This period of tranquillity was short. Poverty hovered at their
threshold, and in a state precarious as theirs could not be long
excluded. The lady was more accustomed to anticipate good than evil, but
she was not unconscious that the winter, which was hastening, would
bring with it numerous inconveniences. Wants during that season are
multiplied, while the means of supplying them either fail or are
diminished. Fuel is alone a cause of expense equal to all other articles
of subsistence. Her dwelling was old, crazy, and full of avenues to air.
It was evident that neither fire nor clothing would, in an habitation
like that, attemper the chilling blasts. Her scanty gains were equal to
their needs during summer, but would probably fall short during the
prevalence of cold.
These reflections could not fail sometimes to intrude. She indulged them
as long as they served, merely to suggest expedients and provisions for
the future, but laboured to call away her attention when they merely
produced anxiety. This she more easily effected, as some months of
summer were still to come, and her knowledge of the vicissitudes to
which human life is subject taught her to rely upon the occurrence of
some fortunate though unforeseen event.
Accident suggested an expedient of this kind. Passing through an alley
in the upper part of the town, her eye was caught by a label on the door
of a small house, signifying that it was to be let. It was smaller than
that she at present occupied, but it had an aspect of much greater
comfort and neatness. Its situation near the centre of the city, in a
quiet, cleanly, and well paved alley, was far preferable to that of her
present habitation in the suburbs, scarcely accessible in winter for
pools and gullies, and in a neighbourhood abounding with indigence and
profligacy. She likewise considered that the rent of this might be less,
and that the proprietor of this might have more forbearance and
benignity than she had hitherto met with.
Unconversant as she was with the world, imbued with the timidity of her
sex and her youth, many enterprises were arduous to her, which would, to
age and experience, have been easy. Her reluctances, however, when
required by necessity, were overcome, and all the measures which her
situation prescribed executed with address and dispatch. One, marking
her deportment, would have perceived nothing but dignity and courage. He
would have regarded these as the fruits of habitual independence and
exertion, whereas they were merely the results of clear perceptions and
inflexible resolves.
The proprietor of this mansion was immediately sought out, and a
bargain, favourable as she could reasonably desire, concluded.
Possession was to be taken in a week. For this end, carters and draymen
were to be engaged, household implements to be prepared for removal, and
negligence and knavery prevented by scrupulous attention. The duties of
superintendence and execution devolved upon her. Her father's blindness
rendered him powerless. His personal ease required no small portion of
care. Household and professional functions were not to be omitted. She
stood alone in the world; there was none whose services or counsel she
could claim. Tortured by a multiplicity of cares, shrinking from
exposure to rude eyes, and from contention with refractory and insolent
spirits, and overpowered with fatigue and disgust, she was yet compelled
to retain a cheerful tone in her father's presence, and to struggle
with his regrets and his peevishness.
O, my friend, methinks I now see thee encountering the sneers and
obstinacy of the meanest of mankind, subjecting that frame of thine, so
exquisitely delicate, and therefore so feeble, to the vilest drudgery. I
see thee leading thy unhappy father to his new dwelling, and stifling
the sighs produced by his fruitless repinings and unseasonable scruples.
Why was I not partaker of thy cares and labours? Why was I severed from
thee by the ocean, and kept in ignorance of thy state? I was not without
motives to anxiety, for I was friendless as thou, but how unlike to
thine was my condition! I reposed upon down and tissue, never moved but
with obsequious attendance and pompous equipage; painting and music were
consolations ever at hand, and my cabinet was stored with poetry and
science. These, indeed, were insufficient to exclude care; and with
regard to the past I have no wish but that I had shared with my friend
her toilsome and humiliating lot. However an erroneous world might
judge, thy life was full of dignity, and thy moments of happiness not
few, since happiness is only attendant on the performance of our duty.
A toilsome and sultry week was terminated by a Sabbath of repose. Her
new dwelling possessed indisputable advantages over her old. Not the
least of these benefits consisted in the vicinity of people, peaceable
and honest, though poor. She was no longer shocked by the clamours of
debauchery, and exposed, by her situation, to the danger of being
mistaken by the profligate of either sex for one of their own class. It
was reasonable to consider this change of abode as fortunate, and yet
circumstances quickly occurred which suggested a very different
conclusion.
She had no intercourse, which necessity did not prescribe, with the
rest of the world. She screened herself as much as possible from
intercourse with prying and loquacious neighbours. Her father's
inclinations in this respect coincided with her own, though their love
of seclusion was prompted by different motives. Visitants were hated by
the father, because his dignity was hurt by communication with the
vulgar. The daughter set too much value upon time willingly to waste it
upon trifles and triflers. She had no pride to subdue, and therefore
never escaped from well-meant importunity at the expense of politeness
and good humour. In her moments of leisure she betook herself to the
poet and the moralist for relief.
She could not at all times suppress the consciousness of the evils which
surrounded and threatened her; she could not but rightly estimate the
absorbing and brutifying nature of that toil to which she was condemned.
Literature had hitherto been regarded as her solace. She knew that
meditation and converse, as well as books and the pen, are instruments
of knowledge, but her musing thoughts were too often fixed upon her own
condition. Her father's soaring moods and luminous intervals grew less
frequent. Conversation was too rarely abstracted from personal
considerations, and strayed less often than before into the wilds of
fancy or the mazes of analysis.
These circumstances led her to reflect whether subsistence might not be
obtained by occupations purely intellectual. Instruction was needed by
the young of both sexes. Females frequently performed the office of
teachers. Was there no branch of her present knowledge which she might
claim wages for imparting to others? Was there no art within her reach
to acquire, convertible into means of gain? Women are generally limited
to what is sensual and ornamental: music and painting, and the Italian
and French languages, are bounds which they seldom pass. In these
pursuits it is not possible--nor is it expected--that they should arrive
at the skill of adepts. The education of Constantia had been regulated
by the peculiar views of her father, who sought to make her, not
alluring and voluptuous, but eloquent and wise. He therefore limited her
studies to Latin and English. Instead of familiarizing her with the
amorous effusions of Petrarcha and Racine, he made her thoroughly
conversant with Tacitus and Milton. Instead of making her a practical
musician or pencilist, he conducted her to the school of Newton and
Hartley, unveiled to her the mathematical properties of light and sound,
taught her as a metaphysician and anatomist the structure and power of
the senses, and discussed with her the principles and progress of human
society.
These accomplishments tended to render her superior to the rest of
women but in no degree qualified her for the post of a female
instructor: she saw and lamented her deficiencies, and gradually formed
the resolution of supplying them. Her knowledge of the Latin tongue and
of grammatical principles rendered easy the acquisition of Italian and
French, these being merely Scions from the Roman stock.
Having had occasion, previous to her change of dwelling, to purchase
paper at a bookseller's, the man had offered her at a very low price a
second-hand copy of Veneroni's grammar: the offer had been declined, her
views at that time being otherwise directed. Now, however, this incident
was remembered, and a resolution instantly formed to purchase the book.
As soon as the light declined, and her daily task at the needle had
drawn to a close, she set out to execute this purpose. Arriving at the
house of the bookseller, she perceived that the doors and windows were
closed. Night having not yet arrived, the conjecture easily occurred
that some one had died in the house. She had always dealt with this man
for books and paper, and had always been treated with civility. Her
heart readily admitted some sympathy with his distress, and to remove
her doubts she turned to a person who stood at the entrance of the next
house, and who held a cloth steeped in vinegar to his nostrils. In
reply to her question the stranger said in a tone of the deepest
consternation--Mr. Watson do you mean? He is dead: he died last night of
the _yellow fever_.
The name of this disease was not absolutely new to her ears. She had
been apprized of its rapid and destructive progress in one quarter of
the city, but hitherto it had existed, with regard to her, chiefly in
the form of rumour. She had not realized the nature or probable extent
of the evil. She lived at no great distance from the seat of the malady,
but her neighbourhood had been hitherto exempt. So wholly unused was
she to contemplate pestilence, except at a distance, that its actual
existence in the bosom of this city was incredible.
Contagious diseases she well knew periodically visited and laid waste
the Greek and Egyptian cities. It constituted no small part of that mass
of evil, political and physical, by which that portion of the world has
been so long afflicted. That a pest equally malignant had assailed the
metropolis of her own country--a town famous for the salubrity of its
air and the perfection of its police--had something in it so wild and
uncouth that she could not reconcile herself to the possibility of such
an event.
The death of Watson, however, filled her mind with awful reflections.
The purpose of her walk was forgotten amidst more momentous
considerations. She bent her steps pensively homeward. She had now
leisure to remark the symptoms of terror with which all ranks appeared
to have been seized. The streets were as much frequented as ever, but
there were few passengers whose countenances did not betray alarm, and
who did not employ the imaginary antidote to infection--vinegar.
Having reached home, she quickly discovered in her father an unusual
solemnity and thoughtfulness. He had no power to conceal his emotions
from his daughter, when her efforts to discover them were earnestly
exerted. She learned that during her absence he had been visited by his
next neighbour--a thrifty, sober, and well meaning, but ignorant and
meddling person, by name Whiston. This person, being equally inquisitive
into other men's affairs, and communicative of his own, was always an
unwelcome visitant. On this occasion he had come to disburden on Mr.
Dudley his fears of disease and death. His tale of the origin and
progress of the epidemic, of the number and suddenness of recent deaths,
was delivered with endless prolixity. With this account he mingled
prognostics of the future, counselled Mr. Dudley to fly from the scene
of danger, and stated his own schemes and resolutions. After having
thoroughly affrighted and wearied his companion he took his leave.
Constantia endeavoured to remove the impression which had been thus
needlessly made. She urged her doubts as to the truth of Whiston's
representations, and endeavoured, in various ways, to extenuate the
danger.
"Nay, my child," said her father, "thou needest not reason on the
subject; I am not afraid; at least, on my own account, I fear nothing.
What is life to me that I should dread to lose it? If on any account I
should tremble it is on thine, my angelic girl. Thou dost not deserve
thus early to perish: and yet if my love for thee were rational, perhaps
I ought to wish it. An evil destiny will pursue thee to the close of thy
life, be it ever so long.
"I know that ignorance and folly breed the phantoms by which themselves
are perplexed and terrified, and that Whiston is a fool; but here the
truth is too plain to be disguised. This malady is pestilential. Havock
and despair will accompany its progress, and its progress will be rapid.
The tragedies of Marseilles and Messina will be reacted on this stage.
"For a time we in this quarter shall be exempt, but it will surely reach
us at last; and then, whither shall we fly? For the rich, the whole
world is a safe asylum, but for us, indigent and wretched, what fate is
reserved but to stay and perish? If the disease spare us, we must perish
by neglect and famine. Alarm will be far and wide diffused. Fear will
hinder those who supply the market from entering the city. The price of
food will become exorbitant. Our present source of subsistence,
ignominious and scanty as it is, will be cut off. Traffic and labour of
every kind will be at an end. We shall die, but not until we have
witnessed and endured horrors that surpass thy powers of conception.
"I know full well the enormity of this evil. I have been at Messina, and
talked with many who witnessed the state of that city in 1743. I will
not freeze thy blood with the recital. Anticipation has a tendency to
lessen or prevent some evils, but pestilence is not of that number.
Strange untowardness of destiny! That thou and I should be cast upon a
scene like this!"
Mr. Dudley joined with uncommon powers of discernment a species of
perverseness not easily accounted for. He acted as if the inevitable
evils of her lot were not sufficient for the trial of his daughter's
patience. Instead of comforter and counsellor he fostered impatience in
himself, and endeavoured, with the utmost diligence, to undermine her
fortitude and disconcert her schemes. The task was assigned to her, not
only of subduing her own fears, but of maintaining the contest with his
disastrous eloquence. In most cases she had not failed of success.
Hitherto their causes of anxiety her own observation had, in some
degree, enabled her to estimate at their just value. The rueful pictures
which his imagination was wont to portray affected her for a moment; but
deliberate scrutiny commonly enabled her to detect and demonstrate their
fallacy. Now, however, the theme was new. Panic and foreboding found
their way to her heart in defiance of her struggles. She had no
experience by which to counteract this impulse. All that remained was to
beguile her own and her father's cares by counterfeiting cheerfulness,
and introducing new topics.
This panic, stifled for a time, renewed its sway when she retired to her
chamber. Never did futurity wear, to her fancy, so dark a hue: never did
her condition appear to her in a light so dreary and forlorn. To fly
from the danger was impossible. How should accommodation at a distance
be procured? The means of subsistence were indissolubly connected with
her present residence, but the progress of this disease would cut off
these means, and leave her to be beset not only with pestilence but
famine. What provision could she make against an evil like this?