BRITOMARTE EMBARKS.
Britomarte possessed a few jewels of value. These she had never worn or
shown. She now took them to a jeweler on Pennsylvania avenue, and sold
them for enough to defray her expenses to the city from whose port the
missionary company was to sail.
On arriving at that city, she found a cheap boarding-house, and then
sought out the secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions, and offered
her services to go as teacher with the company they were about to send
to Farther India.
The secretary required testimonials, which Britomarte immediately
submitted. And then, after a little business and investigation, her
services were accepted.
Miss Conyers then devoted all her time and attention to making
preparations for a sea voyage that was to last several months.
The missionaries were to sail on the first of October, in the great East
Indiaman, _Sultana_, bound from Boston to Calcutta; but their
destination was Cambodia.
When her preparations were completed, Britomarte wrote to her friend
Erminie, informing her of all the particulars of the projected mission,
and asking her for the last news of their own fellow-graduates.
Quickly as the post could return, Miss Conyers received an answer from
the affectionate girl.
And now that the missionary measure seemed irrevocable, Erminie did not
distress her friend by any vain lamentations over her own loss. Little
womanlike, she praised, glorified, and rejoiced over her friend, and
bade her Godspeed. She wrote that her brother Justin had just been
ordained a minister of the Gospel, and that he was to leave them soon
for distant duty; but she did not say where he was going.
“So, then, our paths diverge forever, thank Heaven!” exclaimed the
man-hater, as she read this part of the letter, but, indeed, her heaving
bosom, and quivering lips, and tearful eyes did not look very much like
thankfulness.
Erminie farther stated that Colonel Eastworth had taken apartments at a
first-class hotel in the city, with the intention of passing the ensuing
winter there.
Of their late classmates, Erminie wrote:
“There is the mischief to play down in Henrico. It seems Vittorio
Corsoni sued for the hand of Alberta Goldsborough, which was indignantly
refused him by her father. Next he was refused admittance to the house
by her mother; after which Miss Goldsborough, chancing to meet her lover
in the streets of Richmond, coolly informed him that if they could not
see each other in her own home, they could do so at the houses of their
mutual friends, and at the same time announced that she should spend
that evening with her schoolmate, Eleanora Lee. That evening you may be
sure that the Signior Vittorio lounged into Judge Lee’s drawing-room to
pay his respects to a former patron.
“In this manner they contrived to meet everywhere where they were both
acquainted, until at last, oh, Britomarte, they eloped! You don’t know
how shocked I was to hear it, and how ashamed I am to have to tell you!
But you asked me for news, and I will keep back nothing.
“They made for the nearest point to cross into Maryland, where they
could be legally married, notwithstanding she was under age. But Mr.
Goldsborough, with two of her uncles, pursued and overtook them before
they had crossed the boundary and seized both, as he had a right to do.
“Vittorio, they say, was dreadfully agitated, and even drew his
sword-cane in defense of his ladylove. But Alberta was as cool as ever,
and bade him put up his sword and yield for the time being; for that,
though their marriage was delayed, it was not prevented.
“Mr. Goldsborough talked of prosecuting Vittorio in a criminal court for
stealing an heiress and minor. But Alberta calmly assured her father
that in doing so he would only be degrading his future son-in-law, and
by consequence his only daughter, for that she was resolved to give her
hand to Vittorio upon the very first opportunity after she should become
of age.
“Whether or not this announcement influenced Mr. Goldsborough’s conduct
I do not know; it is certain, however, that he did not prosecute Signior
Vittorio; but he brought Alberta here, and placed her as a parlor
boarder in the Convent of the Visitation, where, behind grates and bars,
she is secure from a second escapade.
“Mr. Goldsborough did not call on us until he had left his daughter in
the convent, and then he only stayed long enough to tell us these facts
before he left for Richmond. I called at the convent to see Alberta, but
was refused a sight of her. She is, in truth, no less than an honorable
prisoner there.
“And that is not all the trouble in Henrico County. I have a letter from
Elfrida Fielding, in which she tells me all her secrets with the utmost
candor, requesting me also to tell you, whom she supposes to be
somewhere in our reach.
“Now, who would have thought that wild little monkey, Elfie, would have
acted, in similar circumstances, with so much more prudence and good
sense and good feeling than has been displayed by our model young lady?
Yet so it was.
“Elfie has had a proposal from—whom do you think?—young Mr. Albert
Goldsborough, who was intended for his cousin; but as she ran away with
the flute-playing Italian, of course he could not be considered bound to
her; so he followed the bent of his inclinations, and offered his hand
to Elfie Fielding.
“The proposal was in every point of view a most eligible one for Elfie,
and much better, she says, than she had any reason to expect. The young
suitor was handsome, amiable, intelligent, and possessed a large
fortune, and last and most, he had the favor of his intended—but—he
differed in politics with Elfie’s ‘pap and two unks.’
“Now you know what it is to differ in politics in these days—you have
read how gray-haired Senators take each other by the throat in the
Senate Chamber. You have seen how it sets father against son, and mother
against daughter; how it parts lovers and divides families; pray Heaven
it may not some day come nigh to divide the Union!
“Elfie’s ‘pap and two unks’ are enlightened, far-seeing and progressive
men. Elfie’s lover is a conservative, and believes in the eternal
stability of ‘institutions’ and the infallibility of the powers that be,
etc. Elfie’s lover, had he lived in the first year of the Christian era
in Judea, would have been a Jew, and helped to crucify Christ. Had he
lived in England at the time of the civil wars, he would have been a
royalist. Or had his presence enriched the earth at the time of our own
Revolution, he would have been a Tory.
“Now, you know, of course, it is an irreconcilable difference between
Elfie’s ‘pap and two unks’ on the one hand, and her lover on the other.
But Elfie won’t run away with him, as he wishes her to do. She tells him
plainly that he must convert her ‘pap and two unks,’ or be converted by
them, before she will endow him with her hand and the reversion of the
old gig, the blind mare, niggers, and other personals to which she is
heiress; for, though she don’t care a pin for politics herself, she will
have peace in the family.
“I have here quoted Elfie’s own words. Now, who would have given that
little monkey credit for so much wisdom and goodness?
“And in the meantime you see Mr. Goldsborough has his hands full between
his cool, determined daughter and his self-willed, refractory nephew;
both of whom, instead of marrying each other, and keeping the family
estates together, to please their friends, have taken the liberty to
choose partners for life to please themselves.
“But after all, as these marriages are not yet consummated, who knows
but that young Mr. Goldsborough may ‘see his own interest,’ as the
phrase goes, and persuade Alberta to ‘see her own duty,’ as the other
phrase goes, and that they may yet marry and unite the two great
branches of the great house of Goldsborough.
“But, oh, I am wrong to write so lightly on such sacred subjects. How
hard it is, dear Britomarte, to keep from sinning with one’s tongue and
pen! I hope that all these lovers will be true to themselves, and to
God, who is the Inspirer of all pure love. I hope they will wait
patiently until they win their parents’ consent and the reward of
forbearance.”
There was much more of Erminie’s letter, too much to quote. Sometimes
the effervescent spirits of her youth would break forth in some such
little jest as the above, and then she would quickly repent and piously
rebuke herself for such levity.
Her letter closed in one deep, fervent, heartfelt aspiration for
Britomarte’s happiness.
Britomarte’s tears fell fast over this letter. This man-hater would like
to have persuaded herself that she wept over the thought of the lifelong
separation from her bosom friend, or over the frailties of Alberta, or
over the troubles of Elfie, or over anything or anybody rather than over
the memory of Justin Rosenthal. Erminie had written freely of Alberta
and Elfrida and their lovers; but she had mentioned her brother only to
say that he had been ordained and was going away. And Britomarte could
scarcely forgive her friend for such negligence. The name that was
written in the letter, “Justin,” she pressed again and again to her
lips, while her tears dropped slowly and heavily upon the paper.
Suddenly, with a start, she recollected herself, and to punish herself
for a moment’s weakness, she deliberately tore up the letter and threw
it away.
In the omnibus that was to take her to her steamer she was introduced in
form to Mr. Ely and Mr. Breton and their wives. These, with herself,
were the five missionaries that were to go out to Farther India.
The two young women were crying behind their veils. They were strangers
to each other, and all but strangers to their husbands. One had come
from the West, and one from the South, to marry these young men, and go
out with them to India. They had now been married but a few hours, after
an acquaintance with their intended husbands of but a few days. In a
fever of enthusiasm they had left all the familiar scenes and all the
dear friends of their childhood and youth, to join their hands with
strangers, and go out to a foreign land, to live and labor among
heathen. No wonder they wept bitterly behind their veils as the omnibus
rattled over the stony street and under the drizzling sky.
On the pier was a crowd of the church members, consisting of men, women
and children, in omnibuses, in cabs, and on foot, the latter having
large umbrellas hoisted, all waiting to see the missionaries off.
Beside the pier was chained a large boat, waiting to take the voyagers
to that magnificent three-decker East Indiaman that rode at anchor about
half a mile out in the harbor.
In less than fifteen minutes they were alongside of the great behemoth
of a ship that lay upon the waters like some stupendous monster of the
deep.
An officer stood upon the deck as if waiting to welcome them, and some
sailors were letting down a rope ladder from the lofty deck to the boat.
But to attempt to climb up the side of that ship by that means seemed
like trying to crawl up the front of a three-story house by the
rainpipe. The two brides were frightened nearly out of their senses at
the bare thought.
But Britomarte volunteered to go first, and she set her foot on the
lowest, slack rung of the ladder, and took hold of the side ropes and
began to climb; Mr. Breton followed close behind her, to keep her from
falling, and also to keep her skirts in order, and Captain McKenzie
bending from the deck and holding down his hand to help her up on board.
So Miss Conyers safely boarded the ship and soon the whole party stood
on deck and waved a last adieu.
Two brother ministers who had so far accompanied the voyagers went back
in the smaller boat; but before she had reached the pier, the signal gun
was fired and the _Sultana_ stood out to sea.