Move on, my quill! wait not for my guidance. Reanimated with thy
master's spirit, all airy light! A heyday rapture! A mounting impulse
sways him: lifts him from the earth.
I must, cost what it will, rein in this upward-pulling,
forward-going--what shall I call it? But there are times, and now is one
of them, when words are poor.
It will not do--down this hill, up that steep; through this thicket,
over that hedge--I have _laboured_ to fatigue myself: to reconcile me to
repose; to lolling on a sofa; to poring over a book, to any thing that
might win for my heart a respite from these throbs; to deceive me into a
few _tolerable_ moments of forgetfulness.
Let me see; they tell me this is Monday night. Only three days yet to
come! If thus restless to-day; if my heart thus bounds till its mansion
scarcely can hold it, what must be my state to-morrow! What next day!
What as the hour hastens on; as the sun descends; as my hand touches
hers in sign of wedded unity, of love without interval; of concord
without end!
I must quell these tumults. They will disable me else. They will wear
out all my strength. They will drain away life itself. But who could
have thought! So soon! Not three months since I first set eyes upon her.
Not three weeks since our plighted love, and only three days to
terminate suspense and give me _all_.
I must compel myself to quiet; to sleep. I must find some refuge from
anticipations so excruciating. All extremes are agonies. A joy like this
is too big for this narrow tenement. I must thrust it forth; I must bar
and bolt it out for a time, or these frail walls will burst asunder.
The pen is a pacifier. It checks the mind's career; it circumscribes her
wanderings. It traces out and compels us to adhere to one path. It ever
was my friend. Often it has blunted my vexations; hushed my stormy
passions; turned my peevishness to soothing; my fierce revenge to
heart-dissolving pity.
Perhaps it will befriend me now. It may temper my impetuous wishes; lull
my intoxication; and render my happiness supportable; and, indeed, it
has produced partly this effect already. My blood, within the few
minutes thus employed, flows with less destructive rapidity. My thoughts
range themselves in less disorder. And, now that the conquest is
effected, what shall I say? I must continue at the pen, or shall
immediately relapse.
What shall I say? Let me look back upon the steps that led me hither.
Let me recount the preliminaries. I cannot do better.
And first as to Achsa Fielding,--to describe this woman.
To recount, in brief, so much of her history as has come to my knowledge
will best account for that zeal, almost to idolatry, with which she has,
ever since I thoroughly knew her, been regarded by me.
Never saw I one to whom the term _lovely_ more truly belonged. And yet
in stature she is too low; in complexion dark and almost sallow; and her
eyes, though black and of piercing lustre, have a cast which I cannot
well explain. It lessens without destroying their lustre and their force
to charm; but all personal defects are outweighed by her heart and her
intellect. There is the secret of her power to entrance the soul of the
listener and beholder. It is not only when she sings that her utterance
is musical. It is not only when the occasion is urgent and the topic
momentous that her eloquence is rich and flowing. They are always so.
I had vowed to love her and serve her, and been her frequent visitant,
long before I was acquainted with her past life. I had casually picked
up some intelligence, from others, or from her own remarks. I knew very
soon that she was English by birth, and had been only a year and a half
in America; that she had scarcely passed her twenty-fifth year, and was
still embellished with all the graces of youth; that she had been a
wife; but was uninformed whether the knot had been untied by death or
divorce; that she possessed considerable, and even splendid, fortune;
but the exact amount, and all besides these particulars, were unknown to
me till some time after our acquaintance was begun.
One evening she had been talking very earnestly on the influence
annexed, in Great Britain, to birth, and had given me some examples of
this influence. Meanwhile my eyes were fixed steadfastly on hers. The
peculiarity in their expression never before affected me so strongly. A
vague resemblance to something seen elsewhere, on the same day,
occurred, and occasioned me to exclaim, suddenly, in a pause of her
discourse,--
"As I live, my good mamma, those eyes of yours have told me a secret. I
almost think they spoke to me; and I am not less amazed at the
strangeness than at the distinctness of their story."
"And, pr'ythee, what have they said?"
"Perhaps I was mistaken. I might have been deceived by a fancied voice,
or have confounded one word with another near akin to it; but let me die
if I did not think they said that you were--_a Jew_."
At this sound, her features were instantly veiled with the deepest
sorrow and confusion. She put her hand to her eyes, the tears started,
and she sobbed. My surprise at this effect of my words was equal to my
contrition. I besought her to pardon me for having thus unknowingly
alarmed and grieved her.
After she had regained some composure, she said, "You have not offended,
Arthur. Your surmise was just and natural, and could not always have
escaped you. Connected with that word are many sources of anguish, which
time has not, and never will, dry up; and the less I think of past
events the less will my peace be disturbed. I was desirous that you
should know nothing of me but what you see; nothing but the present and
the future, merely that no allusions might occur in our conversation
which will call up sorrows and regrets that will avail nothing.
"I now perceive the folly of endeavouring to keep you in ignorance, and
shall therefore, once for all, inform you of what has befallen me, that
your inquiries and suggestions may be made and fully satisfied at once,
and your curiosity have no motive for calling back my thoughts to what I
ardently desire to bury in oblivion.
"My father was indeed a _Jew_, and one of the most opulent of his nation
in London,--a Portuguese by birth, but came to London when a boy. He had
few of the moral or external qualities of Jews; for I suppose there is
some justice in the obloquy that follows them so closely. He was frugal
without meanness, and cautious in his dealings, without extortion. I
need not fear to say this, for it was the general voice.
"Me, an only child, and, of course, the darling of my parents, they
trained up in the most liberal manner. My education was purely English.
I learned the same things and of the same masters with my neighbours.
Except frequenting their church and repeating their creed, and partaking
of the same food, I saw no difference between them and me. Hence I grew
more indifferent, perhaps, than was proper, to the distinctions of
religion. They were never enforced upon me. No pains were taken to fill
me with scruples and antipathies. They never stood, as I may say, upon
the threshold. They were often thought upon, but were vague and easily
eluded or forgotten.
"Hence it was that my heart too readily admitted impressions that more
zeal and more parental caution would have saved me from. They could
scarcely be avoided, as my society was wholly English, and my youth, my
education, and my father's wealth made me an object of much attention.
And the same causes that lulled to sleep my own watchfulness had the
same effect upon that of others. To regret or to praise this remissness
is now too late. Certain it is, that my destiny, and not a happy
destiny, was fixed by it.
"The fruit of this remissness was a passion for one who fully returned
it. Almost as young as I, who was only sixteen; he knew as little as
myself what obstacles the difference of our births was likely to raise
between us. His father, Sir Ralph Fielding, a man nobly born, high in
office, splendidly allied, could not be expected to consent to the
marriage of his eldest son, in such green youth, to the daughter of an
alien, a Portuguese, a Jew; but these impediments were not seen by my
ignorance, and were overlooked by the youth's passion.
"But, strange to tell, what common prudence would have so confidently
predicted did not happen. Sir Ralph had a numerous family, likely to be
still more so; had but slender patrimony; the income of his offices
nearly made up his all. The young man was headstrong, impetuous, and
would probably disregard the inclinations of his family. Yet the father
would not consent but on one condition,--that of my admission to the
English Church.
"No very strenuous opposition to these terms could be expected from me.
At so thoughtless an age, with an education so unfavourable to religious
impressions; swayed, likewise, by the strongest of human passions; made
somewhat impatient, by the company I kept, of the disrepute and scorn to
which the Jewish nation are everywhere condemned, I could not be
expected to be very averse to the scheme.
"My fears as to what my father's decision would be were soon at an end.
He loved his child too well to thwart her wishes in so essential a
point. Finding in me no scruples, no unwillingness, he thought it absurd
to be scrupulous for me. My own heart having abjured my religion, it was
absurd to make any difficulty about a formal renunciation. These were
his avowed reasons for concurrence, but time showed that he had probably
other reasons, founded, indeed, in his regard for my happiness, but such
as, if they had been known, would probably have strengthened into
invincible the reluctance of my lover's family.
"No marriage was ever attended with happier presages. The numerous
relations of my husband admitted me with the utmost cordiality among
them. My father's tenderness was unabated by this change, and those
humiliations to which I had before been exposed were now no more; and
every tie was strengthened, at the end of a year, by the feelings of a
_mother_. I had need, indeed, to know a season of happiness, that I
might be fitted to endure the sad reverses that succeeded. One after the
other my disasters came, each one more heavy than the last, and in such
swift succession that they hardly left me time to breathe.
"I had scarcely left my chamber, I had scarcely recovered my usual
health, and was able to press with true fervour the new and precious
gift to my bosom, when melancholy tidings came. I was in the country, at
the seat of my father-in-law, when the messenger arrived.
"A shocking tale it was! and told abruptly, with every unpitying
aggravation. I hinted to you once my father's death. The _kind_ of
death--oh! my friend! It was horrible. He was then a placid, venerable
old man; though many symptoms of disquiet had long before been
discovered by my mother's watchful tenderness. Yet none could suspect
him capable of such a deed; for none, so carefully had he conducted his
affairs, suspected the havoc that mischance had made of his property.
"I, that had so much reason to love my father,--I will leave you to
imagine how I was affected by a catastrophe so dreadful, so
unlooked-for. Much less could I suspect the cause of his despair; yet he
had foreseen his ruin before my marriage; had resolved to defer it, for
his daughter's and his wife's sake, as long as possible, but had still
determined not to survive the day that should reduce him to indigence.
The desperate act was thus preconcerted--thus deliberate.
"The true state of his affairs was laid open by his death. The failure
of great mercantile houses at Frankfort and Liege was the cause of his
disasters.
"Thus were my prospects shut in. That wealth which, no doubt, furnished
the chief inducement with my husband's family to concur in his choice,
was now suddenly exchanged for poverty.
"Bred up, as I had been, in pomp and luxury; conscious that my wealth
was my chief security from the contempt of the proud and bigoted, and my
chief title to the station to which I had been raised, and which I the
more delighted in because it enabled me to confer so great obligations
on my husband,--what reverse could be harder than this, and how much
bitterness was added by it to the grief occasioned by the violent death
of my father!
"Yet loss of fortune, though it mortified my pride, did not prove my
worst calamity. Perhaps it was scarcely to be ranked with evils, since
it furnished a touchstone by which my husband's affections were to be
tried; especially as the issue of the trial was auspicious; for my
misfortune seemed only to heighten the interest which my character had
made for me in the hearts of all that knew me. The paternal regards of
Sir Ralph had always been tender, but that tenderness seemed now to be
redoubled.
"New events made this consolation still more necessary. My unhappy
mother!--She was nearer to the dreadful scene when it happened; had no
surviving object to beguile her sorrow; was rendered, by long habit,
more dependent upon fortune than her child.
"A melancholy, always mute, was the first effect upon my mother. Nothing
could charm her eye, or her ear. Sweet sounds that she once loved, and
especially when her darling child was the warbler, were heard no longer.
How, with streaming eyes, have I sat and watched the dear lady, and
endeavoured to catch her eye, to rouse her attention!--But I must not
think of these things.
"But even this distress was little in comparison with what was to come.
A frenzy thus mute, motionless, and vacant, was succeeded by fits,
talkative, outrageous, requiring incessant superintendence, restraint,
and even violence.
"Why led you me thus back to my sad remembrances? Excuse me for the
present. I will tell you the rest some other time; to-morrow."
To-morrow, accordingly, my friend resumed her story.
"Let me now make an end," said she, "of my mournful narrative, and
never, I charge you, do any thing to revive it again.
"Deep as was my despondency, occasioned by these calamities, I was not
destitute of some joy. My husband and my child were lovely and
affectionate. In their caresses, in their welfare, I found peace; and
might still have found it, had there not been----. But why should I open
afresh wounds which time has imperfectly closed? But the story must some
time be told to you, and the sooner it is told and dismissed to
forgetfulness the better.
"My ill fate led me into company with a woman too well known in the idle
and dissipated circles. Her character was not unknown to me. There was
nothing in her features or air to obviate disadvantageous
prepossessions. I sought not her intercourse; I rather shunned it, as
unpleasing and discreditable, but she would not be repulsed.
Self-invited, she made herself my frequent guest; took unsolicited part
in my concerns; did me many kind offices; and, at length, in spite of my
counter-inclination, won upon my sympathy and gratitude.
"No one in the world, did I fondly think, had I less reason to fear than
Mrs. Waring. Her character excited not the slightest apprehension for my
own safety. She was upwards of forty, nowise remarkable for grace or
beauty; tawdry in her dress; accustomed to render more conspicuous the
traces of age by her attempts to hide them; the mother of a numerous
family, with a mind but slenderly cultivated; always careful to save
appearances; studiously preserving distance with my husband, and he,
like myself, enduring rather than wishing her society. What could I fear
from the arts of such a one?
"But alas! the woman had consummate address. Patience, too, that nothing
could tire. Watchfulness that none could detect. Insinuation the wiliest
and most subtle. Thus wound she herself into my affections, by an
unexampled perseverance in seeming kindness; by tender confidence; by
artful glosses of past misconduct; by self-rebukes and feigned
contritions.
"Never were stratagems so intricate, dissimulation so profound! But
still, that such a one should seduce my husband; young, generous,
ambitious, impatient of contumely and reproach, and surely not
indifferent; before this fatal intercourse, not indifferent to his wife
and child!--Yet so it was!
"I saw his discontents; his struggles; I heard him curse this woman, and
the more deeply for my attempts, unconscious as I was of her
machinations, to reconcile them to each other, to do away what seemed a
causeless indignation, or antipathy against her. How little I suspected
the nature of the conflict in his heart, between a new passion and the
claims of pride; of conscience and of humanity; the claims of a child
and a wife; a wife, already in affliction, and placing all that yet
remained of happiness, in the firmness of his virtue; in the continuance
of his love; a wife, at the very hour of his meditated flight, full of
terrors at the near approach of an event whose agonies demand a double
share of a husband's supporting, encouraging love----
"Good Heaven! For what evils are some of thy creatures reserved!
Resignation to thy decree, in the last and most cruel distress, was,
indeed, a hard task.
"He was gone. Some unavoidable engagement calling him to Hamburg was
pleaded. Yet to leave me at such an hour! I dared not upbraid, nor
object. The tale was so specious! The fortunes of a friend depended on
his punctual journey. The falsehood of his story too soon made itself
known. He was gone, in company with his detested paramour!
"Yet, though my vigilance was easily deceived, it was not so with
others. A creditor, who had his bond for three thousand pounds, pursued
and arrested him at Harwich. He was thrown into prison, but his
companion--let me, at least, say that in her praise--would not desert
him. She took lodging near the place of his confinement, and saw him
daily. That, had she not done it, and had my personal condition allowed,
should have been my province.
"Indignation and grief hastened the painful crisis with me. I did not
weep that the second fruit of this unhappy union saw not the light. I
wept only that this hour of agony was not, to its unfortunate mother,
the last.
"I felt not anger; I had nothing but compassion for Fielding. Gladly
would I have recalled him to my arms and to virtue; I wrote, adjuring
him, by all our past joys, to return; vowing only gratitude for his new
affection, and claiming only the recompense of seeing him restored to
his family; to liberty; to reputation.
"But, alas! Fielding had a good but a proud heart. He looked upon his
error with remorse, with self-detestation, and with the fatal belief
that it could not be retrieved; shame made him withstand all my
reasonings and persuasions, and, in the hurry of his feelings, he made
solemn vows that he would, in the moment of restored liberty, abjure his
country and his family forever. He bore indignantly the yoke of his new
attachment, but he strove in vain to shake it off. Her behaviour, always
yielding, doting, supplicative, preserved him in her fetters. Though
upbraided, spurned, and banished from his presence, she would not leave
him, but, by new efforts and new artifices, soothed, appeased, and won
again and kept his tenderness.
"What my entreaties were unable to effect, his father could not hope to
accomplish. He offered to take him from prison; the creditor offered to
cancel the bond, if he would return to me; but this condition he
refused. All his kindred, and one who had been his bosom-friend from
childhood, joined in beseeching his compliance with these conditions;
but his pride, his dread of my merited reproaches, the merits and
dissuasions of his new companion, whose sacrifices for his sake had not
been small, were obstacles which nothing could subdue.
"Far, indeed, was I from imposing these conditions. I waited only till,
by certain arrangements, I could gather enough to pay his debts, to
enable him to execute his vow: empty would have been my claims to his
affection, if I could have suffered, with the means of his deliverance
in my hands, my husband to remain a moment in prison.
"The remains of my father's vast fortune was a jointure of a thousand
pounds a year, settled on my mother, and, after her death, on me. My
mother's helpless condition put this revenue into my disposal. By this
means was I enabled, without the knowledge of my father-in-law or my
husband, to purchase the debt, and dismiss him from prison. He set out
instantly, in company with his paramour, to France.
"When somewhat recovered from the shock of this calamity, I took up my
abode with my mother. What she had was enough, as you perhaps will
think, for plentiful subsistence; but to us, with habits of a different
kind, it was little better than poverty. That reflection, my father's
memory, my mother's deplorable state, which every year grew worse, and
the late misfortune, were the chief companions of my thoughts.
"The dear child, whose smiles were uninterrupted by his mother's
afflictions, was some consolation in my solitude. To his instruction and
to my mother's wants all my hours were devoted. I was sometimes not
without the hope of better days. Full as my mind was of Fielding's
merits, convinced by former proofs of his ardent and generous spirit, I
trusted that time and reflection would destroy that spell by which he
was now bound.
"For some time, the progress of these reflections was not known. In
leaving England, Fielding dropped all correspondence and connection with
his native country. He parted with the woman at Rouen, leaving no trace
behind him by which she might follow him, as she wished to do. She never
returned to England, but died a twelvemonth afterwards in Switzerland.
"As to me, I had only to muse day and night upon the possible destiny of
this beloved fugitive. His incensed father cared not for him. He had
cast him out of his paternal affections, ceased to make inquiries
respecting him, and even wished never to hear of him again. My boy
succeeded to my husband's place in his grandfather's affections, and in
the hopes and views of the family; and his mother wanted nothing which
their compassionate and respectful love could bestow.
"Three long and tedious years passed away, and no tidings were received.
Whether he were living or dead, nobody could tell. At length, an English
traveller, going out of the customary road from Italy, met with
Fielding, in a town in the Venaissin. His manners, habits, and language,
had become French. He seemed unwilling to be recognised by an old
acquaintance, but, not being able to avoid this, and becoming gradually
familiar, he informed the traveller of many particulars in his present
situation. It appeared that he had made himself useful to a neighbouring
_seigneur_, in whose _château_ he had long lived on the footing of a
brother. France he had resolved to make his future country, and, among
other changes for that end, he had laid aside his English name, and
taken that of his patron, which was _Perrin_. He had endeavoured to
compensate himself for all other privations, by devoting himself to
rural amusements and to study.
"He carefully shunned all inquiries respecting me; but, when my name was
mentioned by his friend, who knew well all that had happened, and my
general welfare, together with that of his son, asserted, he showed deep
sensibility, and even consented that I should be made acquainted with
his situation.
"I cannot describe the effect of this intelligence on me. My hopes of
bringing him back to me were suddenly revived. I wrote him a letter, in
which I poured forth my whole heart; but his answer contained avowals of
all his former resolutions, to which time had only made his adherence
more easy. A second and third letter were written, and an offer made to
follow him to his retreat and share his exile; but all my efforts
availed nothing. He solemnly and repeatedly renounced all the claims of
a husband over me, and absolved me from every obligation as a wife.
"His part in this correspondence was performed without harshness or
contempt. A strange mixture there was of pathos and indifference; of
tenderness and resolution. Hence I continually derived hope, which time,
however, brought no nearer to certainty.
"At the opening of the Revolution, the name of Perrin appeared among the
deputies to the constituent assembly for the district in which he
resided. He had thus succeeded in gaining all the rights of a French
citizen; and the hopes of his return became almost extinct; but that,
and every other hope respecting him, has since been totally extinguished
by his marriage with Marguerite d'Almont, a young lady of great merit
and fortune, and a native of Avignon.
"A long period of suspense was now at an end, and left me in a state
almost as full of anguish as that which our first separation produced.
My sorrows were increased by my mother's death, and, this incident
freeing me from those restraints upon my motions which before existed, I
determined to come to America.
"My son was now eight years old, and, his grandfather claiming the
province of his instruction, I was persuaded to part with him, that he
might be sent to a distant school. Thus was another tie removed, and, in
spite of the well-meant importunities of my friends, I persisted in my
scheme of crossing the ocean."
I could not help, at this part of her narration, expressing my surprise
that any motives were strong enough to recommend this scheme.
"It was certainly a freak of despair. A few months would, perhaps, have
allayed the fresh grief, and reconciled me to my situation; but I would
not pause or deliberate. My scheme was opposed by my friends with great
earnestness. During my voyage, affrighted by the dangers which
surrounded me, and to which I was wholly unused, I heartily repented of
my resolution; but now, methinks, I have reason to rejoice at my
perseverance. I have come into a scene and society so new, I have had so
many claims made upon my ingenuity and fortitude, that my mind has been
diverted in some degree from former sorrows. There are even times when I
wholly forget them, and catch myself indulging in cheerful reveries.
"I have often reflected with surprise on the nature of my own mind. It
is eight years since my father's violent death. How few of my hours
since that period have been blessed with serenity! How many nights and
days, in hateful and lingering succession, have been bathed in tears and
tormented with regrets! That I am still alive, with so many causes of
death, and with such a slow-consuming malady, is surely to be wondered
at.
"I believe the worst foes of man, at least of men in grief, are solitude
and idleness. The same eternally-occurring round of objects feeds his
disease, and the effects of mere vacancy and uniformity are sometimes
mistaken for those of grief. Yes, I am glad I came to America. My
relations are importunate for my return, and till lately I had some
thoughts of it; but I think now I shall stay where I am for the rest of
my days.
"Since I arrived, I am become more of a student than I used to be. I
always loved literature, but never, till of late, had I a mind enough at
ease to read with advantage. I now find pleasure in the occupation which
I never expected to find.
"You see in what manner I live. The letters which I brought secured me a
flattering reception from the best people in your country; but scenes of
gay resort had nothing to attract me, and I quickly withdrew to that
seclusion in which you now find me. Here, always at leisure, and
mistress of every laudable means of gratification, I am not without the
belief of serene days yet to come."
I now ventured to inquire what were her latest tidings of her husband.
"At the opening of the Revolution, I told you, he became a champion of
the people. By his zeal and his efforts he acquired such importance as
to be deputed to the National Assembly. In this post he was the adherent
of violent measures, till the subversion of monarchy; and then, when too
late for his safety, he checked his career."
"And what has since become of him?"
She sighed deeply. "You were yesterday reading a list of the proscribed
under Robespierre. I checked you. I had good reason. But this subject
grows too painful; let us change it."
Some time after, I ventured to renew this topic; and discovered that
Fielding, under his new name of Perrin d'Almont, was among the outlawed
deputies of last year,[1] and had been slain in resisting the officers
sent to arrest him. My friend had been informed that his _wife_,
Marguerite d'Almont, whom she had reason to believe a woman of great
merit, had eluded persecution, and taken refuge in some part of America.
She had made various attempts, but in vain, to find out her retreat.
"Ah!" said I, "you must commission me to find her. I will hunt her
through the continent from Penobscot to Savannah. I will not leave a
nook unsearched."
[Footnote 1: 1793.]