A MATRIMONIAL BLANK.
“Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth,
And delves the parallels in beauty’s brow.”
_Shakespeare._
TO HENRY BERWICK, CINCINNATI.
DEAR HENRY: You kindly left word for me to write you. I have little of a
cheering nature to say in regard to myself. We have moved from the house
in Fourteenth Street into a smaller one nearer to the Park and to Mr.
Charlton’s business. His complaints of his disappointment in regard to
my means have lately grown more bitter. Your allowance, liberal as it
is, seems to be lightly esteemed. The other day he twitted me with
_setting a snare_ for him by pretending to be a rich widow. O Henry,
what an aggravation of insult! I knew nothing, and of course said
nothing, as to the extent of your father’s wealth. I supposed, as every
one else did, that he left a large property. His affairs proved to be in
such a state that they could not be disentangled by his executors till
two years after his death. Before that time I was married to Mr.
Charlton.
Had I but taken your warning, and seen through his real feelings! But he
made me think he loved me for myself alone, and he artfully excited my
distrust of you and your motives. He represented his own means as ample;
though for that I did not care or ask. Repeatedly he protested that he
would prefer to take me without a cent of dowry. I was simpleton enough
to believe him, though he was ten years my junior. I fell foolishly in
love, soon, alas! to be rudely roused from my dream!
It seems like a judgment, Henry. You have always been as kind to me as
if you were my own son. Your father was so much my senior, that you may
well suppose I did not marry him from love. I was quite young. My
notions on the subject of matrimony were unformed. My heart was free. My
father urged the step upon me as one that would save him from dire and
absolute destitution. What could I do, after many misgivings, but yield?
What could I _do_? I now well see what a woman of real moral strength
and determination could and ought to have done. But it is too late to
sigh over the past.
I behaved passably well, did I not? in the capacity of your step-mother.
I was loyal, even in thought, to my husband, although I loved him only
with the sort of love I might have entertained for my grandfather. You
were but two or three years my junior, but you always treated me as if I
were a dowager of ninety. As I now look back, I can see how nobly and
chivalrously you bore yourself, though at the time I did not quite
understand your over-respectful and distant demeanor, or why, when we
went out in the carriage, you always preferred the driver’s company to
mine.
Your father died, and for a year and a half I conducted myself in a
manner not unworthy of his widow and your mother. At the end of that
period Mr. Charlton appeared at Berwickville. He dressed pretty well,
associated with gentlemen, was rather handsome, and professed a sincere
attachment for myself. Time had dealt gently with me, and I was not
aware of that disparity in years which I afterwards learned existed
between me and my suitor. In an unlucky moment I was subdued by his
importunities. I consented to become his wife.
The first six months of our marriage glided away smoothly enough. My new
husband treated me with all the attention which I supposed a man of
business could give. If the vague thought now and then obtruded itself
that there was something to me undefined and unsounded in his character,
I thrust the thought from me, and found excuses for the deficiency which
had suggested it. One trait which I noticed caused me some surprise. He
always discouraged my buying new dresses, and grew very economical in
providing for the household. I am no epicure, but have been accustomed
to the best in articles of food. I soon discovered that everything in
the way of provisions brought into the house was of a cheap or
deteriorated quality. I remonstrated, and there was a reform.
One bright day in June, two gentlemen, Mr. Ken and Mr. Turner, connected
with the management of your father’s estate, appeared at Berwickville.
They came to inform me that my late husband had died insolvent, and that
the house we then occupied belonged to his creditors, and must be sold
at once. Mr. Charlton received this intelligence in silence; but I was
shocked at the change wrought by it on his face. In that expression
disappointment and chagrin of the intensest kind seemed concentrated.
Nothing was to be said, however. There were the documents; there were
the facts,—the stern, irresistible facts of the law. The house must be
given up.
After these bearers of ill-tidings had gone, Mr. Charlton turned to me.
But I will not pain you by a recital of what he said. He rudely
dispelled the illusions under which I had been laboring in regard to
him. I could only weep. I could not utter a word of retaliation. Whilst
he was in the midst of his reproaches, a servant brought me a letter.
Mr. Charlton snatched it from my hand, opened, and read it. Either it
had a pacifying effect upon him, or he had exhausted his stock of
objurgations. He threw the letter on the table and quitted the room.
It was your letter of condolence and dutiful regard, promising me an
allowance from your own purse of a hundred dollars a month. What coals
of fire it heaped on my head! To please Mr. Charlton I had quarrelled
with you,—forbidden you to visit or write me,—and here was your return!
The communication coming close upon the dropping of my husband’s
disguise almost unseated my reason. What a night of tears that was! I
recalled your warnings, and now saw their truth,—saw how truly
disinterested you were in them all. How generous, how noble you appeared
to me! How in contrast, alas! with him I had taken for better or worse!
I lay awake all night. Of course I could not think of accepting your
offer. In the first place, my past treatment of you forbade it. And then
I knew that your own means were narrow, and that you had just entered
into an engagement of marriage with a poor girl. But when, the next day,
I communicated my resolve to my husband, he calmly replied: “Nonsense!
Write Mr. Berwick, thanking him for his offer, and telling him that,
small as the sum is, considering your wants, you accept it.” What a poor
thing you must have thought me, when you got my cold letter of
acceptance. Do me the justice to believe me when I affirm that every
word of it was dictated by my husband. How I have longed to see you in
person, to tell you all that I have endured and felt! But this
circumstances have prevented. And now I am possessed with the idea that
I never shall see you in this life again. And that is why I make these
confessions. Your marriage, your absence in Europe, your recent return,
and your hurried departure for the West, have kept me uncertain as to
where a message would reach you. Yesterday I got a few affectionate
lines from you, telling me a letter, if mailed at once, would reach you
in Cincinnati, or, if a week later, in New Orleans. And so I am devoting
the forenoon to this review of my past, so painful and sad.
Let me think of your happier lot, and rejoice in it. So your affairs
have prospered beyond all hope! Through your wife you are unexpectedly
rich in worldly means. Better still, you are rich in affection. Your
little Clara is “the brightest, the loveliest, the sunniest little thing
in the wide world.” So you write me; and I can well believe it from the
photograph and the lock of hair you send me. Bless her! What would I
give to hug her to my bosom. And you too, Henry, you too I could kiss
with a kiss that should be purely maternal,—a benediction,—a kiss your
wife would approve, for, after all, you are the only child I have had.
Mr. Charlton has always said he would have no children till he was a
rich man. He and the female physician he employs have nearly killed me
with their terrible drugs. Yes, I am dying, Henry. Even the breath of
this sweet spring morning whispers it in my ear. Bless you and yours
forever! What a mistake my life has been! And yet, how I craved to love
and be loved! You will think kindly of me always, and teach your wife
and child to have pleasant associations with my name.
All the rich presents your father made me have been sold by Mr.
Charlton; but I have one, that he has not seen,—a costly and beautiful
gold casket for jewels, which I reserve as a present for your little
Clara. I shall to-morrow pack it up carefully, and take it to a friend,
who I know will keep and deliver it safely. That friend, strange as it
may sound to you, is the venerable old black hair-dresser, Toussaint,
who lives in Franklin Street. Your father used to say he had never met a
man he would trust before Toussaint; and I can say as much. Toussaint
used to dress my mother’s hair; he is now my adviser and friend.
Born a slave in the town of St. Mark in St. Domingo in 1766, Pierre
Toussaint was twelve years the junior of that fellow-slave, the
celebrated Toussaint l’Ouverture, born on the same river, who converted
a mob of undrilled, uneducated Africans into an army with which he
successively overthrew the forces of France, England, and Spain. At the
beginning of the troubles in the island, in 1801, Pierre was taken by
his master, the wealthy Mons. Berard, to New York. Berard, having lost
his immense property in St. Domingo, soon died, and Pierre, having
learnt the business of a hair-dresser, supported Madame Berard by his
labors some eight years till her death, though she had no legal claim
upon his service. Bred up, as he was, indulgently, Pierre’s is one of
those exceptional cases in which slavery has not destroyed the moral
sense.
I know of few more truly venerable characters. A pious Catholic, he is
one of the stanchest of friends. One of his rules through life has been,
never to incur a debt,—to pay on the spot for everything he buys. And
yet he is continually giving away large sums in charity. One day I said,
“Toussaint, you are rich enough; you have more than you want; why not
stop working now?” He answered, “Madame, I have enough for myself, but
if I stop work, I have not enough for others!” By the great fire of
1835, Toussaint lost by his investments in insurance companies. The
Schuylers and the Livingstons passed around a subscription-paper to
repair his losses; but he stopped it, saying he would not take a cent
from them, since there were so many who needed help more than he.
An old French gentleman, a white man, once rich, whom Toussaint had
known, was reduced to poverty and fell sick. For several months
Toussaint and his wife, Juliette, sent him a nicely cooked dinner; but
Toussaint would not let him know from whom it came, “because,” said the
negro, “it might hurt his pride to know it came from a black man.”
Juliette once called on this invalid to learn if her husband could be of
any help. “O no,” said the old Monsieur, “I am well known; I have good
friends; every day they send me a dinner, served up in French style.
To-day I had a charming vol-au-vent, an omelette, and green peas, not to
speak of salmon. I am a person of some importance, you see, even in this
strange land.” And Juliette would go home, and she and Toussaint would
have a good laugh over the old man’s vauntings.[1]
But what has possessed me to enter into all these details! I know not,
unless it is the desire to escape from less agreeable thoughts.
I have a request to make, Henry. You will think me fanciful, foolish,
perhaps fanatical; and yet I am impelled, by an unaccountable
impression, to ask you to give up the tickets you tell me you have
engaged in the Pontiac, and to take passage for New Orleans in some
other boat. If you ask me _why_, the only explanation I can give is,
that the thought besets me, but the reason of it I do not know. Do you
remember I once capriciously refused to let your father go in the cars
to Springfield, although his baggage was on board? Those cars went
through the draw-bridge, and many lives were lost. Write me that you
will heed my request.
And now, Henry, son, nephew, friend, good by! Tell little Clara she has
an aunt or grandmother (which, shall it be?) in New York who loves to
think of her and to picture the fair forehead over which the little curl
you sent me once fell. By the way, I have examined her photograph with a
microscope, and have conceived a fancy that her eyes are of a slightly
different color; one perhaps a gray and the other a mixed blue. Am I
right? Tell your wife how I grieve to think that circumstances have not
allowed us to meet and become personally acquainted. You now know all
the influences that have kept us apart, and that have made me seem
frigid and ungrateful, even when my heart was overflowing with
affection. What more shall I say, except to sum up all my love for you
and all my gratitude in the one parting prayer, Heaven bless you and
yours!
Your mother, EMILY CHARLTON.