‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
Our readers will certainly be thankful to us for giving them the pleasure
of perusing the foregoing letter, which is a document of great interest
and value for several reasons. It is the work of an author whose prose is
only inferior to his poetry. It is a record of the process of reasoning by
which one of the many illustrious English converts was aided to make the
transition from Anglicanism to the Catholic Church, given in his own
language at a time when his thoughts and sentiments about the momentous
change were fresh in his memory, and remarkably different from any similar
production. The value of such a document, considered in the respect just
mentioned, depends on its being given precisely as it was written at the
time; and we have been, therefore, scrupulously careful not to change or
modify a single sentence, or even a word, in the author’s manuscript.
This letter is not, however, merely a psychological and literary
curiosity. Though it is the argument, not of a Catholic theologian, but of
a man of letters just recently converted to the faith, it is a remarkable
presentation of some parts of Catholic doctrine, more particularly of the
supernatural certainty of divine faith, and the essential difference of
faith from human science or opinion, even when the object of the latter is
natural or revealed theology. We think it important, however, to add a
short explanation of our own as a safeguard of purely natural certitude.
Sound Catholic philosophy establishes the certitude of knowledge received
through the senses, the understanding, and the discursive or reasoning
operation of the mind upon the concepts apprehended by both those
faculties. Physical, metaphysical, and moral demonstration produce,
therefore, true science, not mere opinion. The rational proof of the
Catholic religion rests on these three, and is sufficient to produce a
certain conviction. This is not, however, identical with divine faith. The
act of faith is distinct from the merely rational assent of the mind. Yet
these two acts may terminate on the same object. One may be convinced, for
instance, of the spirituality of the soul, by a metaphysical
demonstration, without believing in the divine revelation. If he afterward
believes in the revelation, he will have also a divine faith in the
spirituality of the soul. One may believe by divine faith that Christ made
S. Peter the head of the church, and afterwards acquire an historical
certainty of the same truth. We cannot be too careful to maintain the
supernatural quality of faith and the superiority of its divine light to
the natural light of reason; at the same time, we must be also careful not
to weaken or diminish the certainty and the scope of natural
knowledge.—ED. C. W.
The Church In F——.
Build up the church! Let its turrets rise,
With cross‐crowned summits, to kiss the skies;
Hollow its centre, in nave and aisle,
From its walls let heaven‐rapt faces smile.
Make its fair altars to glow with light,
Where priest and ministering acolyte
May kneel, with incense and book and bell,
The praises of God and his saints to swell.
Let the deep tones of the organ roll
With thunderous music, to stir the soul,
While spirits soar, as on wings of fire,
’Mid the holy chants of the surpliced choir.
But when the crowd has passed away,
And the lights burn low and the church is gray,
And in their solitude aisle and nave
Are still and stern as a martyr’s grave,
All is not over of praise and prayer:
The mourner, shrinking from crowd and glare,
May kneel in the shadow, and veil her eyes
Before the Lord of the sacrifice.
The sacred Presence that throws its spell—
An ever‐abiding miracle—
O’er the empty fane and the silent shrine,
Is there at all seasons—_the Host divine._
Are You My Wife? Chapter I.
By The Author Of “A Salon In Paris Before The War,” “Number Thirteen,”
“Pius VI.,” Etc.
Chapter I. A Few Pages From Clide De Winton’s Note‐Book.
It was not the reception I ought to have had; but that was my own fault.
The old house was not in the habit of giving such a cold welcome to the
eldest son who brought home his young bride. On the contrary, fireworks
and bonfires, and bells ringing, and flags flying, and universal rejoicing
both inside and outside the house, had been the traditionary mode of
proceeding, on such occasions, since the Conquest, when it first owned a
master of the name of De Winton. My earliest recollections of a distinct
kind are of my father bringing home my step‐mother to the old place, and
of my peeping out from my nursery‐window, and vaguely connecting the
strange lady, who came in the midst of us heralded by such noise and
splendor, with the story of the Queen of Sheba that my nurse read to me
very often on Sundays out of a pictured story‐book. This infantine
delusion had long vanished before I quite lost the sense of childish
bewilderment that accompanied the occasion. I was an odd child, I suppose;
old‐fashioned, but not at all precocious; and the dreamy impressions of
childhood held their grasp on me longer than usual, probably from my
having no children to play with and keep me from dwelling so long and so
exclusively on the fancies of my own hazy little mind. I can recall
vividly even now how I hated all the noise and fuss that followed the
wedding; how I shrank from being dressed in my scarlet cashmere frock, and
being sent for to the drawing‐room, and introduced to strangers, by my
stiff, stately step‐mother, as “my son, Master Clide de Winton.” There
seemed no end to the strangers that came trooping in to shake hands with
my father and to be introduced to his wife. And then the dinners that were
given, and the noise of music afterwards, that used to wake me up in the
nursery, and make me dream such noisy, confused dreams when I fell asleep
again! How I detested it all! And when I expressed something of this to my
nurse, and wondered why the house, that used to be so quiet when we had it
to ourselves, had become so full of noise and strange people from the
moment my new mamma came home, she found no better comfort than to tell me
that that was always the way after a wedding, and that when I was grown up
and married myself I should make just as much fuss, and a great deal more,
because I should be younger, and my wife too. It may sound absurd, like so
many other reminiscences of childhood that were once bitterly real to all
of us; but this horoscopic view of life poisoned many an hour of those
nursery‐days to me. The fact that the dreaded ordeal was yet distant gave
me no consolation. I leaped over the gulf that separated six years old
from five‐and‐twenty, and saw myself miserable in the midst of a
pandemonium of noise, and strange people, and dinners, and pianoforte‐
playing. I was no doubt a morbid little boy, and no doubt my nurse
discovered this, and with the unconscious cruelty of her race took
pleasure in playing upon my idle terrors. I know she used to terrify me by
graphic descriptions of the wedding ceremonial from first to last; and the
more I showed that I was terrified, the more eloquent and inventive—as I
afterwards discovered—she grew. She had been three times through the
performance herself, and thus was peculiarly qualified to speak of it. I
remember once when she told me I would have to stand up before all the
company at a long table and make a speech. I could bear it no longer, and
I began to cry. This did not soften her; she only laughed at me for a
silly little goose, and assured me that, when the time came, I would enjoy
it all as much as I now enjoyed flying my kite and other juvenile
amusements. I ran out of the nursery and away up to a garret where I
sometimes hid myself when I expected to be sent for to the drawing‐room.
and flung myself on the floor, and literally bellowed with misery. I
suppose I cried myself to sleep, for when 1 awoke I was still in the same
place, tired and cold. I considered quietly what I might possibly do to
avert the catastrophe that so appalled me in the distance. I could think
only of one thing: that was to run away before the wedding‐day arrived. I
had heard stories about boys running away from school when they were very
naughty or very unhappy; why should they not run away from home, if driven
to extremities? This resolution soothed me. I crept down from my solitude
a happier child than I had entered it.
If this account of myself sounds unnatural, I can only answer that it is
true. If my step‐mother had been a loving, motherly woman, she would
probably have found out something of these sufferings, and have sought to
modify them by moulding my character; but she was not a woman to win a
child’s confidence, even if she had tried; and she did not try to win
mine. She found me shy, reserved, ungracious, and she left me so. She did
her duty by me as far as she knew how. I was conveyed every day regularly
from the nursery to the dining‐room after dinner. I grew resigned to the
daily punishment after a time, and in reply to the usual questions, “Had I
been a good boy?” and “Would I like an apple?” I learned to answer boldly
that I had and that I would, and to stand straight on both legs and
without wriggling. My step‐mother patted me on the cheek, and observed to
my father that I was improving in my manners. She seldom went further than
this in motherly caresses for the first two years after her marriage. Then
my father died, and I can remember that she kissed me often, and was
altogether more gentle in her manner towards me, and that I felt it, and
liked the change, though I could in no way account for it. I was still
miserably shy, and I retained the same intense dread of notoriety and fuss
of every description. Perhaps it was this that partly decided her on
sending me to Eton when I was barely old enough to be in the school‐room.
Other motives may have added weight to this one, but I shall say nothing
of that now. If her object was to cure me of the painful timidity which
still beset me, it was perhaps a justification for sending the fatherless
and motherless boy away from the solitude and isolation of a gloomy home
into the stir and life of a public school, where shyness, like so many
other foolish weaknesses, is quickly rubbed off by contact with those
intolerant pedagogues—companions of one’s own age and rank. I was happy
enough at Eton, in spite of the dreaded future that still loomed in the
distance. I had forgotten the spectre of a possible wedding‐breakfast and
its accompanying horrors. I knew now that it was in my own hands to suffer
or to avoid them. Meantime, my natural timidity still asserted itself in a
way that was much deplored by my step‐mother. I was an intelligent boy,
and might have distinguished myself over my fellows, had I chosen; but the
same morbid folly that had embittered my childhood now paralyzed my
ambition, and prevented me trying for prizes in any department of study.
Public speaking comes into play very much with candidates for honors at
school, and the finest gold medal that was ever awarded for a Greek and
Latin essay would not have tempted me, if I foresaw the necessity of
reading the essay aloud before that redoubtable array of critics, my
assembled masters and companions. I passed for an oddity, and so I was. My
step‐mother sighed over it in her calm, correct way; regretted I had not
the honorable ambition to make a name for myself and conquer a position
amongst my fellow‐men, and so on. To this I modestly replied that I was
satisfied with the name my fathers had transmitted to me, and which I
hoped to carry honorably at least through life, if not proudly. Pride of
birth was one of the earliest lessons she had endeavored to instil into my
mind, and in this respect I did not prove as stubborn as in others. I
remember saying, in reply to some remarks of hers as to the advisability
of my distinguishing myself in some public career, “When a man has the
good luck to be born a De Winton he is distinguished enough”; and I
remember the smile of approval that accompanied her demure shake of the
head.
I left Eton in course of time, and went to the university. The change from
the now familiar world of school was accomplished with immense reluctance,
and perhaps would never have been accomplished at all without the combined
influence of my step‐mother, my uncle, Admiral de Winton, and Sir Simon
Harness, who was one of my guardians and my father’s oldest friend. I soon
grew to like my new life, and to make friends with a few of my new
companions. I was still too shy to form friendships easily, or to be what
is called popular. Everything however, went smoothly with me till I was a
little over twenty, and then a circumstance occurred which woke up the old
terrors, and showed too plainly that much of the puerile folly of
childhood clung to me still. I am almost ashamed to write it at this lapse
of time; but I shall have more grievous follies to confess by‐and‐by, so
there is no use passing over this one. It arose out of a proposal to give
a farewell dinner to a fellow who was one of our set and extremely
popular. I chimed in heartily with the scheme the moment it was broached,
but when one of my chums, out of pure mischief as I afterwards found out,
suggested that we should one of us make a farewell speech, expressing the
regret and so forth of the rest, and that I should be the speaker, I got
savage, and was for not appearing at all at the dinner, unless they gave
me a solemn promise that I should not be asked to open my lips, even to
propose a toast. We were near quarrelling over it; the others were so
amused at my anger and fright that they kept up the joke, and bullied me
until I was in a downright passion. When it was over, and I had joined in
the laugh against myself, my tormentor said, quite hap‐hazard, and not
with the least idea of rousing me again:
“I say, old boy, how will it be when you come of age? You’ll be giving a
grand blow‐out at the Moat, of course, and we’ll all drink to your health
with three times three; but you will have to return thanks, you know, and
address the tenantry, and that sort of thing. It will be awful fun to see
you stammering and haw‐hawing, and assuring us that the affecting occasion
is really—aw—too much for you—aw—and so forth. When is it to be? About
this time twelve‐month, eh?”
I don’t know what I said to him. I think I felt he was too great a brute
to be spoken to, except in a language which it would not do for a De
Winton to use. But could this be true? Was I making a fool’s paradise to
myself, while every day hurried me on to this dismal catastrophe?
I feigned a sudden call home on family business that required my presence,
and started by the six A.M. train next morning for the Moat.
My step‐mother was surprised to meet me on coming down to
breakfast—surprised, not startled. She was not a woman to be startled.
“Madam,” I said, after greeting her ceremoniously, according to my step‐
filial habit, “have you any plan in view respecting the event of my
majority?”
“You speak in enigmas, my dear Clide. Pray explain yourself,” replied Mrs.
de Winton; and went on washing her hands in that deliberate way of hers
that always exasperated me. Perhaps it was this trick of perpetually
washing her hands that made me think her so uncommonly like the picture of
Lady Macbeth hanging over the library mantel‐piece.
“To be explicit, then,” I replied, “do you intend making a Coming of Age
of it? Do you purpose setting the tenantry into fits making a fuss over
me? In a word do you purpose calling up the seven devils commonly catted
rejoicings and loyal demonstrations? Do you mean to do these things,
madam?”
Whether she thought I had gone suddenly mad, or that, notwithstanding the
early hour, I had been indulging too freely in convivial libations, I
could not tell; but she decidedly thought I was laboring under some sort
of cerebral inflammation. Suspending abruptly the ablutionary movement,
she joined her hands coldly, and looking at me with a severe countenance,
not devoid altogether of pity, “Clide, you surprise me,” she said. “I
hoped that you had sufficient respect for yourself and for your ancestors
to understand....”
“Madam,” I broke in, trembling with excitement, “I respect you and I
respect my ancestors; but as to making a fool of myself for the
gratification of their ante‐diluvian crotchets, I won’t do it. No; if
every De Winton from the Flood down were to stalk out of his coffin and
bully me, I won’t.”
“Won’t what?” demanded my step‐mother, looking now rather alarmed.
“I won’t have those seven devils let loose over the place,” I said
defiantly; “and unless you pledge me your word of honor that there will
not be anything of the sort, as sure as I’m a living De Winton I’ll bolt
from the country, and never set foot in it again!”
“You misapprehend our relative positions altogether, Clide,” resumed Mrs.
de Winton. “When the time of your majority has arrived, you will, by the
very fact of its advent, be master to deal with it as you choose, quite
independent of my wishes. I should hope, however, that by that time you
will have conceived a better notion of your duty to society in your own
person, and to the traditions of the illustrious race from whom it is your
privilege to descend, than you seem to possess at present. It has been
from time immemorial the custom in the family to celebrate with pomp and
festive gatherings the majority of the heir. I am at a loss to understand
why this venerable custom should inspire you with such irrational fury;
why you should anticipate the welcome that awaits every De Winton on his
coming of age otherwise than with a sense of grateful and honorable
pride.”
I had calmed down when I discovered that I was my own master in the
matter. Otherwise I should not have listened so patiently to the end of
her tirade. When it was over, I began to feel rather ashamed of myself. I
had been making a storm in a butter‐boat.
“If I have forgotten in the least degree the deference I owe you, madam,”
I observed, twisting my wide‐awake to give myself what the French call a
countenance, “I apologize for it.”
“I trust you will learn to control yourself, in future, for your own
sake,” observed Mrs. de Winton, washing her hands again. “Be assured of
one thing: I shall take no steps towards the celebration of the event,
which is looked forward to by the tenantry with very different feelings
from yours, without having your consent. I would not expose them or you to
such an exhibition as that I have just witnessed. But you have twelve
months to wait, and to improve, I hope, before your coming of age makes it
necessary to remind you what that circumstance involves.”
“If it involves a fuss, madam,” I said emphatically, and waxing wroth
again, “once more, I won’t have it. I’d rather never come of age!” And
having delivered myself of this decided opinion, I wished her good‐
morning.
I came of age in due time, and fearing that, in spite of my commands to
the contrary, the tenantry might get up some insane rejoicings and
caterwaulings, I feigned illness and waited in London till the anniversary
was a week old.
That Rubicon was no sooner safely passed than the other, the fearful one
that had been the nightmare of my childhood, threatened to overtake me. I
had so constantly announced at school my determination never to marry that
my views on that subject were known to all who knew me, and the reputation
of a woman‐hater preceded me amongst my own people. Still, the Moat being
a fine old place, with a clear rent‐roll of fifteen thousand pounds a
year, and I being an only son and in all other respects what dowagers call
an “eligible young man,” the female mind of ——shire resented such a
resolve on my part as premature and absurd, and set to work diligently to
bring me to a better way of thinking. I pass over the history of that
merciless campaign of match‐making mothers and enterprising daughters. The
very thought of it now is painful to me. Enough that I came out of it
unscathed. After two years of comparative quiet—for I persistently refused
to be lured to the sirens’ caves in the neighborhood, and forced them to
beard the lion in his den, which gave me no inconsiderable vantage‐ground
over the enemy—the fire slackened, and I was left in peace.
My step‐mother did not attempt to coerce me; on the contrary, she
commiserated my position, and more than once expressed her disapproval of
the way in which, as she said, I was hunted down by all the marriageable
womanhood of the county. She insisted on giving one ball when I came home,
to introduce me to her own and my father’s friends and such members of the
family as I only knew by name or very slightly; but after that she
subsided, and my life was as free from fuss as any life in this fussy
world could be.
“Clide,” observed Mrs. de Winton one morning, as we sipped our tea over
the breakfast‐table, “do you think it quite impossible you should ever
marry?”
“Well,” I said reflectively, “as far as a man can answer for himself, I
should say quite impossible.”
“But how far is that?” observed my step‐mother with a sceptical smile.
“You have not yet been put to the test. You have not yet come across the
woman who could persuade you that marriage is the Elysium of man here
below. Supposing—I merely put it in the light of a remote supposition—that
you should come across her some day...?”
“I should probably accept my fate as many a wiser man has done before me,
and capitulate on reasonable terms—namely, that we should be executed at
six o’clock in the morning, no wedding‐dress, no bridemaids, no
speechifying—no fuss, in fact, and nobody present but a beggar‐woman and a
policeman. Then, when we come home, no entertaining, giving and taking
dinners, and that sort of fuss that comes like the farce after the
tragedy. If I ever meet with a pretty girl willing to take me and the Moat
on these conditions, then I will not answer for the consequences.”
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One year after this conversation with my step‐mother I met that pretty
girl; the result was what I tacitly foretold it would be. I married her.
It happened in this way: I was seized with a desire to travel, and,
instead of beginning with the stereotyped grand tour, I determined to go
first to America. I had a hunger for grand, wild scenery. The vast
primeval forests of the far West, the awful grandeur of Niagara, drew me
powerfully; so off I set, accompanied by a confidential servant named
Stanton. Shyness went for something in the choice. I felt attracted
towards the new young continent as by a sense of homelikeness and kindred.
I was not disappointed. Everything I saw there was at once novel and
familiar. I could converse with the people in my own language, and was
thus spared the mortification of stuttering out my inquiries in dubious
French or German, or trumpeting them through an interpreter, as must have
been the case on the grand tour.
Niagara appalled and fascinated me. Day after day I stood contemplating
the torrents of foam that surged up to meet the great sheet of water that
flung itself in a majestic arch of hard green crystal down into the
boiling, creamy gulf. I gazed and gazed till sight was dim and sense was
lost in a torpor of exquisite delight—neither trance nor vision, but a
state that hovered between both. The thunder of the rushing waters, the
sparkling of the prism that danced and flashed and faded with the changing
lights, reflecting every tint in the sunset, until the cataract blazed
before my dazzled eyes like a thousand rainbows melted into one, then
fainted and died, leaving a uniform sheen of emerald in its place—all this
was like some magnificent apotheosis that kept me spell‐bound, fascinated,
entranced. I had come intending to remain three days; but a week slipped
away and found me still at Niagara. At last I determined to break the
spell. I must tear myself from the spectacle before it overmastered my
reason; for there were moments when, after standing for hours looking down
into the seething abyss of foam, I felt as if an invisible chord were
drawing me on and on, nearer and nearer, luring me in a dreamy way towards
the water. Then I would rouse myself and rush away; but it would not do to
go on playing with a danger that was sweet and potent as a magician’s
spell. I came out one morning to take my last look. It was just after
sunrise. The falls had never looked so beautiful, the booming of the water
had never sounded so solemn, the light had never evolved such a fairy
tracery of jewelled glory on the silvery vapor and the green crystal. The
effect was overpowering. For one moment it seemed to me that I heard the
voice of Jehovah speaking in the roar of many waters; that I stood within
the sanctuary, separated by an impenetrable and mysterious wall of thunder
from the outer, visible world. A spontaneous and almost unconscious
impulse made me uncover myself and stand bareheaded, as in the presence of
the Unseen and Omnipresent. How long I stood thus I cannot say; I know
that I was roused from my revery by a sound that struck in upon my dreamy
deafness with strange and thrilling effect. It was the singing of a human
voice; the words were inarticulate, but I knew the music well. It was a
wild, weird Highland melody; the rhythm was barely distinguishable, as the
notes rose and fell through the roar and boom of the waterfall, sounding
nevertheless preternaturally clear and sweet, like the wail of a spirit or
some sweet sea‐bird’s cry. What was it? Some Undine risen from the spray,
and pouring out her lament to the wave? I dared not look round, so fearful
was I to banish the songster. When the voice ceased, I turned my head and
looked. Was I dreaming, or was it indeed a spirit that I beheld? I doubted
at first. But as I kept my eyes steadily fixed on the figure, it moved
towards me, and I knew that it was neither sprite nor shadow, but a woman,
a young girl rather—for she seemed barely emerged from childhood to
maidenhood—more beautiful than any picture I had ever seen or that my
imagination had ever painted. She was small, below the middle height. Her
hair fell in profuse ringlets or coils—it seemed an accidental
arrangement—down her back; it was black and glossy as jet. Her eyes were
lustrous and dark as a gazelle’s; her complexion almost colorless. She was
dressed in dark green, a loose, unconventional sort of garment that draped
her something after the fashion of a Roman stola; her straw hat had either
fallen off or she had taken it off, and held it dangling from her arm; her
hands were clasped, and her eyes fixed on the fall, as it plunged from the
rocky ledge down, down into the eternity of waters.
She had come within a few yards of me before she seemed conscious of my
presence—of anything but the majestic spectacle that was riveting her
whole soul through her eyes. She walked on like a somnambulist. A sudden
dread seized me. Was she asleep, or was she experiencing in its uttermost
degree the terrible attraction that I had felt more than once, and walking
on unconsciously to death? I advanced a few steps, so as to stand in her
path as she drew near. The effect was instantaneous. She started as if
some one had struck her. I thought she would have fallen, and rushed to
prevent it by stretching out my arm. The movement apparently recalled her
to the sense of where she was. With a slight acknowledgment of my
courtesy, she turned quickly away, and hurried on out of sight. I followed
her, and it was with an unreasonable thrill of delight that I saw her
enter the hotel where I was staying. Who was this siren, or how did one so
young and so beautiful come to be alone in this lonely place? Before the
day was over I met her again. Chance brought us together once more in the
same spot. This time she was not alone. An elderly man, whom she addressed
as uncle, accompanied her. He was not prepossessing in his appearance, and
I doubt whether I should have overcome my natural shyness so far as to
address him, if he had not himself broken the ice by asking me if I had
ventured to walk under the fall, and whether the experience was worth the
risk. I assured him that it amply compensated for any imaginary danger
that might exist, and volunteered to accompany him if he decided on trying
it. This brought us into communication, if not into sympathy. I did not
like him, consequently he did not like me. We both felt this
instinctively, no doubt; there was an opposing element of some sort
between us that made friendship impossible, though it did not prevent that
kind of superficial intimacy which is almost inevitable amongst people of
the same country who find themselves thrown close together under the same
roof in a foreign land. He was Scotch, as I knew at once by his name,
Prendergast, and by his accent. He was a thin, medium‐sized man, and could
not have been more than forty, though his silver hair gave him a
prematurely old look, which was perhaps increased by a settled expression
of ill‐temper about the mouth, arising, so his niece affectionately
alleged, from chronic tooth‐ache. He seemed indeed a martyr to that trying
complaint, and wore his head tied up in a woollen comforter, which must
have been miserably uncomfortable; for the days were hot and the nights as
balmy as June. I fancied that his beautiful niece disliked him, or at
least feared him considerably more than she loved him. I noticed how the
merry, bright little creature started at the sound of his voice when he
called to her sharply, and how she quailed when his cold, hard eye lighted
on her in the midst of one of her childish peals of laughter, checking it
as by a cold bath. It struck me even more than once that she cast a glance
towards me, as if claiming my protection—against whom or what I could not
imagine; but I was resolved to ascertain, and, if my assistance or
sympathy could avail her, to let her have them at any cost. We happened to
be alone on the third day after our first meeting. Isabel—so I heard Mr.
Prendergast call her—was apparently as pleased at the opportunity as I
was. She talked to me with the frank, artless _abandon_ of a child; and,
without in the least intending it, she told me enough of her antecedents
and position to satisfy me that I was right in supposing her not very
happy with her uncle. She told me he was her guardian, and had brought her
up since she was quite a child, her parents having died when she was five
years old. Her mother was his sister; her father’s name was Cameron. He
held a large tract of land in Canada, and had a great deal of money—“heaps
of money,” was her childish estimate of it—in banks and things in England;
and she, being the only child, was heiress to all this wealth. Mr.
Prendergast had had the management of it up to the present, and continued
to treat her as an infant, though she was now of age, she said. He had by
nature a tyrannical temper, and it was increased and rendered irritable
and fierce by years of tooth‐ache. He had been away in hot climates to
seek relief for his exasperated nerves, and it was only on her account
that he had returned to England of late. He had come out to America to
look after her property, and also for the benefit of her health, which had
required change and a long sea‐voyage. I felt grateful to him for this at
least, as the sacrifice had evidently been crowned with success. Miss
Cameron looked the very picture of health, and she said the voyage had
made her stronger than she had ever been in her life. It had, however,
proved very disastrous to Mr. Prendergast, whose teeth had not given him a
day’s rest since they left England; “and of course this makes him very
cross,” his niece observed deprecatingly, with a little sigh.
After this conversation we became perfectly at ease with each other, and
tacitly watched for opportunities of renewing it. I need not say that I
relinquished my plan of leaving the falls, which day after day grew more
beautiful, more irresistibly attractive, to me. A week passed in a dreamy
state of blissfulness, and then a crisis came. Mr. Prendergast, who had
been howling all night in the room next to me with the tooth‐ache, set off
after breakfast, in spite of his swelled face, with a party that were
being taken to walk under the arch of the fall. He wound a quarter of a
mile of Shetland shawls round his head, and, thus fortified, donned the
leathern costume of the occasion, and down he went. Everything went well
enough until he was emerging from the tremendous roar that had covered him
in like a curtain, and was setting his foot on dry land above, when he was
seized with a rush of blood to the head, and fell insensible to the
ground. He was carried to his room, and lay there dangerously ill for
several days. Isabel was not allowed to see him. The doctor enjoined
absolute quiet as of the first necessity; no one entered the sick‐room but
the medical man and a nurse whom he sent for to the nearest town. This
catastrophe naturally threw Miss Cameron and me a good deal together. We
wandered out to admire the falls by sunrise; we were to be seen there
again at sunset, when the clouds rolled in golden cascades over the
western sky, and made a spectacle of rival glory above and beyond the
everlasting glory of Niagara. What could come of all this but what came of
it? We loved each other, and we confessed it. It was a wild act on my
part. I knew nothing of Isabel’s family and antecedents but what she had
accidentally told me; but to a man in love, first love, what more was
wanted? She bore a name that was ancient as my own. As to her fortune, I
cared nothing for that. She told me it was already legally in her own
power; that she was twenty‐one. I believed this, since she said it, but it
required a strong effort of faith to credit that beaming young face with
more than seventeen years in this cold world. Those were blissful days
while we walked arm‐in‐arm through the yellowing forest, and alongside the
river beyond the falls, cooing our young loves to one another, as foolish
and as tender as any two Babes in the Wood. But Mr. Prendergast was
getting well now, and called Isabel constantly to his side, and sternly
catechised her as to what she did when she left him. He was to be down‐
stairs to‐morrow, and they were to leave Niagara in a few days, and sail
for England by the next boat that left Quebec. She whispered this to me
with white lips one morning, and then rushed up‐stairs to answer the call
of the dragon, who was shouting to her from his open window. I waited till
she came down again, and then drew her out into a favorite spot of ours at
a little distance from the house.
“Isabel,” I said, “does your uncle know that we love each other?”
“Oh! no, no; he would kill me if he knew it,” she replied, speaking in a
whisper, and looking up at me with an expression of terror and trust that
nerved me to anything.
“What, then, are we to do? Shall I speak to him at once?” I asked.
“There is no use speaking to him; he will never let me marry you, Clide.
Forgive me for making you unhappy,” she said, clasping her hands on my
arm, while the big tears ran down her face. “I never ought to have let you
care for me. I never ought to have let myself love you, but I could not
help it; I could not help it.”
Her head fell on my shoulder, and the sobs shook the frail little figure
that leaned against me with the artless confidence of a child.
“You _shall_ marry me, darling,” I cried; “no uncle that ever lived shall
separate us. I swear it! We shall be married before we leave this. Trust
to me to do everything; we will arrange it all before that old Turk knows
or suspects anything. Promise only to trust to me entirely and to do as I
ask you. Promise me, Isabel.”
She promised, placing her hand confidingly in mine.
Next morning, soon after sunrise, while Mr. Prendergast was still asleep,
we two stole out to the little church where a few stray worshippers sang
their hymns to the music of the waterfall, and were married by the old
clergyman of the place. My man, Stanton, and the sexton were the only
witnesses. It was indeed a wedding after my own heart, all done as quietly
as if marrying a wife were as much an every‐day accident in life as taking
a walk before breakfast. Isabel was, if possible, more delighted with the
mode of proceeding than I was. I forget how she came to make the avowal,
but I know it was quite spontaneous, that she hated the fuss and
paraphernalia of a wedding in England as she hated a thunder‐storm; and
that if she had been given her choice, she would infinitely have preferred
this quiet little marriage of ours to the most magnificent display that
could have been got up for her in Scotland. We were as happy as two
children as we walked home together. But then came the business of telling
Mr. Prendergast. Isabel declared she would rather die than enter his
presence now alone; he would read her rebellious act on her face, and he
would kill her. He was capable of anything when he was roused. I was not
going to risk my treasure within his reach. I sat down and wrote a
respectful letter, informing him that I had become the husband of his
niece, and requesting his forgiveness for what might seem a violation of
good faith, but which his own conscience would, I felt sure, find an
excuse for in my behalf. I stated my fortune and position more accurately
than I had been able to do to Isabel, who put her hand to my mouth when I
attempted to speak of settlements and so forth, saying she wanted to hear
nothing about my money. I now begged of Mr. Prendergast to let me know
what his wishes were concerning his niece’s fortune, and pledged myself
beforehand to conform to them, and prove by my conduct in this respect
that money was the last consideration that had actuated me in marrying an
heiress. In answer to this I received a curt line informing me that I had
behaved like a scoundrel, and that, as a gentleman, Mr. Prendergast
declined to meet me, and that I had better take myself off with my wife
before chance threw me in his way again. Isabel was overjoyed at this
unexpected issue. I was stung by the man’s insolence and his unjust
accusations, but, on the whole, it was the easiest way of getting rid of
him and securing myself and Isabel from his brutal temper and ungovernable
violence.
We left Niagara that day. I wrote to my step‐mother, acquainting her that
I was a married man, and announcing the day she might expect to see us at
the Moat. I wrote for places in the next steamer, and we were fortunate
enough to find two vacant ones at nearly the last moment in a splendid
vessel that sailed from New York. It had occurred to me that before
leaving America it would have been prudent and rational to make some
inquiries concerning the landed property which my wife held in Canada; but
as she did not propose this, I feared it might strike her unfavorably if I
did, and suggest that her uncle’s insulting insinuations were not as
unfounded as I wished her to believe. I therefore abandoned the idea, and
we left the United States without my asking a single question on the
subject.
The voyage homeward was delightful. Isabel formed plans for the future
that sounded like songs from Arcadia, and drew a picture of our life at
the Moat that looked like a vision of the Elysian fields. We stopped a
week in London to extemporize a trousseau and purchase some trinkets, and
then I took my wife to her Welsh home. My step‐mother gave her a gracious,
if not a hearty, welcome. It was a very quiet home‐coming; nothing,
indeed, could have been tamer. There were no tenantry to meet us, no
rejoicings either in the village or at the house. I thought this strange,
though it was strictly in accordance with the desires I had always
expressed on the subject to my step‐mother. Isabel, however, was entirely
satisfied, and confessed to me that she had been in a nervous flutter all
the way home, fearing to find some horror in the shape of a deputation
from the tenants or something awaiting us at our journey’s end.
A few days after our arrival, when I came down to breakfast alone, my
step‐mother said to me, “Clide, it is time that you thought a little of
business now. I think you told me that your wife’s fortune is in her own
right; this is very desirable to begin with, but of course it cannot
remain so. Your rights as a husband must be properly protected.”
“My wife’s affection and my confidence in her are the only security I
require on that, madam,” I replied stiffly.
“The sentiment does honor to you both,” observed Mrs. de Winton, with an
undertone of sarcasm that did not escape me; “but you do not expect
Admiral de Winton or Sir Simon Harness to be satisfied with such a
sentimental guarantee.”
“I understand you, and I respect your motives,” was my cold rejoinder;
“but as I am not responsible to any one but myself for the good or bad
management of myself and my property, I do not recognize any one’s right,
trustee or relation, to interfere with me, and still less to interfere
with my wife.”
“Who talks of interfering with your wife? You tell me she is an heiress
with forty thousand pounds in the Funds and an estate in Canada. Your
father’s widow and your late guardian and trustee have certainly a right
to ask the whereabouts of the money and the land. Admitting that your wife
be as devoted and as disinterested as you believe, is she entirely her own
mistress? This tyrannical old uncle who has kept her in such bondage—how
far did he or does he hold control over her fortune? For her sake as much
as for your own you should put yourself in possession of these facts.”
This view of the case had not occurred to me. I saw the justice of it, and
frankly said so.
“Isabel will put no obstacle in the way of a just and prudent arrangement;
I am quite sure of that,” I said emphatically. “My only fear is that she
should see in this horrid investigation a desire on my part to count my
prize, and perhaps suspect me of having had a base, ulterior motive in
marrying her; and rather than wrong myself or wound her by such a
suspicion, I would sooner never see a penny of her money or an acre of her
land.”
“And does your wife share these sentiments? Is she quite as indifferent
about the matter as you are?” inquired my step‐mother.
“Every bit!” I answered vehemently.
“Did she tell you so?”
“Do you suppose I would ask her?”
“Ridiculous boy!” sneered my step‐mother. “But taking for granted that
just at present she does share your juvenile folly and poetical want of
common sense, how long will it last, do you think? A bride in her
honeymoon is a very different being from a wife of a few years’ standing.
She knows nothing of the value of money now; but when she finds herself
the mother of a family, with daughters growing up to be married and
portioned, she will awake to the value of it in a way that will astonish
you. And when a few years hence she asks you for an account of her own
splendid fortune, what answer will you make to her? You were too delicate
to hurt her feelings by any inquiries about so insignificant a matter, so
you left it to her uncle to see to it!”
“I said I was prepared to do what was necessary to protect her interests,”
I replied. “I will speak to her on the subject this afternoon. What am I
to do next?”
“Write to Sir Simon Harness, and beg him to fix a day to come down here;
and when he has done so, you will write to the family lawyer, and request
him to be here to meet him. Of course you will write to Admiral de Winton,
as your father’s executor and your nearest relative now.”
“What a confounded fuss it will be!” I exclaimed impatiently, and, kicking
over a footstool, I started up and began to walk up and down the room. “I
wish I had married a milkmaid!”
“Don’t talk like a fool, Clide!” said my step‐mother. “I do believe your
pretended delicacy and fear of hurting Isabel’s feelings are nothing but a
cloak to cover your dread of a fuss!”