“A SLY, artful, treacherous jade?” articulated Mrs. Sutton,
energetically. “I have no patience with her. And they say she is so
overjoyed at her conquest that she trumpets the engagement everywhere.
Such shameless carrying on I never heard of. If she ever crosses my path
I shall treat her to some wholesome truths.”
“What good would that do, aunt?” asked Mabel Dorrance, without raising
her head from her sewing. “And what has she done that should incense you
or any one else against her? She was free to choose a husband, and we
have no right to cavil at her choice. I hope she will be very happy. I
used to love her--we loved each other very fondly once. There are some
excellent traits in Rosa's character, and when she is once married she
will be less volatile.”
“Don't you believe it. Her flightiness and insincerity are ingrain! I
believed in her once myself--she had such beguiling ways, it was hard
to disapprove of anything she said or did. But I was secretly aware, all
the time, that there was a radical defect in her composition. A woman
who has been engaged, or as good as engaged, to six or eight different
men, cannot retain much purity of mind or strength of affection. I
heard you tell her yourself once that such unscrupulous flirtation and
bandying of hearts were profane touches that rubbed the down from the
peach.”
“That was the extravagant talk of a silly, romantic girl,” replied
Mabel, with a smile that changed to a sigh before the sentence was
finished. “I was somewhat given to lecturing other people, in those
days, upon subjects of which I knew little or nothing. Nine men out
of ten care little how roughly the peach has been rubbed, provided the
flavor is not injured to their taste. It is only once in a great while
that you meet with one whose palate is so nice that he can detect the
difference between fruit that has been hawked through the market and
that just picked from the tree. First love is a myth at which rational
people laugh.”
“Perhaps so,” said Mrs. Sutton dubiously.
In view of the circumstances of Mabel's marriage, she felt that
it behooved her to be circumspect in condemnation of transferred
affections.
“But that does not alter the fact of Rosa Tazewell's infamous behavior
to Alfred Branch and others of her beaux. Isn't the poor fellow drinking
himself into his grave, all through his disappointment? And here she is
going to be as honored a wife as if she had never perjured herself, or
ruined an honest, loving man's prospects for life!”
Mabel went on with her work, and did not reply.
“I have had uncomfortable suspicions about certain passages in her
intercourse with us, since I heard this news,” continued Mrs. Sutton,
edging her chair toward her niece, and dropping her voice. “I am afraid
I can date the beginning of her cruelty to Alfred back to that September
she spent here--to the latter part of it, I mean. Little scenes come to
my memory that caused me trifling uneasiness then. I shall never
forget, for instance, how she eyed you, the morning Winston came home so
unexpectedly.”
And she described the incident recorded in the latter part of our
opening chapter.
“Can it be,” she pursued, “that she had even then designs upon the man
she is about to marry? She knew all the circumstances of the trouble
that ensued, and if disposed to be meddlesome, she had the means at her
command.”
“I told her nothing,” said Mabel briefly.
“But she pumped me pretty effectually,” confessed the aunt shamefacedly.
“I thought there could be no harm in giving her a synopsis of the
case--she being your intimate friend.”
Another gleam of pensive amusement crossed Mabel's face. She knew
too well the nature of her aunt's “synopsis” to doubt that Rosa was
conversant with every phase of the affair, concerning which her own lips
had been so sternly sealed.
“You have nothing with which to reproach yourself,” she said,
tranquilly. “She marries with her eyes open.”
“You don't imagine for one instant that she would be annoyed by any such
scruples as beset you!” cried Mrs. Sutton scoffingly. “Why, the woman
would sooner go to the altar with a handsome, dashing libertine, who had
broken hearts by the dozen, than marry a quiet, honest Christian, who
had never breathed of love to any ears except hers. The aim of her life
is to create or experience a sensation. I don't quite see how she could
have made trouble in that sad affair, but I should like to be positive
that she did not.”
“You may safely acquit her of that sin,” rejoined Mabel. “There was
neither need nor room for her interference. Whatever may have been her
inclination, she was shrewd enough to perceive that the natural course
of events was bringing about the desired end--if it were a desirable one
to her--without her help or hindrance. But, aunt! doesn't it strike
you that this is a very profitless talk, and very uncharitable? It is
a sorry task, this volunteering our assistance to the dead past to bury
its dead. And I, for one, have too much bound up in the future to offer
my service in the painful work. Look! is not this pretty?”
She was embroidering a white merino cloak for an infant, in a pattern
so rich and elaborate, that Mrs. Sutton groaned in commingled admiration
and sympathy as she inspected it.
“You are throwing time and strength away upon this work!” she
expostulated. “I don't know another lady in your circumstances who would
not take her friends' advice, and put out all the sewing you need to
have done. But your eyes and fingers have labored incessantly for six
months upon the finest work you could devise, and you begin to look
like a shadow. I don't wonder Mr. Dorrance seems uneasy sometimes. He
complained this morning that you did not take enough exercise in the
open air.”
“He is not anxious, nor should he be. I am well, and stronger than
you will believe. As to the work, it has been one great delight of
my existence during the period you speak of. I could not endure that
anybody but myself should assist in fashioning the dainty, tiny garments
that make my hope an almost present reality. Every stitch seems to bring
nearer the fulfilment of the dear promise. I only regret that this is
the last of the set. I shall be at a loss for occupation for the next
two months. And I fear from something Herbert said to-day, that he does
not intend for me to return to Albany until the spring fairly opens. Dr.
Williams has been talking to him about my cough.”
“Dr. Williams is a fussy old woman, and Mr. Dorrance”--began Mrs.
Sutton.
Mabel quietly took up the word.
“Mr. Dorrance is ignorant of diseases and medicines, as men usually are
who have not studied these with a view to practise upon themselves or
others. I have said that he is not really uneasy; but he says, and with
truth, that the Northern March and April are raw and cold, and will try
my strength severely. Winston and Clara share in his fears. It is very
kind in them to tender me the hospitalities of their house for so long
a time, but I should feel more at home in my own, during my illness and
convalescence.”
“Why not tell your husband this plainly?”
“Because it might bias his judgment and embarrass his action. I am
willing to do as he thinks best.”
There were not many subjects upon which Mrs. Sutton was irascible, but
she patted the floor with her foot now as if this was one of them--her
discontent finding vent at length in what she regarded as a perfectly
safe query.
“Will he remain with you?”
“He cannot. His business is large and increasing. He can afford but this
one fortnight vacation.”
“How do you expect to get along without him?”
“I expect my dear old aunt to come often and see me,” said Mabel
affectionately, parrying the catechism “Clara suggested, of her own
accord, when the extension of my visit was discussed, that you should be
invited to be with me late in April--and I don't want you to refuse.
Do you understand, and mean to be complaisant? You are all the mother I
have ever known, auntie.”
“My lamb! you need not fear lest I shall not improve every opportunity
of seeing and comforting you. I shall return a civil and grateful reply
to Mrs. Aylett's invitation, for your sake! and for the same reason
try and remember, while I remain her guest, that her right to be and to
reign at Ridgeley is superior to yours or mine.”
The good lady was not to be harshly censured if she now and then, in
private confabulation with her favorite, let fall a remark which was the
reverse of complimentary to her niece-in-law. Mabel's marriage was
the signal for a radical reorganization of the Ridgeley domestic
establishment, by which Mrs. Sutton was reduced from the busy,
responsible situation of housekeeper to the unenviable one of unnoticed
and unconsulted supernumerary.
“Not that I wish you to desert your old quarters, still less to feel
like a stranger with us,” said Mrs. Aylett graciously, while she
affixed shining brass labels to the keys of closets, sideboards, and
store-rooms--the keys Aunt Rachel could distinguish from one another,
and all others in the world, in the darkest night, without any labels
whatever; which had grown smooth and bright by many years' friction of
her nimble fingers. “But Mr. Aylett wishes me to assume the real, as
well as nominal, government of the establishment”--Mrs. Aylett was fond
of the polysyllable as conveying better than any other term she could
employ the grandeur of her position as Baroness of Ridgeley. “He insists
that the servants are growing worthless and refractory under the rule of
so many. Hereafter--this is his law, not mine--hereafter, those attached
to the house department are to come to me about their orders, and the
plantation workmen to him. I shall undoubtedly have much trouble in
curing the satellites appointed to me of their irregular habits, and
reducing them to something resembling system; but Winston's extreme
dissatisfaction with the anarchy that prevailed under the ancien regime
moves me to the undertaking.”
“They have always--for generations back, I may say--been called
excellent servants; faithful in the discharge of their duties, and
attached to their owners,” returned Mrs. Sutton tremulously. “And since
I have been in charge--ever since my dear sister's death, I have done
my best with them, as with everything else committed by my nephew to my
care. But of course I have nothing to urge against your plan. If I can
help you in any way”---
“Thank you! You are extremely kind, my dear madam,” honeyedly. “But
I should be ashamed and sorry to be compelled to call upon you for
assistance in performing what you have done so easily and successfully
for fifteen years. I must learn confidence in my own powers, if I would
be respected by underlings. They would be quick to detect the power
behind the throne; let me hold counsel with you ever so secretly, and my
authority would be weakened by the discovery. I have not the vanity to
believe that my maiden attempt at housewifery will be attended by the
distinction that has crowned yours, but practice will perfect in this,
as in other labors. And my dear Mrs. Sutton, Mr. Aylett bids me say, in
his name, as it gives me pleasure to do in my own, that although your
occupation is gone, you are ever welcome to a home at Ridgeley, free of
all expense. It is our hope that you may still content yourself here,
even if Mabel has gone from the nest. I suppose, however, nothing will
satisfy her, when she goes to housekeeping, but having you with her as
a permanent institution. My brother intimated as much to me before his
marriage.”
Declining with mild hauteur, that gave great, but secret amusement to
her would-be benefactress, the handsome offer of a free asylum, Mrs.
Sutton went to live with a cousin of her late husband's, whose snug
plantation was situated about twelve miles from the Aylett place, and
in the neighborhood of the Tazewells. It was a pleasant, but not a
permanent arrangement, she gave out to her numerous friends, any of whom
would have accounted themselves favored by an acceptance of a home for
life in their families.
“Ridgeley was changed and lonely since Mabel's departure, and her own
habits were too active to be conformed to those of so small a household.
Indeed, there was nothing for her to do there any longer, so she was
glad to avail herself of Mrs. William Sutton's invitation to stay a
while with her. The children made the house so lively. In the fall,
the house Mr. Dorrance was having built for his Southern bride would be
ready for them, and Mabel's claim upon her aunt's society and services
must take precedence of all others.”
The fall came, and Mabel wrote detailed descriptions of the beautiful
home Herbert had prepared for her; wrote, moreover, with more feeling
and animation, of the new and precious hopes of happiness held out to
her loving heart in the prospect of what the spring would give into her
arms, but said nothing of her aunt's coming to her for the winter, or
for an indefinite period, the bounds of which were to be set only by
her beloved relative's wishes. The omission was trying enough to
the foster-mother's heart and patience, even while she believed the
knowledge of it to be confined to herself. She could still hold up her
head bravely among her kindred and acquaintances, and talk of the “dear
child's” good fortune and contentment with it; how popular and beloved
she was among them, and what an elegant house her generous husband had
bestowed upon her; could still hint at the instability of her own plans,
and the possibility that she might, at any day or hour, determine to
leave her native State and follow her “daughter” into what the latter
represented was not an unpleasant exile.
An end was put to this innocent deception--for, if any deception can
be termed innocent, it is surely that by which he who practises it
is himself beguiled--the blameless guile was then arrested by a story
repeated to her by her indignant hosts, as having emanated directly
from Mrs. Aylett. She had given expression, publicly, at a large
dinner-party, to her amazement and pity at the self-delusion under which
“poor, dear Mrs. Sutton” labored, in expecting to take up her residence
with Mr. and Mrs. Dorrance.
“My brother laments her hallucination as much, if not more than his wife
does,” she said, in her best modulations of creamy compassion. “But,
indeed, my dear Mrs. Branch, they are not accountable for it. Not a
syllable has ever escaped either of them which a reasonable person
could construe into a request that she should become an inmate of their
household. So careful have they been to avoid exciting her expectations
in this regard, that they have refrained from extending to her an
invitation for even a month. Those who are most familiar with the poor
lady's peculiarities do not require to be told how ill-advised would be
the arrangement she desires. Mabel is a thoroughly sensible woman,
and too devoted a wife to advocate anything so injudicious, while her
husband is naturally jealous for her dignity and the inviolability of
her authority in her own house. Mrs. Sutton left Ridgeley in opposition
to our earnest entreaties that she would spend the evening of her days
with us. I was assured then, as I am now, that she would receive
the same love and respect nowhere else. But she could not brook the
semblance of interference with her rule where she had reigned so long
and irresponsibly. And while we may deplore, we can hardly find fault
with this weakness. It must have been a trial--and not an ordinary
one--to be obliged, at her age, to resign the sceptre she had swayed for
upward of fifteen years.”
“'Their words are smoother than oil, but in their mouths is a drawn
sword,'” quoted Mrs. Sutton, in meek protest against the sugared malice
of this slander when it was told to her. “This is none of Mabel's
doings. She loves me dearly as ever, but one might as well hope to move
the Blue Ridge as to teach that pragmatical husband of hers to consult
her wishes and her good, before he does his own. His head is hard as a
flint, and his heart--never mind! Heaven forgive me if I am unjust to
him! I should be thankful that he does not really mean to misuse my
darling. Now, my dears, you see how undesirable an inmate of any house I
am rated to be. If you wish to retract your offer of a hiding-place for
my old head, I shall not take it amiss. Thanks to Providence and my
dear Frederic I have enough, to maintain me decently anywhere in this
country. I shall never be chargeable to anybody for my food, victuals,
and lodgings. If you are willing to let me board here and do odd
stitches for the children when they tear their aprons and rub out
the knees of their trowsers--just to keep me out of mischief, you
understand!--I promise to be as little officious in housewifely concerns
as it is in my nature to be.”
William Sutton and his wife--a woman who was both sagacious and
amiable--reiterated their assurances that she could not confer a greater
boon upon them than by remaining where she was, and with them she had
stayed until Mr. Aylett sent over the Ridgeley carriage, one day in
the third week in February, with a note from Mabel, begging her aunt to
present herself, without needless delay, at the homestead, since she was
not reckoned sufficiently strong to attempt the uneven and muddy roads
that still separated them. Mrs. Aylett also dispatched a billet by the
coachman, the graceful burden of which was the same as that of Mabel's
petition, and the two long-sundered friends were speedily together;
fellow-partakers of a bountiful and painstaking hospitality, which kept
them continually in mind that they were guests, and not at home.
The dialogue relative to Rosa Tazewell's matrimonial project took place
on the third day of Mrs. Sutton's visit, in Mabel's chamber, and when
the former, having talked off the topmost bubbles of her righteous
wrath, recollected several very important letters--business and
friendly--she ought to have written a week ago, and trotted off to her
room where she could perform the neglected duty without visible
and outward temptation to that she was more fond of doing--to wit,
talking--the young wife continued to work steadily, and with apparent
composure. It was not a bright face on which the light from the western
windows fell, yet it was not unhappy. She had never pretended to herself
that her marriage was a step toward happiness, but she had believed
that it would secure to her a larger share of peace, immunity from
disturbance, and independence of thought and action, than fell to her
lot in her brother's house, and for these negative benefits she longed
wearily.
Mr. Aylett was not wantonly or openly unkind to his ward, and ungenerous
persecution was utterly incompatible with the temper and habits of his
lady wife, but between them they had contrived to make the girl's life
very miserable. It was Winston's cue--adopted, let us hope, from the
strict sense of duty he avowed had ever actuated him in his treatment
of the charge bequeathed him by his father--to deport himself with calm,
seldom-relaxed severity to one who had showed herself to be entirely
unworthy of confidence; to exercise unremitting surveillance upon
her personal association with young people out of the family and her
correspondence, and to curb by look and oral reproof the most distant
approach to what he condemned as indiscreet levity. In a thousand
ways--many of them ingenious, and all severe, she was made to feel the
curtailment of her liberty, and given to understand that it was the just
retribution of her unlucky love-affair with an unprincipled adventurer.
Mrs. Aylett professed to discountenance this policy--to be Mabel's
secret friend and ally, while she deemed it unwise to combat her
husband's will by overt measures for his sister's protection.
Thus, for a year, the object of his real displeasure and her affected
commiseration lived under a cloud, too proud to complain of her
thraldom, but feeling it every second; mourning, in the seclusion of
the trebly barred chambers of her heart, over her shattered idol and
squandered affections, and fancying, in the morbid distrust engendered
by the discovery of her lover's baseness, and the weight of her
brother's unsparing reprobation of her insane imprudence, that she
descried in every face, save Aunt Rachel's, contempt or rebuke for the
faux pas that had so nearly cast a stigma upon her name and lineage.
In Herbert Dorrance's honest admiration and assiduous courtship the
most suspicious scrutiny could detect no tincture of either of these
feelings, and it was not long before she took refuge in his society from
the risk of being wounded and angered by the supposed exhibition of them
in others. Here was one man who could not but know of her folly, in
all its length, breadth, and depth, who was a witness of her daily
chastisement for it at her guardian's hands, yet who esteemed her
unsullied by the unworthy attachment, undegraded by punishment.
Gratitude had a powerful auxiliary in her feverish longing to escape
from scenes that kept alive to the quick, memories she would have
annihilated, had her ability been commensurate with her will. All other
associations with the house in which she, and her father before her, had
been born, and in which she had passed her childhood and girlish days,
were overrun by the thickly thronging and pertinacious recollections
of the two short weeks Frederic Chilton had spent there with her. He
haunted her walks and drives; trod, by her side, the resounding floor of
the vine-covered portico, sat with her in parlor and halls; sang to her
accompaniment when she would have exorcised the phantom by music--was
always, whenever and wherever he appeared--the tender, ingenuous, manly
youth she had loved and reverenced as the impersonation of her ideal
lord; the demi-god whom she had worshipped, heart and soul--set, in
her exulting imagination no lower than the angels, and beheld in the
end,--with besmirched brow and debased mien, a disgraced sensualist,
not merely a deceiver of another woman's innocent confidence, and her
tempter to dishonor and wretchedness, but a poltroon--a whipped coward
who had not dared to lift voice or pen in denial or extenuation of his
crime.
The law of reaction is of more nearly universal application in moral and
in physical science than men are willing to believe. We have seen how
cunningly Rosa calculated upon it, and wiser people than she, every day,
attribute the most momentous actions of their lives to its influence.
“My advice to every woman is to marry for GOODNESS--simple integrity of
word and deed!” said a lady, once in my hearing.
She was an excellent scholar, attractive in person and in manner,
gifted in conversation and opulent in purse. Her hand had been sought
in marriage by more than one, and in early womanhood she had made choice
among her suitors of a man whose plausible exterior was the screen of a
black heart and infamous life. Convinced of her mistake barely in time
to escape copartnership in his stained name and ruined fortunes, she set
up the history of her deadly peril as a beacon to others as ardent
and unwary as her old-time self. Either to put a double point upon the
moral, or to insure herself against similar mishap in the future, she
wedded an amiable and correct fool, a mere incidental in the work of
human creation, who was as incapable of making his mark upon the age
that produced him as an angle-worm is of lettering solid granite.
Mabel's husband was not a simpleton, or characterless; but if he had
been, his prospects of success would not have been materially damaged
by her knowledge of his deficiencies. A union with him was a safe
investment, and must be several degrees more supportable than was her
position at Ridgeley, banned by its owner and patronized by his wife. I
neither excuse nor blame her for thus deciding and transacting. Should
I censure, a majority of my readers--nearly all of the masculine
portion--would pick holes in my unpractical philosophy, scout my
reasoning as illogical, brand my conclusions as pernicious--winding up
their protest with the sigh of the mazed disciples, when stunned by the
great Teacher's deliverance upon the subject of divorce, “If the case of
the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry!”
Which dogma I likewise decline to dispute--falling back thankfully upon
the blessed stronghold of unambitious story-tellers--namely, that my
vocation is to describe what IS--not make fancy-sketches of millennial
days, when rectitude shall be the best, because most remunerative
policy; when sincerity shall be wisdom--proven and indisputable, and
consistency the rule of human faith and practice the world over, instead
of being, as it now is, one of the lost (or never invented) fine arts.