up with a degree of neatness and comfort which it had seemed scarcely
capable of assuming. Furniture, plain but costly, was brought from a
distant town, the grounds were laid out with a view to elegance rather
than mere usefulness, and, in short, money and good taste soon converted
the desolate spot into a little paradise of beauty. The neighbors, who,
with the kindness which generally prevails in every place where fashion
has not destroyed social feeling, had been ready to afford Mrs. Norwood
every assistance in the completion of her plans, became now equally
ready to share her hospitality, and, for a time, the newly arranged
mansion was always full of well-disposed but ill-judging visiters. But
Mrs. Norwood’s health was soon made the plea for discountenancing all
such attentions on the part of the village gossips. Always courteous and
hospitable, she yet declined all visitations to the frequent “_hot water
conventions_” or “tea drinkings” which constituted the chief amusement
of the place, while she managed to keep alive the good feelings of her
new associates by many acts of unostentatious charity. Simple in her
daily habits, benevolent in her impulses, yet retiring and reserved in
her manners, Mrs. Norwood made her faithful old servant the almoner of
her bounties, while the poor, the sick and the sorrowful were never
refused admission to her presence. Her regular attendance on the public
duties of religion, in the only church which Elmsdale could then boast,
had tended to establish her character for respectability in a community
so eminently moral and pious; and when it was known that the pastor,
whose rigid ideas of propriety were no secret, had become a frequent
visiter at Hopeton’s Folly, no doubt remained as to Mrs. Norwood’s
virtues and claims upon general sympathy.
Mr. Allston, who for some ten years had presided over the single church
in a place which had fortunately escaped the curse of sectarianism, was
a man as remarkable in character as he was peculiar in habit. A close
and unwearied student, ascetic in his daily life, and an enthusiast in
his profession, he was almost idolized by his people, who regarded him
as a being of the most saint-like character. Indeed, if self-denial
could afford a title to canonization, he was fully competent to sustain
the claim; but such is the inconsistency of human judgment, that Mr.
Allston owed his high reputation to a belief in his stoical indifference
to earthly temptations, and much of his influence would have been
diminished if it had been suspected that resistance to evil ever cost
him a single effort. The truth was that nature had made Allston a
voluptuary, but religion had transformed him into an ascetic. He had set
out in life with an eager thirst after all its pleasures, but he had
been stayed in the very outset of his career by the reproaches of an
awakened conscience. Violent in all his impulses, and ever in extremes,
he had devoted himself to the gospel ministry because the keen goadings
of repentance urged him to offer the greatest sacrifice in his power as
atonement for past sins. But he had experienced all the trials which
await those who, when gathering the manna from heaven, still remember
the savory fleshpots of Egypt. His life was a perpetual conflict between
passion and principle, and though his earthly nature rarely obtained the
mastery, yet the necessity for such unwearied watchfulness had given a
peculiar tone of severity to his manners. Like many persons of similar
zeal, Allston had committed the error of confounding the _affections_
with the _passions_ of human nature, and believing all earthly ties to
be but fetters on the wings of the soul, he carefully avoided all
temptation to assume such bonds. His religion was one of fear rather
than of love, and forgetting that He who placed man in a world of beauty
and delight has said, “I will have mercy and not sacrifice,” he made
existence only a protracted scene of self-devotion and privation. A
superstitious dread of yielding even to the most innocent impulses had
induced him to suppress every feeling of his ardent and excitable
nature. He had turned from the face of beauty and the voice of love with
the same dread as would have induced him to eschew the temptation of the
gaming-table and the wine-cup, and his thirtieth summer found him still
a solitary student by the fireside of his widowed mother. His fine
talents as a preacher, his powers of persuasion, his thrilling
eloquence, aided by the example of his own habits of life, had produced
a great effect in the community where he had been called to minister in
holy things. The church was in a most flourishing condition; numbers had
been united to it, and the influence of the pastor over the minds of
all, but especially those of the young, was almost unbounded. Is it
strange, therefore, that spiritual pride should have grown up in the
heart of the isolated student, and twined its parasitic foliage around
many a hardy plant of grace and goodness? Is it to be wondered at if
Charles Allston at length indulged the fancy that he had been set apart
as one chosen for a high and holy work—that he was destined to be one
of the “vessels of honor,” of whom St. Paul has spoken—and that nothing
now could sully the spotless garments in which his self-denial had
clothed him.
Mrs. Allston had been among the first to welcome the sick stranger to
Elmsdale, and, pleased with the gentle grace which characterized her
manners, had lavished upon her every kindness. Mrs. Norwood was grateful
for her attentions, and seemed happy to find a friend whose mature age
and experience could afford her counsel and sympathy. This feeling of
childlike dependence, on the one hand, and matronly affection on the
other, was growing up between them, and served to establish a closer
intimacy than at first might have appeared natural to persons so
entirely unlike in character. Mrs. Allston was a woman of unpretending
good sense, and plain education, whose rustic habits and utter
indifference to etiquette made her appear very different from the
languid invalid whose elegant manners and refined language marked her
cultivation rather than her strength of mind. But “accident,” and “the
strong necessity of loving,” may often account for friendships as well
as loves, and this world would be a sad desert of lonely hearts if we
could only attach ourselves to our own counterparts. No one could know
Mrs. Norwood intimately, without being irresistibly attracted towards a
character of such singular sensitiveness and amiability. She seemed like
one in whom the elements of strength had been slowly and gradually
evolved by circumstances, for, though her disposition was by nature
yielding and dependent, yet her habits of thought and action were full
of decision and firmness. Gentle and feminine in her feelings, reserved
and quiet in her demeanor, she appeared to a careless observer merely as
the dignified and discreet, because unprotected woman. But one who
looked beneath the calm surface, might have found a deep strong
under-current of feeling. Heart-sickness, rather than bodily disease,
had been at work with her, and the blight which had passed over her
young beauty, was but a type of that which had checked the growth of her
warm affections.
Whatever might have been Mrs. Norwood’s feelings when she first took
possession of her new abode, she certainly seemed both healthier and
happier after a year’s sojourn in Elmsdale. A faint color returned to
her thin cheek, a smile, bright and transient as an April sunbeam, often
lit up her fine face, her features lost much of their sharpness of
outline, and gradually, almost imperceptibly, the feeble, drooping
invalid was transformed by the renovating touch of health into the
lovely and elegant woman. Yet the same pensiveness characterized her
usual manner—the same reluctance to mingle in society was evident in
her daily intercourse with her neighbors, and to a stranger she might
still seem to be mourning over the memory of a buried affection. But
Mrs. Allston and her son alone knew better. They alone knew that
affection had been crushed in its very bud by unkindness and
neglect—they alone believed that the widow had found death one of the
best of friends, when he relieved her from the intolerable bondage of
domestic tyranny. Not that Mrs. Norwood had ever confided to them her
former history; for the slightest question which had reference to the
past always seemed to give her exquisite pain, but a casual remark, a
trifling hint, a passing allusion, uttered in the confidence of
friendship, had led them to form such conclusions.
Allston had at first regarded the stranger merely as another member
added to his flock—another soul for which he must hereafter be
responsible. But a closer acquaintance with her awakened a much stronger
interest in his mind. He fancied that her character bore a wonderful
resemblance to his own. He thought he beheld in her the same secret
control over strong emotions, the same silent devotion to deep-felt
duties, the same earnest enthusiasm in religion, the same abstraction
from worldly pleasures, as had long been the leading traits in his
character. He believed that the difference of sex and her early sorrow
might account for the diversities which existed between them, and
actuated by the belief that he was an instrument in the hands of a
higher Power, who had destined him for some great and glorious work, he
persuaded himself that Providence had placed her in his path and pointed
her out to him, by a mysterious sympathy, as his companion and
fellow-laborer in his future duties. Had he not been blinded by the
self-reliance which had taken the place of his wonted watchfulness, the
very strength of his feelings would have led him to distrust their
propriety. But habit had rendered all his ordinary practice of
self-denial so easy to him that he fancied himself quite superior to
mere earthly temptation, and therefore he was disposed to regard his
present excitement, rather as a manifestation of the will of Heaven than
as an impulse of natural affection. It cost him much thought and many
severe conflicts with his doubts and his zeal ere he could decide upon
the course he should pursue. Determined not to listen to the voice of
passion but to be governed entirely by a sense of duty, he condemned
himself to a rigorous fast of three days in the firm belief that he
should receive some expression of the Divine Will. In the deep sleep of
exhaustion which fell upon him during the third night, Mrs. Norwood
appeared before him in a dream, wearing shining garments and smiling
with an expression of perfect beatitude. This was enough for the wild
enthusiast. From that moment he placed no restraint upon the promptings
of his heart, but considering her as one peculiarly marked out for the
same high destiny as himself, he poured out all the fulness of his long
hoarded affections at her feet.
Lonely, desolate and sorrowful, Mrs. Norwood was almost bewildered by
the sudden light which seemed to break in upon her when she thus found
herself the object of true tenderness. She had long admired the genius
of Mr. Allston, and her romantic temperament peculiarly fitted her to
appreciate the peculiarities of his enthusiastic zeal. She had looked up
to him as one as far above her in his unworldly sanctity, as in his
gifted intellect, and thus to find herself the chosen of a heart which
had heretofore rejected earth’s sweetest gifts of tenderness, was most
unlooked-for happiness. She soon learned to love him with a depth and
fervor which surprised even herself, yet she had suffered so much in
early life that the presence of hope was now welcomed with tearful
distrust. She dreaded rather than anticipated the future, and while
listening to the wrapt eloquence of her lover, who seemed to
spiritualize the impassioned language of affection, she could not but
tremble to think what a blank life would be if this new-found bliss were
suddenly extinguished. The peculiar tone of Allston’s mind was never
more distinctly displayed than in his courtship. Of love he never spoke,
but he dwelt on the high and mystical dreams which had charmed his
solitude, he pictured passion under the garb of pure devotion, and
attired human affections in the robes of immaculate purity until he had
completely bewildered himself in the mazes of his own labyrinth of
fancies. At length the decisive moment came, and, in a manner equally
characteristic and unusual, Allston asked Mrs. Norwood to become his
wife. He was scarcely prepared for her excessive agitation, and still
less for her indefinite reply.
“It shall be for you to decide, Mr. Allston,” said the gentle widow, as
she struggled with her tears, “I will not pretend to have misunderstood
your feelings towards me, nor will I attempt to conceal the fact that to
your proffered affection I owe the first gleam of happiness which has
visited my weary heart since the days of childhood. But I have deceived
you, and I cannot accept your hand while you remain ignorant of the
events of my early life. Some months since, I wrote what I cannot bring
my lips to utter, and you will find in this manuscript all you ought to
know. Judge not too hardly of my concealment—my only error has been
silence on a subject with which the world had naught to do, and this I
trust your heart will not visit with too severe a punishment.”
Allston took the papers, and silent and dismayed hurried to the
seclusion of his study. Dreading some evil, though he knew not what
shape it might assume, he broke the seal and read as follows:
“Left an orphan at a very early age, my first recollections are those of
school life. My parents, who were residents though not natives of the
island of Jamaica, sent me to England for my education, and, dying soon
after my departure, I became the ward of my mother’s cousin, a gay and
dissipated bachelor, whose house offered not a proper home to a young
girl. I was the heiress to great wealth, but was, at the same time, a
homeless and desolate child, who might well have envied the privileges
of domestic affection which are enjoyed by the offspring of poverty. My
wealth procured me respect and consideration among my teachers and a few
interested school-fellows, while it purchased for me exemption from much
of the discipline of the school, as well as from many of the studies
which I wished to avoid. I was, therefore, little likely to profit by
the advantages of my position in life, while its disadvantages were in
my case greatly multiplied. I was a wayward, wilful, warm-hearted child,
full of impulsive affections, but irritable in temper, and, though
perfectly docile to the law of kindness, utterly beyond the subjugation
of severity. Frank and confiding in my disposition, I was easily led to
place confidence in those who treated me with a semblance of affection,
and the sense of loneliness which oppressed my heart, even in childhood,
led me rather to seek for the friendship of those by whom I was
surrounded, while the romance, which shows itself in a greater or less
degree in the developing character of every school girl, assumed in me
the form of a morbid desire to inspire affection in those whom
Providence had placed around me, to fill the places of parents, and
brothers and sisters to my desolate life.
“I was in my fifteenth year, full of exaggerated sensibility, and just
beginning to model my dreams of future happiness after the standard
afforded by my favorite novels, when a circumstance, apparently of
trivial moment, occurred to shadow my whole life with sorrow. The only
accomplishment in which I made any decided progress was that of drawing,
and in this I had early exhibited both taste and skill. Our
drawing-master, an old and wily Italian, requested permission to
introduce his nephew, who could materially aid him in instructing us to
sketch from nature; and, as it involved our school-mistress in no
additional expense, she readily assented. Our new teacher was
accordingly introduced to us under the name of Signior Baldini, but it
needed scarcely one look to make us doubt his relationship to the old
man, for his florid complexion, blond hair, and blue eyes bore little
resemblance to the dark countenance and classical features of the fine
Italian face. Those of us who were novel readers immediately fancied
that we could detect beneath this humble disguise some noble heir or
enamored youth who sought to obtain access to a ladye-love immured
within the walls of our school. Our young and glowing hearts, full of
passions which had been prematurely developed by the mischievous tenor
of our stolen reading, and ready to welcome any thing which might give
occupation to their restlessness, were quickly excited in favor of the
new comer. Our sketching from nature required us to take many walks in
the vicinity, and, though we were never unaccompanied by one of the
female teachers, yet a thousand opportunities for forming an imprudent
intimacy occurred during these excursions. I soon found, however, that
the attentions of Signior Baldini were especially directed to me, and
the vanity of my sex, as well as my own excited fancy, led me to
encourage rather than repulse his proffered advances. I cannot recall
all the details of the vile conspiracy to which I fell a victim. Imagine
a child of fifteen summers subjected to the arts of a man more than
twice her age—a man who had studied human nature in its worst forms,
and therefore well knew how to take advantage of its slightest tendency
to errors—a man whose talents enabled him to conceal the heart of a
demon beneath the features of a demigod. Imagine the effect of these
arts upon a sensitive and romantic girl, a lonely and orphaned creature
who was yearning for the voice of affection, and weaving many a
beautiful fancy of future happiness, to be found only in reciprocal
affection, and you will anticipate the result.
“A well invented story of high birth, unmerited misfortunes, and a long
cherished passion for me, awakened my sympathy, and I soon imagined that
nothing could repay my lover’s tenderness but the bestowal of my hand
and fortune. I fancied myself deeply and devotedly attached to one who
had submitted to the degradation of disguise for my sake, and, on the
day when I attained my sixteenth year, I eloped with my lover, who now
dropped his assumed title and adopted his true name of Wallingford. As
my guardian was at that time in Paris, we met with no molestation, and
were privately married in London, where we had decided to take up our
abode. I afterwards learned that those of my teachers who had been
parties to the plot were well paid for their services, while the only
real sufferer was the principal of the establishment, who had been kept
in total ignorance of the scheme, and whose dignified sense of propriety
was shocked at having such a stigma affixed to her school. When my
guardian returned he read me a lecture on my imprudence, and tried to
satisfy his conscience for past neglect, by refusing to allow me more
than a mere maintenance until I should attain my majority. To this,
however, I refused submission, and the matter was finally compromised in
a manner quite satisfactory to both parties. Mr. Wallingford immediately
engaged elegant lodgings, and we commenced living in a style better
suited to my future fortune than to my actual income.
“My heart sickens when I look back to the weary years which succeeded my
imprudent marriage. As time matured my judgment I was pained by the
discovery of many weaknesses and faults in my husband, to which I would
willingly have remained blind. Yet the discovery of these did not impair
the simple, child-like affection with which I regarded the only being on
earth to whom I was bound by any ties. I clung to him as the only one in
the wide world whom I was permitted to love, and it required but little
effort on his part to have strengthened my girlish fondness into the
lasting fervor of womanly tenderness. While yet I remained in my
minority Mr. Wallingford treated me with some show of consideration.
Fitful gleams of kindness, transient visitings of former fondness,
glimpses of the better nature which had been so perverted by evil
habits, and endearments still bestowed in moments of persuasion, linked
my heart to the ideal which I had enshrined in his image. But no sooner
was I put in possession of my fortune than he threw off the mask
entirely. I was too much in his power to render any further concealment
necessary, and he now appeared before me in all the true deformity of
his character. Dissipated in his habits, coarse in his feelings, low in
his pursuits and pleasures, he had only sought me for the wealth which
could minister to his depravity.
“I will not pain you by a detail of the petty tyranny to which I was now
subjected. My impetuous temper was at first aroused, but, alas! it was
soon subdued by frightful severity. Indifference, neglect, intemperance,
infidelity, nay, even personal ill treatment, which left the discolored
badge of slavery upon my flesh for days and weeks, were now my only
portion. Broken in health and in spirit, I prayed for death to release
me from my sufferings, and I verily believe my husband sought to aid my
wishes by his cruel conduct. But the crushed worm was at length
compelled to turn upon the foot which trampled it. I was driven from my
home—a home which my wealth had furnished with all the appliances of
taste and elegance—and placed in a farm-house at some distance from
London, while a vile woman, whose name was but another word for
pollution, ruled over my house. To increase the horrors of my situation,
I learned that Wallingford was taking measures to prove me insane, and
thus rid himself of my presence while he secured the guardianship of my
person and property. This last injury aroused all the latent strength of
my nature. Hitherto I had been like a child brought up in servitude and
crouching beneath the master’s blow, but I was now suddenly transformed
into the indignant and energetic woman.
“Alone and unaided I determined to appeal to the laws of the land for
redress, and prudence directed me to men as wise as they were virtuous,
who readily undertook my cause. Wallingford was startled at my sudden
rebellion, but he was never unprepared for deeds of evil. My servants
were suborned, papers were forged, falsehoods were blazoned abroad, all
the idle gossip which had floated for its passing moment on the breath
of scandal like the winged seed of some noxious plant on the summer
breeze, was carefully treasured, and every thing that power could effect
was tried to make me appear degraded in character and imbecile in mind.
The circumstances attending my marriage—my first fatal error, committed
at the suggestion and under the influence of him who now adduced it as
proof of my weakness—was one of the evidences of my unworthiness, while
the utterings of a goaded spirit and the wild anguish of a breaking
heart were repeated as the language of insanity. But for once justice
and equity triumphed over the quibbles of the law. The decree of the
highest court in the realm released me from my heavy bondage. A
conditional divorce which allowed me full power to marry again, but
restrained my husband from such a privilege, in consequence of his
well-attested cruelty and ill treatment, was the result of our
protracted and painful lawsuit. My fortune, sadly wasted and diminished,
was placed in the hands of trustees for my sole benefit, and I
immediately settled upon Wallingford a sum sufficient to place him far
above want, upon the sole condition that he never intruded himself into
my presence.