Roland could forget himself so far as to
think of such an union, I would forever disown him as a brother, and
load with maledictions the being who had brought such misery on us
both." All the strong passions at work in Lucy's bosom, sent their
baleful lustre to her eyes, and poor Grace shrunk from their beams as
if they were withering her very heart. Brought up in the midst of that
gentle and subdued sisterhood, in whose uniform existence the passions
seemed cradled into unbroken slumber, she had almost forgotten their
existence. The terrible dreams of her childhood were brought back to
her. The curses of her father again rung in her ears--the helpless
cries of her mother. She clasped her hands despairingly over her
eyes--she knew she had been poor and wretched; but benevolence and
charity had administered to her wants, and the very remembrance of
poverty had faded from her mind; but disgrace--that there was a
disgrace attached to her that made it sinful in her to love Roland
Gray, that debarred her from an union with the honourable and
good--that was the thought that crushed her, that chilled her blood,
and turned her cheeks to marble and her lips to ashes. Lucy paused,
and attempted to soothe the agony she had excited. Cold herself to the
softer emotions, she had no faith in the eternity of love. Grace, like
a child robbed of its plaything, now wept and refused to be comforted,
but she would soon smile animated by some new-born hope. Thus Lucy
tried to reason, while she held her chill grasp on the heart of Grace,
and bound her still more closely to her will. "Promise me," said she,
"that you will not reveal to any one the conversation of this
morning--Mr. Worthington has deceived you, and you would not meanly
appeal to the compassion of Roland--promise this, and you shall find
in me a friend who will never forsake you in weal or woe. Deny it,
and you will create an enemy whose power can make you tremble." Grace,
with all her woman's pride rising to her relief, at the idea of
appealing to the compassion of Roland, gave the desired promise, and
still more--she voluntarily declared she would rather die than think
of Roland, after what Lucy had just uttered. Lucy, satisfied with her
promise, for she knew her truth, embraced her with commendations which
fell heedlessly on poor Grace's paralyzed ears--she withdrew to her
chamber, "for her whole head was pained and her whole heart sick;" and
when Mr. Worthington and Roland returned, Grace was said to be unable,
from indisposition, to join the circle, where she was wont to preside
an angel of light and joy. The sympathy and sorrow excited by so
common an event, reconciled Lucy more than anything else, to her
selfishness and cruelty. But was she happy in the success of her
operations! She had planted thorns in the bosom of another--but were
there none rankling in her own! Could she, a daughter of this land of
republicanism, shelter herself under the cold shadow of family pride,
from the reproaches of her own conscience? Ah! no! the heart is its
own avenger, and for every drop of sorrow wilfully wrung from the eyes
of another, shall be doomed to give only tears of blood.
Roland wondered at the change that had come over Grace, and sought by
every means to ascertain the cause, but she seemed wrapped in a cloud
of impenetrable reserve. She avoided him, but in so quiet a manner, it
appeared to him more the result of sudden indifference or aversion,
than unexplained resentment. The sunshine of her smile was gone, and
an expression of calm apathy settled on her brow, where the
alternations of feeling had lately flitted, like the lights and
shadows of a moonlight landscape. Roland sometimes had a painful
suspicion of his sister, but she had always been so open in all her
actions, so undisguised in her least amiable traits, that
notwithstanding all the prejudice she had manifested towards Grace, he
believed her incapable of any mean or dark designings. Mr. Worthington
was anxious and alarmed. He was sure some incipient and insidious
disease was the cause of her pale and dispirited appearance. He was
constantly feeling her pulse, and inquiring her symptoms, and
insisting upon calling in a physician, till poor Grace, really glad to
shelter herself from observation, under the pretext held out,
acknowledged herself ill, and passively submitted to a course of
medicine, which reduced her soon to a state of real debility and
suffering. They applied blisters to her forehead to still its hot
throbbings; they drew blood from her veins to reduce her feverish
pulse, and Lucy sat by her bedside and administered to her
unweariedly, and discussed the nature of her malady, and talked of its
different stages; while all the time she knew it was herself who had
coldly and deliberately dried up the fountain of hope and joy, and
love, which had sent such roses to her cheek and sunbeams to her eye.
She sometimes trembled in the darkness of night, at the possibility
that Grace might die, under the regimen of this imaginary disease; and
then a voice whispered in hollow murmurs, in her ears, "Thou shalt
sleep no more, for thou hast murdered sleep." But in day's broad light
a witness to Roland's abstraction, anxiety and gloom, she steeled her
conscience, in reflecting on the necessity of the act. Let not Grace
be condemned, as too weak and yielding, as too blind an instrument in
the hands of another. Her education had been peculiar, and her natural
disposition was extremely sensitive and timid. The first years of her
life had been passed in terror and sorrow--terror for her father's
cruelty, and sorrow for her mother's woe. Everything around her was
tumultuous and fearful, and she learned to shudder at the awful
manifestations of evil passions, before she knew them by name.
Transplanted to a scene, where everything breathed of peace and
silence, where industry, neatness, and order were heaven's first laws,
where the voice of dissension was unheard, and the storms of passion
unfelt, her spirit had been so hushed and subdued, her sensibilities
so repressed, and her energies held down, she moved along her daily
path a piece of beautiful and exquisite mechanism, but whose most
powerful springs had never been touched. It is true she loved the kind
and gentle Shakers, but it was with a tranquil feeling of gratitude
and trust. The visit of Roland Gray acted as an electrical
communication between her and the world to which he belonged. It
seemed to her it must be inhabited by angels; and when Mr. Worthington
came and induced her benefactor to resign her to his care, she
welcomed the change as into the garden of Eden. In the seclusion of a
school, her timidity still induced her to shrink within herself; in
the companionship of Lucy, she felt awe-struck and abashed; but Roland
came, and then she realized the paradise of her imagination.
Everything around her was music and beauty and love--flowers sprang up
in the waste places, water gushed from the rock, and melody filled
the air. To be forbidden to think of him, to be commanded to wrench
him from her heart, to be made to think of herself as a low and
disgraced being--Grace would have shuddered at the idea of impiety,
but when she laid her head on her pillow, willing to be thought sick,
rather than wretched, she certainly wished to die. But the strength of
youth, though prostrated, rebounded from the pressure. She was not
doomed to the _curse of a granted prayer_. The Providence that had so
long watched over her destiny, still kept its unseen but slumbering
vigils. Grace remembered her old friends, the Shakers, and yearned
once more for their still and passionless existence. She prayed Mr.
Worthington to take her there so earnestly, he did not hesitate to
grant her request, believing the journey would invigorate her
constitution and change of scene animate her mind. She spoke not of
remaining, and the wish was so natural and grateful, it could not
excite surprise or censure.
"You see," said Lucy to her brother, the night before Grace's
departure, "the influence of early habits. Perhaps all this time Grace
has been pining after the Shakers. She has been suffering from a kind
of calenture, and when she sees their green plain, and quiet village,
she will be happy." "Impossible!" cried Roland, completely thrown off
his guard by Lucy's sudden insinuation. "She is strange and
unaccountable, but I never will believe anything so preposterous. She,
that sweet, lovely, spiritual creature, to be immured again in their
cold walls, and to wish it, and pine after it! By heavens! Lucy, if I
could believe such a thing, I would go this moment and prevent the
immolation. I will not deceive you; I do not care any longer for pride
and empty sounding names, and birth and parentage. It is ridiculous to
think of such things in this republican country. Grace is equal to the
highest; for she claims her birthright from the Almighty himself, and
carries on her brow the signet of heaven." "Stop, Roland, for heaven's
sake, and hear me." "I will not stop," continued Roland, a spirit of
determination flashing from his eyes she had never seen in them
before; "shall I sacrifice my happiness to a shadow, a bubble? No! I
have hesitated too long; I love Grace; I love her with all my heart
and soul, and I will go this moment and tell her so." He laid his hand
upon the latch, but Lucy sprang forward like lightning, and seized it
in her own. "One moment, Roland, only one moment; I, your only sister,
ask it." Roland saw she was very pale, and he felt her hand tremble
as it grasped him. She was indeed his only sister, whom he had so much
loved, and he felt he had met her prejudices with too much
impetuosity; they might yield, perhaps, to softer measures. "What is
it you would say, Lucy? You asked for one moment, and I have given you
more." "Only promise to wait till her return; that is all I ask; I
spoke in jest; you knew she would not remain; Mr. Worthington will
never leave her. Promise me this, dear Roland, and I will not oppose
my pride to your happiness." Lucy knew that she was uttering a
falsehood, for she herself had confirmed Grace in her resolution to
remain; but she had begun to weave the tangled web of deceit, and she
wound herself deeper and deeper in its folds. All she wanted now was
to gain time, and she then felt she should be safe. Roland promised,
for delay was not sacrifice, and he was surprised and grateful for
Lucy's concession.
"Grace," whispered Lucy, as she embraced and bid her farewell, "you
are acting right; you will find peace and happiness in the path you
seek. Be assured of my friendship and also my gratitude." Grace was
mute, but she gave Lucy a look that might have melted a heart of
stone.
"Grace," said Roland, "come back to us soon." He kept his promise to
his sister, but his voice trembled, his hand lingered as it pressed
hers in parting, and his eyes spoke a language she must have
understood, had not her own been blinded with tears. She met a warm
reception from the friends of her early days. The kind Susan, who had
taken the first charge of her, and acted toward her a mother's part,
opened her arms to receive her, and when she saw her faded colour and
drooping eyes, she felt as the patriarch did when he took in his weary
dove to the ark, for she knew the wanderer brought back no green olive
branch of hope and joy. Susan had once known the gayeties of the
world, and tasted its pleasures, but her heart had been blighted and
her hopes betrayed, and finding all was vanity, to use her own
expressive language she had "taken up her cross and followed her
Saviour." The seal of silence was placed on the history of her heart,
and Grace dreamed not that one of that tranquil tribe had ever known
the tumult of human passions. By some mysterious communion, however,
between soul and soul, Grace felt an assurance of Susan's sympathy,
and clung to her with increased affection. It was long before Mr.
Worthington would consent to leave her behind. "Only a few months,"
pleaded she, "and then I shall be well and strong again; all I need
is quiet." "The child is right," added Susan; "she is weary of the
world, and wants rest. She shall dwell in my tabernacle, and share my
pillow, and I will nourish and cherish her as my own flesh and blood.
She will not be compelled to join our worship, or follow our rites,
for we now look upon her as our guest, our daughter in love, but not
our sister in the spirit of the Lord." Satisfied with this promise,
Mr. Worthington blessed Grace, embraced her, and left her, bidding her
be ready to return when the first leaf of autumn fell. She did not sit
down and brood over the blighted hopes of her youth. She interested
herself in all their neat and regular occupations, assisted them in
gathering the leaves of the medicinal plants, in spreading them on
pieces of pure white linen to dry; in collecting the garden seeds and
shelling them out of their shrunken capsules, with as much readiness
and grace as if she had never learned to touch the keys of the piano,
or to school her steps by the dancing master's rule. Dressed in the
plainest robes the fashions of the world allow, so as not to offend
the austerity of their taste, with no other ornament than her shining
hair, simply parted on her brow, she looked the incarnation of
sweetness and humility; and Susan, seeing her dawning colour, believed
she had found peace. "Thus will I live," thought Grace, "till Roland
marries, and then if my adopted father claims me, I will try to find
happiness in administering to his."
One evening, just as the sun had set, she returned from the garden,
her white apron gathered up before her, full of damask rose leaves,
while exercise and a bending position had given her cheeks a hue, warm
as the twilight's glow, and calling eagerly to Susan, to present her
offering for distillation, she crossed the threshold and stood
before--Roland Gray. Electrified at the sight, she let go her apron,
and the leaves fell in a rosy shower around her. "Grace, dear Grace!"
exclaimed Roland, and both hands were clasped in his own. Now she had
been called dear Grace, and sweet Grace, and pretty Grace, a thousand
times in her life, but never in such a tone, and with such eyes
looking down into her heart. It is easy to imagine why Roland came,
and how eloquently he proved to Grace that he loved her better than
all the world beside, and that he could not, and would not live
without her. For a moment a flood of rapture, deep and overwhelming,
flowed in upon her heart from the conviction that she was thus
beloved; the next, a cold and freezing thought shot through it and
turned the current to ice. Lucy--her threatened curse, her withering
enmity, her own promise of never thinking of Roland, and of never
revealing what had passed between Lucy and herself--all was
remembered, and suddenly withdrawing her hand from his, she turned
away and wept, without the power of self-control.
Roland was amazed. She had met his avowal with such a radiant blush
and smile--such love and joy had just lighted up her modest eye, and
now he witnessed every demonstration of the most passionate grief.
"Oh, no!" she cried, "it never can be--I had forgotten it all; but I
must not listen to you--oh, no!" and she repeated the interjection in
such a plaintive accent, Roland was convinced there was no deception
in her woe. In vain he entreated her for an explanation. She could not
give any consistent with her promise to Lucy; she could only declare
her unworthiness, her poor and perhaps disgraceful origin; and this
only called forth a more impassioned assurance of his disinterested
love, and his disdain of such scruples. He endeavoured to soothe and
caress, till Grace felt her resolution and her truth fast yielding
before his influence. If she could see Lucy, and be released from her
rash promise, all might yet be well. Perhaps Lucy herself, finding her
brother's pride had yielded to his love, would sanction the union.
This idea once admitted, changed despair into hope. "Wait," said she,
"till I return, and then, if the obstacle I fear no longer
exists,"--she paused a moment, and her truth-telling lips constrained
her to utter--"I shall be the happiest of human beings." Roland, now
believing the obstacle to be Lucy, resolved she should not stand any
longer in the way of their happiness, pressed for no further
explanation. He had departed unknown to her, for he dreaded her
violence. When Mr. Worthington returned alone, he dreaded Grace might
sacrifice herself, as Lucy insinuated, and determined to bear her away
ere it was too late. Grace poured into Susan's calm but sympathizing
ear the story of her love and the obstacles that opposed it. Her
single heart was too narrow to contain the fulness of her emotions.
Susan applauded her integrity, but trembled at her idolatry. She
reminded her of the mutability and uncertainty of all earthly things,
and strengthened her in the resolution never to accept the vows of
Roland, with the threatened vengeance of Lucy hanging over her love.
"Oh, she will relent!" cried Grace; "Roland's sister cannot be such a
monster." Had the chastened Susan witnessed her parting with Roland,
she would have read a still more solemn lesson on the sinfulness of
earthly affections; but she only saw the consequent sorrow, which she
was too gentle to reprove.
The leaves of autumn soon fell, and then everything was changed in the
destiny of Grace. Mr. Worthington claimed his child, and when Susan
resigned her, her last words bid her pray for strength to keep her
virtuous resolution.
It would be difficult to describe the passions that struggled for
mastery in Lucy's breast, when she learned from her brother the part
he had acted. Incapable of concealing them at first, and believing she
had lost the affection of Roland, she no longer disguised the
bitterness of her heart. She hated Grace still more, since she was
conscious she had injured her, and when she, appealing in behalf of
Roland's happiness as well as her own, entreated her to free her from
her promise, she turned a deaf ear to the prayer, and claimed the
fulfilment of her word, renewing the same fearful penalty--"Unless,"
she added, with a scornful smile, "you can prove your family equal to
ours, and that your alliance will bring no disgrace."
Strange paradox of the human heart! Had Lucy taken scorpions into her
bosom, she could not have suffered keener pangs than the consciousness
of Roland's alienated affection caused her; yet she refused to bend
her stubborn pride, and wrapped herself up in the sulliness of
self-will, feeling a kind of stern joy that she had made others as
wretched as herself.
* * * * *
Grace was standing in a lighted saloon, leaning on the arm of Mr.
Worthington, and an unwilling partaker of the gay scene. A tall and
majestic-looking man passed the spot where she stood, whose appearance
excited her interest and curiosity, for he was evidently a stranger in
the throng of fashion and wealth, then gathered together. The suns of
warmer climes had darkened his face, and added gloom to features of a
fine and noble expression. As Grace lifted her mild gray eyes his
somewhat stern countenance relaxed, and turning round he gazed
earnestly in her face. Abashed by his scrutiny, she moved into another
part of the room; still the tall stranger followed, with his
melancholy eyes, pursuing her figure. Roland, never far from the
object of his apparently hopeless devotion, now jealous and irritated,
drew to her side. "Oh, Roland," said she, suddenly agitated by a new
emotion, "there is something in that stranger's face, resembling
this!"--and she drew from her bosom the miniature suspended from the
golden chain. There was indeed a resemblance, only the face of the
picture was younger, and the sable locks unbleached. The stranger
observed the motions of Grace, and pressed forward, while the
miniature was still open in her hand. "Pardon me, madam," said he,
earnestly, "I must be pardoned--but allow me to look at that picture."
Grace with trembling fingers unloosed the chain, and gave it into the
stranger's hand. "It was once my mother's," said she, in a faltering
voice, "and her name was Grace Goldman." "_Was_"--said the
stranger--"and yet how could it be otherwise?--she was my sister--my
only sister--and you"--he became too much agitated to finish the
sentence, and entirely forgetting the throng that surrounded them, he
clasped Grace to his bosom, as the living representative of his lost
and lamented sister. Yes! in Mr. Maitland, the rich merchant, just
returned from the East Indies, Grace had found an uncle, which proved
her lineage to be such, that even the proud Lucy must acknowledge to
be equal to her own. His sister, the mother of Grace, had eloped, when
very young, with a handsome but profligate man, and being cast off by
her parents, she was soon doomed to eat the bread of poverty, in
consequence of her husband's excesses. Her brother, as soon as he
learned her situation, offered to support her through life, declaring
his intention never to marry, if she would leave her unprincipled
husband. But she, in the strength of that passion which hopes all,
believes all, and endures all, refused to leave the man she still
loved, and whom she still trusted she might reclaim. Her brother,
finding her wedded to her fate, left her with a purse of gold and his
own miniature as a parting pledge of love, and departed for a foreign
land. Forced to fly from the clamours of his creditors, Goldman
removed his wife from place to place, till she was far out of the
reach of former friends, when, plunging deeper and deeper in the gulf
of inebriation, he left her to die, as we have described, of a broken
heart. For himself, he died a drunkard's death by the wayside, and was
buried by the same humane society that protected his orphan child.
This circumstance had been concealed from Grace, nor did she learn it,
till her subsequent visit to the Shaker village. Mr. Maitland, who had
dwelt long in other lands, accumulating wealth, which his generous
heart longed to share with the friends of his early youth, returned to
mourn over the graves of his parents, and to seek in vain intelligence
of his lost sister, till he saw in the crowd the lovely form of
Grace, such as her ill-fated mother was in the days of her beauty and
youth. Lucy could with sincerity offer her congratulations and welcome
as a sister the niece of Mr. Maitland, though she had scorned the
alliance of the humble Shaker girl. But she felt she was degraded in
her eyes, and this was a punishment to her proud spirit, keener than
the task-master's lash. Mr. Maitland's gratitude to Mr. Worthington
was boundless as it was warm; but he longed to see the kind
Samaritans, who had soothed his sister's dying hours and guarded her
orphan child.