------------------------------------------------------------------------
Transcriber’s Note:
This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical effects.
Italics are delimited with the ‘_’ character as _italic_.
Footnotes have been moved to follow the paragraphs in which they are
referenced.
Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please
see the transcriber’s note at the end of this text for details regarding
the handling of any textual issues encountered during its preparation.
PECULIAR
_A Tale of the Great Transition_
BY EPES SARGENT
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
CARLETON, PUBLISHER, 413 BROADWAY
M DCCC LXIV
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by
EPES SARGENT,
in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of
Massachusetts.
UNIVERSITY PRESS:
WELCH, BIGELOW, AND COMPANY,
CAMBRIDGE.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. A GLANCE IN THE MIRROR 1
II. A MATRIMONIAL BLANK 6
III. THE WOLF AND THE LAMB 12
IV. A FUGITIVE CHATTEL 19
V. A RETROSPECT 28
VI. PIN-HOLES IN THE CURTAIN 34
VII. AN UNCONSCIOUS HEIRESS 46
VIII. A DESCENDANT OF THE CAVALIERS 57
IX. THE UPPER AND THE LOWER LAW 69
X. GROUPS ON THE DECK 81
XI. MR. ONSLOW SPEAKS HIS MIND 97
XII. THE STORY OF ESTELLE 105
XIII. FIRE UP! 148
XIV. WAITING FOR THE SUMMONER 151
XV. WHO SHALL BE HEIR? 158
XVI. THE VENDUE 165
XVII. SHALL THERE BE A WEDDING? 178
XVIII. THE UNITIES DISREGARDED 183
XIX. THE WHITE SLAVE 187
XX. ENCOUNTERS AT THE ST. CHARLES 200
XXI. A MONSTER OF INGRATITUDE 219
XXII. THE YOUNG LADY WITH A CARPET-BAG 224
XXIII. WILL YOU WALK INTO MY PARLOR? 233
XXIV. CONFESSIONS OF A MEAN WHITE 240
XXV. MEETINGS AND PARTINGS 251
XXVI. CLARA MAKES AN IMPORTANT PURCHASE 257
XXVII. DELIGHT AND DUTY 264
XXVIII. A LETTER OF BUSINESS 274
XXIX. THE WOMAN WHO DELIBERATES IS LOST 279
XXX. A FEMININE VAN AMBURGH 290
XXXI. ONE OF THE INSTITUTIONS 300
XXXII. A DOUBLE VICTORY 305
XXXIII. SATAN AMUSES HIMSELF 314
XXXIV. LIGHT FROM THE PIT 327
XXXV. THE COMMITTEE ADJOURNS 335
XXXVI. THE OCCUPANT OF THE WHITE HOUSE 349
XXXVII. COMPARING NOTES 359
XXXVIII. THE LAWYER AND THE LADY 372
XXXIX. SEEING IS BELIEVING 382
XL. THE REMARKABLE MAN AT RICHMOND 392
XLI. HOPES AND FEARS 397
XLII. HOW IT WAS DONE 430
XLIII. MAKING THE BEST OF IT 442
XLIV. A DOMESTIC RECONNAISSANCE 455
XLV. ANOTHER DESCENDANT OF THE CAVALIERS 464
XLVI. THE NIGHT COMETH 471
XLVII. AN AUTUMNAL VISIT 480
XLVIII. TIME DISCOVERS AND COVERS 489
XLIX. EYES TO THE BLIND 493
PECULIAR.
CHAPTER I.
A GLANCE IN THE MIRROR.
“Wed not for wealth, Emily, without love,—’tis gaudy slavery; nor for
love without competence,—’tis twofold misery.”—_Colman’s Poor
Gentleman._
It is a small and somewhat faded room in an unpretending brick house in
one of the streets that intersect Broadway, somewhere between Canal
Street and the Park. A woman sits at a writing-table, with the fingers
of her left hand thrust through her hair and supporting her forehead,
while in her right hand she holds a pen with which she listlessly draws
figures, crosses, circles and triangles, faces and trees, on the
blotting-paper that partly covers a letter which she has been inditing.
A window near by is open at the top. March, having come in like a lion,
is going out like a lamb. A canary-bird, intoxicated with the ambrosial
breath and subduing sunshine of the first mild day of spring, is pouring
forth such a _Te Deum laudamus_ as Mozart himself would have despaired
of rivalling. Yesterday’s rain-storm purified the atmosphere, swept
clean the streets, and deodorized the open gutters, that in warm weather
poison with their effluvium the air of the great American metropolis.
On the wall, in front of the lady at the table, hangs a mirror. Look,
now, and you will catch in it the reflection of her face. Forty? Not far
from it. Perhaps four or five years on the sunny side. Fair? Many
persons would call her still beautiful. The features, though somewhat
thin, show their fine Grecian outline. The hair is of a rich flaxen, the
eyes blue and mild, the mouth delicately drawn, showing Cupid’s bow in
the curve of the upper lip, and disclosing, not too ostentatiously, the
whitest teeth.
Her dress is significant of past rather than present familiarity with a
fashionable wardrobe. If she ever wore jewels, she has parted with all
of them, for there is not even a plain gold ring on her forefinger. Her
robe is a simple brown cashmere, not so distended by crinoline as to
disguise her natural figure, which is erect, of the average height, and
harmoniously rounded. We detect this the better as she rises, looks a
moment sorrowfully in the glass, and sighs to herself, “Fading! fading!”
There is a gentle knock at the door, and to her “Come in,” an old black
man enters.
“Good morning, Toussaint,” says the lady; “what have you there?”
“Only a few grapes for Madame. They are Black Hamburgs, and very sweet.
I hope Madame will relish them. They will do her good. Will she try some
of them now?”
“They are excellent, Toussaint. And what a beautiful basket you have
brought them in! You must have paid high for all this fruit, so early in
the season. Indeed, you must not run into such extravagances on my
account.”
“Does Madame find her cough any better?”
“Thank you, Toussaint, I do not notice much change in it as yet. Perhaps
a few more mild days like this will benefit me. How is Juliette?”
“_Passablement bien._ Pretty well. May I ask—ahem! Madame will excuse
the question—but does her husband treat her with any more consideration
now that she is ill?”
“My good Toussaint, I grieve to say that Mr. Charlton is not so much
softened as irritated by my illness. It threatens to be expensive, you
see.”
“Ah! but that is sad,—sad! I wish Madame were in my house. Such care as
Juliette and I would take of her! You look so much like your mother,
Madame! I knew her before her first marriage. I dressed her hair the day
of her wedding. People used to call her proud. But she was always kind
to me,—very kind. And you look like her so much! As I grow old I think
all the more of my old and early friends,—the first I had when I came to
New York from St. Domingo. Most of them are dead, but I find out their
children if I can; and if they are sick I amuse myself by carrying them
a few grapes or flowers. They are very good to indulge me by accepting
such trifles.”
“Toussaint, the goodness is all on your side. These grapes are no
trifle, and you ought to know it. I thank you for them heartily. Let me
give you back the basket.”
“No, please don’t. Keep it. Good morning, Madame! Be cheerful. _Le bon
temps reviendra._ All shall be well. _Bon jour! Au revoir_, Madame!”
He hurries out of the room, but instantly returns, and, taking a leaf of
fresh lettuce out of his pocket, reaches up on tiptoe and puts it
between the bars of the bird-cage. “I was nigh forgetting the lettuce
for the bird,” says he. “Madame will excuse my _gaucherie_.” And, bowing
low, he again disappears.
The story of Emily Bute Charlton may be briefly told. Her mother, Mrs.
Danby, was descended from that John Bradshaw who was president of the
court which tried Charles the First, and who opposed a spirited
resistance to the usurpation of Cromwell in dissolving the Parliament.
Mrs. Danby was proud of her family tree. In her twentieth year she was
left a widow, beautiful, ambitious, and poor, with one child, a
daughter, who afterwards had in Emily a half-sister. This first daughter
had been educated carefully, but she had hardly reached her seventeenth
year when she accepted the addresses of a poor man, some fifteen years
her senior, of the name of Berwick. The mother, with characteristic
energy, opposed the match, but it was of no use. The daughter was
incurably in love; she married, and the mother cast her off.
Time brought about its revenges. Mr. Berwick had inherited ten acres of
land on the island of Manhattan. He tried to sell it, but was so
fortunate as to find nobody to buy. So he held on to the land, and by
hard scratching managed to pay the taxes on it. In ten years the city
had crept up so near to his dirty acres that he sold half of them for a
hundred thousand dollars, and became all at once a rich man. Meanwhile
his wife’s mother, Mrs. Danby, after remaining fourteen years a widow,
showed the inconsistency of her opposition to her daughter’s marriage by
herself making an imprudent match. She married a Mr. Bute, poor and
inefficient, but belonging to “one of the first families.” By this
husband she had one daughter, Emily, the lady at whose reflection in the
mirror we have just been looking.
Emily Bute, like her half-sister, Mrs. Berwick, who was many years her
senior, inherited beauty, and was quite a belle in her little sphere in
Philadelphia, where her family resided. Her mother, who had repelled
Berwick as a son-in-law in his adversity, was too proud to try to
propitiate him in his prosperity. She concealed her poverty as well as
she could from her daughter, Mrs. Berwick, and the latter had often to
resort to stratagem in order to send assistance to the family. At last
the proud mother died; and six months afterwards her firstborn daughter,
Mrs. Berwick, died, leaving one child, a son, Henry Berwick.
Years glided on, and Mr. Bute had hard work to keep the wolf from the
door. He was one of those persons whose efforts in life are continual
failures, from the fact that they cannot adapt themselves to
circumstances,—cannot persevere during the day of small things till
their occupation, by gradual development, becomes profitable. He would
tire of an employment the moment its harvest of gold seemed remote.
Forever sanguine and forever unsuccessful, he at last found himself
reduced, with his daughter, to a mode of life that bordered on the
shabby.
In this state of things, Mr. Berwick, like a timely angel, reappeared,
rich, and bearing help. He was charmed with Emily, as he had formerly
been with her half-sister. He proposed marriage. Mr. Bute was enchanted.
He could not conceive of Emily’s hesitating for a moment. Were her
affections pre-engaged? No. She had been a little of a flirt, and that
perhaps had saved her from a serious passion. Why not, then, accept Mr.
Berwick? He was so old! Old? What is a seniority of thirty years? He is
rich,—has a house on the Fifth Avenue, and another on the North River.
What insanity it would be in a poor girl to allow such a chance to slip
by!
Still Emily had her misgivings. Her virginal instincts protested against
the sacrifice. She had an ideal of a happy life, which certainly did not
lie all in having a freestone house, French furniture, and a carriage.
She knew the bitterness of poverty; but was she quite ready to marry
without love? Her father’s distresses culminated, and drove her to a
decision. She became Mrs. Berwick; and Mr. Bute was presented with ten
thousand dollars on the wedding-day. He forthwith relieved himself of
fifteen hundred in the purchase of a “new patent-spring phaeton” and
span. “A great bargain, sir; splendid creatures; spirited, but gentle; a
woman can drive them; no more afraid of a locomotive than of a stack of
hay; the carriage in prime order; hasn’t been used a dozen times; will
stand any sort of a shock; the property of my friend, Garnett; he
wouldn’t part with the horses if he could afford to keep them; his wife
is quite broken-hearted at the idea of losing them; such a chance
doesn’t occur once in ten years; you can sell the span at a great
advance in the spring.”
This urgent recommendation from “a particular friend, entirely
disinterested,” decided Bute. He bought the “establishment.” The next
day as he was taking a drive, the shriek of a steam-whistle produced
such an effect upon his incomparable span, that they started off at
headlong speed, ran against a telegraph-pole, smashed the “new
patent-spring phaeton,” threw out the driver, and broke his neck against
a curb-stone; and that was the end of Mr. Bute for this world, if we may
judge from appearances.
Emily’s marriage did not turn out so poorly as the retributions of
romance might demand. But on Mr. Berwick’s death she followed her
mother’s example, and married a second time. She became Mrs. Charlton.
Some idea of the consequences of this new alliance may be got from the
letter which she has been writing, and which we take the liberty of
laying before our readers.