COUSIN CAROLINE AGAIN.
About this time I received the following letter from my Cousin Caroline:
"_Dear Cousin_:--I have had no time to keep up correspondence with
anybody for the past year. The state of my father's health has required
my constant attention, day and night, to a degree that has absorbed all
my power, and left no time for writing. For the last six months father
has been perfectly helpless with the most distressing form of chronic
rheumatism. His sufferings have been protracted and intense, so that it
has been wearing even to witness them; and the utmost that I could do
seemed to bring very little relief. And when, at last, death closed the
scene, it seemed to be in mercy, putting an end to sufferings which were
intolerable.
"For a month after his death, I was in a state of utter prostration,
both physical and mental,--worn out with watching and care. My poor
father; he was himself to the last, reticent, silent, undemonstrative
and uncommunicative. It seemed to me that I would have given worlds for
one tender word from him. I felt a pity and a love that I dared not
show; his sufferings went to my very heart; but he repelled every word
of sympathy, and was cold and silent to the last. Yet I believe that he
really loved me and that far within this frozen circle of ice, his soul
was a lonely prisoner, longing to express itself, and unable; longing
for the light and warmth of that love which never could touch him in its
icy depths; and I am quite sure, it is my comfort to know, that death
has broken the ice and melted the bands; and I believe that he has
entered the kingdom of heaven as a little child.
"The hard skies of our New England, its rocky soil, its severe
necessities, make characters like his; and they intrench themselves in a
similar religious faith which makes them still harder. They live to
aspire and to suffer, but never to express themselves; and every soft
and warm heart that is connected with them pines and suffers and dies
like flowers that are thrown upon icebergs.
"Well, all is now over, and I am free of the world. I have, in the
division of the property, a few acres of wood-lot, and many acres of
rough, stony land, and about a hundred dollars of yearly income. I must
do something, therefore, for my own support. Ever since you left us I
have been reading and studying under the care of your uncle, who, since
your conversation with him, has been very kind and thoughtful. But then,
of course, my studies have been interrupted by some duties, and, during
the last year, suspended altogether by the necessity of giving myself to
the care of father.
"Now, my desire is, if I could in any way earn the means, to go to
France and perfect myself in medical studies. I am told that a medical
education can be obtained there by women cheaper than anywhere else; and
I have cast about in my own mind how I might earn money enough to enable
me to do it. Now I ask you, who are in New York and on the press, who
know me thoroughly, and it also, could I, should I come to New York,
gain any situation as writer for the press, which would give me an
income for a year or two, by which I could make enough to accomplish my
purpose? I should not wish to be always a writer; it would be too
exhausting; but if I could get into a profession that I am well adapted
for, I should expect to succeed in it.
"I have the ability to live and make a respectable appearance upon a
very little. I know enough, practically, of the arts of woman-craft to
clothe myself handsomely for a small sum, and I am willing to live in
cheap obscure lodgings, and think I could board myself, also, for a very
moderate sum. I am willing to undergo privations, and to encounter hard
work to carry my purpose, and I write to you, dear cousin, because I
know you will speak to me just as freely as though I were not a woman,
and give me your unbiased opinion as to whether or no I could do
anything in the line that I indicate. I know that you would give me all
the assistance in your power, and feel a perfect reliance upon your
friendship."
The letter here digressed into local details and family incidents not
necessary to be reproduced. I resolved to lay it before Bolton. It
seemed to me that his reception of it would furnish some sort of clew to
the mystery of his former acquaintance with her. The entire silence that
he had always maintained with regard to his former knowledge of her,
while yet he secretly treasured her picture, seemed to me to indicate
that he might somehow have been connected with that passage of her life
referred to by my mother when she said that Caroline's father had, at
one period of her life, crushed out an interest that was vital to her.
"The sly old fox," said I to myself, "always draws me on to tell him
everything, while he keeps a close mouth, and I learn nothing of him."
Of course, I felt that to ask any questions or seek to pry into a past
which he evidently was not disposed to talk about, would be an
indelicate impertinence. But my conscience and sense of honor were quite
appeased by this opportunity presented by Caroline's letter. Bolton was
older in the press than I, and, with all his reticence and modesty, had
a wide circle of influence. He seemed contented to seek nothing for
himself; but I had had occasion to notice in my own experience that he
was not boasting idly when he said, on our first acquaintance, that he
had some influence in literary quarters. He had already procured for me,
from an influential magazine, propositions for articles which were both
flattering to my pride and lucrative in the remuneration. In this
way, the prospect of my yearly income, which on the part of the _Great
Democracy_ was so very inadequate, was enlarged to a very respectable
figure.
[Illustration: _BOLTON'S ASYLUM._
"_Halloo, Bolton!_" said I. "_Have you got a foundling hospital here?_"]
I resolved, therefore, to go up to Bolton's room and put this letter
into his hands. I knocked at the door, but no one answering I opened it
and went in. He was not there, but an odd enough scene presented itself
to me. The little tow-headed, freckled boy, that I had formerly remarked
as an inmate of the apartment, was seated by the fire with a girl,
somewhat younger than himself, nursing between them a large fat bundle
of a baby.
"Hallo," said I, "what have we here? What are you doing here?" At this
moment--before the children could answer--I heard Bolton coming up the
stairs. He entered the room; a bright color mounted to his cheeks as he
saw the group by the fire, and me.
"Hallo, Hal!" he said, with a sort of conscious laugh.
"Hallo, Bolton!" said I. "Have you got a foundling hospital here?"
"Oh, well, well," said he; "never mind; let 'em stay there. Do you want
anything? There," said he, pulling a package of buns out of his pocket,
"eat those; and when the baby gets asleep you can lay her on the bed in
the other room. And there,"--to the boy,--"you read this story aloud to
your sister when the baby is asleep. And now, Hal, what can I do for
you? Suppose I come down into your room for awhile and talk?"
He took my arm, and we went down the stairs together; and when we got
into my room he shut the door and said:
"The fact is Hal, I have to take care of that family--my washerwoman,
you know. Poor Mrs. Molloy, she has a husband that about once a month
makes a perfect devil of himself, so that the children are obliged to
run and hide for fear of their lives. And then she has got the way of
sending them to me, and I have to go down and attend to him."
"Bless me!" said I, "why will women live with such brutes? Why don't you
make her separate from him?"
Bolton seated himself at my table, and leaned back in his chair, with a
curious expression of countenance, very sad, yet not without a touch of
humor in it.
"Well, you see," he said, "the fact is, Hal, she loves him."
"Well, she oughtn't to love him," said I.
"May be not; but she does," said he. "She loves that poor Pat Molloy so
much that to be angry with him is just like your right hand being angry
with your left hand. Suppose there's a great boil on the left hand,
what's the right to do about it but simply bear the suffering and wait
for it to get well? That, you see, is love; and because of it, you can't
get women away from their husbands. What are you going to do about it?"
"But," said I, "it is perfectly absurd for a woman to cling to such a
man."
"Well," said Bolton, "three weeks of the month Pat Molloy is just as
kind and tender a father and husband as you will find, and then by the
fourth week comes around his drunken spell, and he's a devil. Now she
says, 'Sure sir, it's the drink. It's not Pat at all sir; he's not
himself sir.' And she waits till it's over--taking care that he doesn't
kill the children. Now, shall I persuade her to let him go to the devil?
Does not Jesus Christ say, 'Gather up the fragments that nothing be
lost'? He said it about a basket of bread; wouldn't he say it still more
about the fragments of the human soul? If she leaves Pat, where will he
go to? First, to some harlot, then to murder, and the gallows--and that
gets him out of the way."
"Well," said I, "isn't he better out than in?"
"Who knows?" said Bolton. "All I have to say is, that poor Molly Molloy,
with her broad Irish brogue, and her love that can't be tired, and can't
give him up, and that bears, and believes, and hopes, and endures, seems
to me a revelation of the Christ-like spirit a thousand times more than
if she was tramping to a woman's rights convention and exposing her
wrongs and calling down justice on his head."
"But," said I, "look at the children! Oughtn't she to part with him on
their account?"
"Yes, look at the children," said he. "The little things have learned
already, from their mother, to care for each other, and to care for
their father. In their little childish way, they love and bear with him
just as she does. The boy came to me this afternoon and said, 'Father's
got another crazy spell.' Already he has a delicacy in his very mode of
speaking; and he doesn't say his father is _drunk_, but that he is
_crazy_, as he is. And then he and the little girl are so fatherly and
motherly with the baby. Now, I say, all this growth of virtue around sin
and sorrow is something to be revered. The fact is"--he added--
"The day for separating the tares from the wheat hasn't come yet. And it
seems to me that the moral discipline of bearing with evil, patiently,
is a great deal better and more ennobling than the most vigorous
assertion of one's personal rights. I can see a great deal of suffering
in that family from poor Pat's weakness and wickedness, but I also see
most noble virtues growing up, even in these children, from the straits
to which they are put. And as to poor Pat himself, he comes out of his
demon-baptism penitent and humble, and more anxious to please than ever.
It is really affecting to see with what zeal he serves me, when I have
brought him through a 'drunk.' And yet I know that it will have to be
gone over, and over, and over again. Sometimes it seems to me he is like
the earth after a thunder-shower--fresher and clearer than he was
before. And I am quite of Mrs. Molloy's mind--there is too much good in
Pat to have him swept off into the gutter for the bad; and so, as God
gives her grace to suffer, let her suffer. And if I can bear one little
end of her cross, I will. If she does not save him in this life, she'll
save him from sinking lower in demonism. She may only keep his head
above water till he gets past the gates of death, and then, perhaps, in
the next life, he will appear to be saved by just that much which she
has done in keeping him up."
Bolton spoke with an intense earnestness, and a sad and solemn tone, as
if he were shaken and almost convulsed by some deep, internal feeling.
For some moments there was a silence between us,--the silence of a great
unuttered emotion. At last, he drew a long breath, and said, "Well, Hal,
what was it you wanted to talk about?"
"Oh," said I, "I have a letter from a friend of mine that I wanted to
show you, to see whether you could do anything"--and I gave him
Caroline's letter.
He sat down under the gas-light to read it. The sight of the
hand-writing seemed to affect him at once. His large, dark eyes flashed
over the letter, and he turned it quickly, and looked at the signature;
a most unutterable expression passed over his face, like that of a man
who is in danger of giving away to some violent emotion; and then,
apparently by a great effort of self-constraint, he set himself
carefully to reading the letter. He read it over two or three times,
folded it up, and handed it back to me without any remark, and then sat
leaning forward on the table with his face shaded with his hand.
"My cousin is a most uncommon character," I said; "and, as you will
observe by this letter, has a good deal of ability as a writer."
"I am acquainted with her," he said, briefly, making a sudden movement
with his hand.
"Indeed? Where did you know her?"
"Years ago," he said, briefly. "I taught the academy in her village, and
she was one of my scholars. I know the character of her mind."
There was a dry brevity in all this, of a man who is afraid that he
shall express more than he means to.
Said I, "I showed this letter to you because I thought you had more
influence in the press than I have; and if you are acquainted with her,
so much the better, as you can judge whether she can gain any employment
here which would make it worth her while to come and try. I have always
had an impression that she had very fine mental powers."
"There is no doubt about that," he said, hurriedly. "She is an
exceptional woman."
He rose up, and took the letter from me. "If you will allow me to retain
this a while," he said, "I will see what I can do; but just now I have
some writing to finish. I will speak to you about it to-morrow."
That evening, I introduced the subject to my friend, Ida Van Arsdel, and
gave her a sketch of Caroline's life-history. She entered into it with
the warmest interest, and was enthusiastic in her desire that the plan
might succeed.
"I hope that she will come to New York," she said, "so that we can make
her acquaintance. Don't, pray, fail to let me know, Mr. Henderson, if
she should be here, that I may call on her."