BESSY WARDOUR.
It was a rather curious tangle, as Primrose Henry was to learn
afterward. Philemon Henry was older than his brother James, and in trade
in the city that William Penn had planned and founded in an orderly
manner. And though it is the common belief that Philadelphia was born at
right angles and on a level, at its early inception there was much
diversity to it. Creeks swept it in many directions, and there were
hills and submerged lands waiting for the common sense of man to fill up
and hew down the romance. Even before Revolutionary times there was much
business on the wharves of the Delaware, and many men owned trading
ships and warehouses. And though England had made no end of bothersome
and selfish restrictions as to trade, men had found ways to evade them;
at some peril, it is true, but that added zest.
Philemon Henry was tolerably successful in his undertakings and adhered
to the faith of William Penn, even if his own son afterward went astray.
He married an Englishwoman of good descent, who had left her native land
with a company of Friends for the sake of the larger liberty. The fine,
stalwart Quaker had soon attracted her, and with him she spent three
years of happy married life, when she died, leaving a baby boy of little
more than a year old. A goodly housekeeper came to care for them, and
the boy throve finely. She would willingly have married Philemon, but
as he evinced no inclination, she provided for her old age by marrying
another well-to-do Friend. And then, as sometimes happens in a widower's
household, there was an interregnum of trouble and disorder.
He had business dealings with the Wardours and met a connection, an
orphan, pretty young Bessy Wardour, who fell in love with the fine,
strong, still handsome Quaker, whose attire was immaculate, and whose
manners were courtly. And he surprised himself by a tenderness for the
winsome, kittenish thing, who, for his sake, laid aside her fripperies
and, to the amazement of her relatives, joined the Society of Friends.
But if she had been tempting in her worldly gear, she was a hundred
times more bewitching in her soft grays that were exquisite in quality,
and her wide brim, low-crowned beaver tied under her dimpled chin with a
bow that was distracting. The great blue eyes were of the melting,
persuasive kind, her voice had a caressing cadence, and her smile was
enough to conquer the most obdurate heart, and yet withal she had an air
of masquerading and enjoyed it to the full. She was deeply in love with
Philemon, and though he struggled against a passion he deemed almost
ungodly, she being so young and pretty, she conquered in the end. He
almost scandalized the Society when he stood up to be married. The young
Quaker women envied her, the elders shook their heads doubtfully.
She was sunny and charming and did adore her great stalwart husband. She
had so many tempting, beguiling ways, her kisses had such a delicious
sweetness that he sometimes felt afraid. And yet, was she not his lawful
wife, and had he not a right? Were not husbands enjoined to be tender
to their wives? She charmed little Phil as well. She played with him,
ran races, repeated verses, caressed him until sometimes the father was
almost jealous of the tenderness showered upon the child. She had such a
dainty taste and was always adding delicate touches to the plain Quaker
habits that made them seem twice as pretty. Sometimes he tried to frown
upon them.
"But God has made the world beautiful," she would protest. "And is it
not for us, his children? If I go out in the lanes and woods and gather
wild flowers that have cost no man any time or strength to be taken from
money-getting and business, but have just grown in God's love, and put
them here in a bowl and give Him thanks, what evil have I done? In
heaven there will be no business, and we shall have to adore His works
there, not the works of our own hands."
"Thou hast a subtle tongue, dear one, and what thou sayest seems to have
an accent from a finer world. I am at times sore at loss----"
"Thou must believe in a kindly All-father and the eyes of thy inner soul
will be opened."
Then she would kiss him tenderly and he would go away much puzzled.
Presently an incident happened that caused them both no little
perplexity. The Nevitt estate had lost its direct heir, and that of Leah
Nevitt was next in succession, after an old great-uncle, who sent for
the boy to be brought up in English ways and usages. Sir Wyndham Nevitt
was not a Friend, though several branches of the family were. And if
Philemon Henry failed, the next heir was a dissolute fellow up in
London, who would soon make ducks and drakes of the fine old estate.
"It does seem a pity that it should be destroyed," said the young wife.
"If only the boy were old enough to choose! But, you see, he is next in
the succession, and it would come to him even if he were here. English
laws are curious. I should hate to give up the boy. He is a sweet child
and a great comfort to me when thou art away. But his welfare ought to
be considered."
"And thou dost spoil him every hour in the day. I should have to send
him away presently for some sterner training. And then"--she blushed
scarlet at the hope--"there may be other sons and daughters."
Friend Henry took counsel of several respected and judicious men, and
the weight of it lay with sending the child abroad. It would be a hard
wrench, but if he was called upon to do it? Many that he knew had sent
their children abroad for education, the advantages being limited at
home. And it was true that the settlers below New York had a much warmer
affection for the mother country than the Puritans of New England.
It ended by little Philemon Henry being sent abroad with many tears and
much reluctance, and a safe convoy. The boy went quite readily, under
the impression that he could come back frequently, and having no idea of
the length of the journey, but being an adventurous little fellow.
Bessy Henry sorrowed deeply. "The house was as if one had been buried
out of it," she said. Then her own baby was born.
Philemon Henry was disappointed that it should be a girl.
"Do not mind, husband," she said in her winsome way, "this shall be _my_
child, for its head is full of yellow fuzz like mine, and its eyes are
blue. Presently there will be a son with dark eyes, and no doubt a
houseful of sons and daughters," laughing merrily. "And Phil, I think,
will be better pleased about a sister. He might be jealous if we filled
his place so soon."
There was some wisdom in that, and quite a comfort to the father's
heart.
The baby's name was the first real disagreement. She grew rapidly and
was a bright, smiling little thing. Bessy loved her child extravagantly,
jealously. But she would have none of the plain or biblical names her
husband suggested. She laughed at them with her bright humor and made
merry amusement over them, calling the child by endearing and fanciful
appellations. To-day she was one kind of a flower, to-morrow another,
and Rosebud a great deal of the time.
She was often at the house of Madam Wetherill. Indeed, she was generally
spoken of as the gay little Quaker, but it was only her slim
gracefulness and dainty ways that gained this description, for she was
quite tall. She discarded her thees and thous here, though at that day
all language was much more formal. Sometimes, when her husband was to be
away all day, she would take the child and its nurse and spend the time
with her relative.
It was after one of these occasions that she took off a little of the
worldly frippery she had indulged in and put on her very plainest cap,
but she could not disguise the arch, pretty face, and this evening it
really seemed more beguiling than ever. Caresses of all kinds were
frowned upon as being not only undignified, but savoring of the world
and the flesh. Still, Philemon Henry would have sorely missed the
greeting and parting kiss his wife gave him. She had a certain
adroitness, too, and the tact to make no show of this before the
brethren, or any of the sober-minded sisters. He sometimes wondered if
it was not "stolen waters," it had such an extraordinary flavor of
sweetness. Then he would resolve to forget it, but he never did.
She kissed him tenderly this evening. His dinner was excellent, his
day's work had been very profitable, and he was in high good humor.
"Husband," she began afterward, leaning her head on his shoulder, "I
must make a confession to thee of my day's doings. Thou wilt be angry at
first, but it is done now," smilingly.
"Hast thou been up to some mischief?" His tone had a sense of amusement
in it.
"Very serious mischief. For a brief while I felt like going back to the
faith of my childhood, but my love for thee will keep me in the straight
and narrow faith. But to-day I have had my babe christened in Christ
Church, and named Primrose."
"Bessy!" in a horror-stricken tone.
He strove to put her from him, but she clung the more tightly.
"Bessy! woman! To do such an unlawful thing!"
"It is not unlawful to give a Christian name."
"A vain, trifling, heathenish name!" he interrupted fiercely. "I will
have none of it! I will----"
"God made a Primrose and many another beautiful thing in this world of
His. He has even given me a prettiness that plain Quaker garb cannot
wholly disguise. Suppose I scarred my face and deformed my body, would
my praise be any more acceptable to Him? And people do not all think
alike. They look at religion in divers ways, and so they who deal
justly and are kind to the poor and outcast, and keep the Commandments
are, I think, true Christians in any garb. And her name is writ in the
Church books, her legal, lawful name that only the law can change. And
see, husband, thou shalt call thy son whatever pleaseth thee. But the
little daughter is mine own."
"She is my child as well. And to go through all this mummery that we
believe not in, that we have come to this new country to escape! It is
wicked, sinful!"
"And some consider that discarding all forms and sacraments is sinful. I
am sure God ordained many for the Jews, his chosen race!"
"Which they could not keep, which were of no importance to real
salvation. Then Christ came and all was abrogated."
"Nay, He added to the Commandments the one tenderer rule--thou shalt
love thy neighbor as thyself."
"Woman, thou art full of excusing subtleties. Thou art no true Friend,
methinks. Is there any real conviction under thy plain garb, or was it
only put on for----"
"For love of thee," she interrupted with brave sweetness shining in her
appealing eyes. "I was in Christ's household before I knew thee. I
worshiped God and prayed to Him and gave thanks. He hath not made the
world all alike, one tree differeth from another, and the lowly Primrose
groweth where other flowers might not find sustenance, but God careth
for them all, and gives to each its need and its exquisite coloring. So
he will care for the child, never fear."
"But I am very angry at thy disobedience."
"Nay, it was not that," and a glimmering light like a smile crossed her
sweet face. "I did not ask and thou didst not deny."
"Sophistry again. Thou art still in the bonds of iniquity."
"And thou must forgive seventy times seven. Thou must do good to those
that despitefully use thee. If thou art so much wiser and stronger than
I, then set this example. I have done many things to please thee. And,
husband, thou canst call the little one Prim. I am sure that is plain
enough, but to me she will be Rose, the blended sweetness of three
lives."
He broke away from her. She had softened many points in his character,
he knew, and just now she was a temptress to him. He must assert his own
supremacy and deliver himself from these dangerous charms. Just now it
looked sinful to him that she had come over to the Friends' persuasion
for love of him.
She had been a sweet, thoughtful wife, he could not deny that. But he
had been weak to yield to so much happiness. And when the brethren heard
of this outrage put upon their usages there would be hard times for her.
Suddenly his whole soul protested against having her haled before the
meeting. Oh, what had her spirit of willfulness led her into!
She went back to her baby, kissed it and caressed it, prepared it for
the night, and sang it to sleep. Philemon Henry wrote long in his little
office at home, where he kept sundry business matters he did not want
his clerks gossiping about. There were only two discreet friends that he
had taken into his confidence and his ventures. Just now there was a
slight, uneasy feeling that if he were brought to the strictest
account--and yet there was nothing really unlawful in his gains. There
were many curious questions in the world, there were diverse people,
many religions. And the Friends had sought out liberty of conscience.
Was it liberty to compel another?
Bessy and her child were sleeping sweetly when he glanced at them, and
his heart did soften. But he would never call her by that name. He would
give her another.
Bessy was up betimes and made some delicacy with her own hands for her
husband's breakfast. She came around and kissed him on the forehead as
was her morning custom, and though she was a little more grave than
usual, she was serene and charming. But he must show her how displeased
he was.
The christening had been very quiet. Madam Wetherill had been godmother,
and the godfather was a distant relative who resided in New York. Good
Parson Duche had been asked to keep the matter private. And so, if the
meeting came to know, Philemon Henry must be the accuser. It was his
duty, of course, but he put it off month after month. The babe grew
sweet and winsome, and there were many things beside family cares to
distract men's minds: The friction between the mother country and grave
questions coming to the fore; the following out of Mr. Penn's plans for
the improvement of the city, the bridging of creeks and the filling up
of streets, for there was much marsh land; the building of docks for the
trade that was rapidly enlarging, and the public spirit that was
beginning to animate the staid citizens.
Philemon Henry called his babe little one, child, and daughter, and the
mother was too wise to flaunt the name in his face. She had great faith
in the future.
"For if you keep stirring your rising continually, you will have no good
bread," she said. "Many things are best left alone, until the right
time."
She dressed the child quaintly, and she grew sweeter every day. But they
talked about the son they were to have, and other daughters. Little Phil
wrote occasionally. He was studying in an English school, but he had
spells of homesickness now and then, and his uncle said if he learned
smartly he should take a voyage to America when he was older. Nevitt
Grange was a great, beautiful place with a castle and a church and
peasants working in the fields. And he was to go up to London to see the
king.
One damp, drizzling November night Philemon Henry came home with so
severe a cold that he could hardly speak. He had been on the dock all
day, supervising the unloading of a vessel of choice goods. He could eat
no supper. Bessy made him a brew of choice herbs and had him hold his
feet in hot water while she covered him with a blanket and made a steam
by pouring some medicaments on a hot brick. Then he was bundled up in
bed, but all night long he was restless, muttering and tumbling about.
He would get up in the morning, but before he was dressed he fell across
the bed like a log, and Bessy in great fright summoned the doctor.
He had never been ill before, and for a few days no one dreamed of
danger. Then his brother James was summoned, and his clerk from the
warehouse, and there were grave consultations. Bessy's buoyant nature
could not at first take in the seriousness of the case. Of course he
would recover. He was so large and strong, and not an old man.
Alas! In a brief fortnight Philemon Henry lay dead in the house, and
Bessy was so stunned that she, too, seemed half bereft of life. She had
loved him sincerely, and for months they had forgotten their unfortunate
difference over the child's name. And when he was laid in the burying
ground beside his first wife, there was a strange feeling that he no
longer belonged to her, and she was all alone; that somehow the bond had
snapped that united her with the Friends.
Philemon Henry had made a will in the lucid intervals of his fever. His
brother was appointed guardian of the child and trustee of the property.
To Bessy was left an income in no wise extravagant, so long as she
remained a widow. The remainder was to be invested for the child, who
was not to come into possession until she was twenty-one. She and her
mother were to spend half of every year on the farm, and in case of the
mother's death she was to be consigned to the sole guardianship of her
uncle. There were a few outside bequests and remembrances to faithful
clerks.
The other trustee was Philemon's business partner, who had lately
returned from Holland. If Friend Henry had lived a few years longer he
would have been a rich man, but in process of settlement his worldly
wealth shrank greatly.
Uncle James proposed that the house should be sold, and she be free from
the expense of maintaining it.
"Nay," she protested. "Surely thou hast not the heart to deprive me of
the little joy remaining to my life. The place is dear to me, for I can
see him in every room, and the garden he tended with so much care. Thou
wilt kill me by insisting, and a murder will be on thy hands."
She spent the winter and spring in the house. One day in every week she
went to cousin Wetherill's.
The elder lady, a stickler for fashion, suggested that she should wear
mourning.
"I like not dismal sables," declared Bessy. "And it is not the custom of
Friends. I shall no doubt do many things I should be restricted from
were my husband alive, but I will honor him in this."
She attended the Friends' meeting on Sunday afternoon, but the evening
assemblies that had convened at the Henrys' once a fortnight were
transferred to another house. And in summer, although she went to the
Henry farm, she made visits in town and resumed some of her old
friendships.
The next autumn there came an opportunity to sell the house and the
business, and James Henry urged it.
"Then her home will be here with us," he said to his wife. "Philemon was
anxious to have the child brought up under the godly counsel of Friends,
and she will be less likely to stray. I think she is not a whole-hearted
Friend, and her relatives are worldly people."
But when the place was sold she went at once to Madam Wetherill's. And
she began to lay aside her Quaker plainness and frequented Christ
Church; indeed, though she was not very gay as yet, she was a great
attraction at the house of her relative.
Before the summer ended an event occurred that gave her still greater
freedom of action. This was a legacy from England left to the Wardour
branch in the New World, and as there were but three heirs, her portion
was a very fair one. There was some talk of Madam Wetherill taking her
to England, but the cold weather came on, and there seemed so many
things to settle. That winter she went over to the world's people
altogether.
"I think, Bessy, you should make a will," said Madam Wetherill as they
were talking seriously one day. "It will not bring about death any
sooner. I have had mine made this fifteen years, and am hale and hearty.
But, if anything should happen, the child will be delivered over to the
Henrys and brought up in the drab-colored mode of belief. It seems hard
for little ones so full of life."
"She must have her free choice of religion. Having tried both," and
Bessy gave a dainty smile, "I like my own Church the best. If she should
grow up and fall in love with a Friend, she can do as she likes. There
are not many as manly and handsome as was Philemon. Indeed I think they
make their lives too sad-colored, too full of work. I should go wild if
I lost my little one, but Lois Henry goes about as if nothing had
happened. I found it a luxury to grieve for Philemon. There is wisdom in
thy suggestion."
A lawyer was sent for and the matter laid before him. She could appoint
another guardian now that she had money of her own to leave the child,
and she could consign it part of the time to that guardian's care.
There was much consultation before the matter was settled. And though,
when the time came, she moved some chests of goods out to the farm and
made a pretense of settling, she and Madam Wetherill soon after went up
to New York and were gone three full months.
James Henry found himself circumvented in a good many ways by woman's
wit. There was no dispute between them, and much as he objected to the
ways of the world's people, he had no mind to defraud his small niece
out of a considerable fortune that might reasonably come to her. Indeed
he began to be a little afraid of Bessy Henry's willfulness. And she
might marry and leave all of her money to a new set of children.
But fate ordered it otherwise. Bessy went for a visit to Trenton, and
though she was rarely separated from her darling, this time she left her
behind. She did not return as soon as she expected, on account of a
feverish illness which would be over in a few days, her friends
insisted, but instead developed into the scourge of smallpox, the
treatment of which was not well understood at that time, and though she
was healthy ordinarily, the bleeding so reduced her strength that she
sank rapidly and in a week had followed her husband.
Madam Wetherill was cut to the very heart by the sad incident, for she
loved Bessy as if she had been her own daughter, and she was tenderly
attached to baby Primrose, who was too little to realize all she had
lost.
When Friend Henry preferred his claim to his brother's child, he was met
by some very decided opposition. In the first place the child had been
christened in the church, and was, according to her mother's wishes, to
be left in Madam Wetherill's charge for six months every year and be
instructed in the tenets of her own church, and to remain perfectly free
to make her choice when she was eighteen. If her mother's wishes could
not be carried out, her fortune was to revert to Madam Wetherill, and
she would inherit only what her father bequeathed her.
"I cannot believe my brother was knowing to this nefarious scheme!"
cried Friend Henry in a temper. "And I always thought Primrose a most
ungodly name. It was his wish she should become a Friend."
"And if your son marries among the world's people and leaves the faith
what will you do?" asked Madam Wetherill.
"I should disown him," was the hasty reply.
"Then Bessy had a right to disown her child if she left the faith. See
how unreasonable you are, Friend Henry, and how little true love is in
your mind. Now if you have any regard for the little child do not let us
quite dismember her after the fashion of Solomon's judgment. You may
have her next summer, and I in the winter. I warn you, if you do not
agree, I shall fight to the end. I have no children of my own to deprive
if I go on lawing, and my purse will surely hold out as long as yours."
That was true enough; longer, he knew. So, after a while, he assented
ungraciously, and the matter was adjusted.
But it was not a happy omen that the child's name should cause one
quarrel and the possession of her another. She herself was bright and
joyous, with much of her mother's merry nature and her clear, frank,
beguiling blue eyes.