between me and my persecutor. On my twenty-sixth birthday—just ten
years from the day which saw me a bride—I landed in America. Alas! how
changed were all my prospects, how altered all my feelings! I was still
in the prime of life, but hope and joy and all the sweet influences of
affection were lost to me forever, and after wandering from place to
place I finally took up my abode in Elmsdale, rather from a sense of
utter weariness than from any anticipation of peace. I little knew that
Providence had prepared for me so sweet a rest after all my sufferings.
I little knew that peace and hope, aye, and even happiness, were yet in
store for me. Resigning a name to which I had no longer any claim, I
resumed my family name of Norwood, and sought to appear in society as
the widowed rather than as the divorced wife. I have thus avoided
painful remarks and impertinent questionings, while I was enabled to
secure for myself a quiet retreat from the turmoil of the world. Perhaps
to you, Charles Allston, I ought to have been more frank, but surely you
cannot blame me for shrinking from the disclosure of such bitter and
degrading memories. You have now learned all my early history—you have
seen my error and you have traced its punishment—let me now unfold the
page which can reveal the present.
“A fancy, light as the gossamer which the wind drives on its wing, first
led to my marriage. I was a child in heart and mind and person, when I
became the victim of arts which might have misled a wiser head and a
less susceptible heart. Left to myself I should probably have forgotten
my first love fancy even as one of the thousand dreams which haunt the
brain of youth. But if, after my marriage, I had experienced kindness
and tenderness from my husband, the feeling would have deepened into
earnest and life-long affection, instead of curdling into hatred and
contempt within my bosom. The love of my girlhood was blighted even as a
flower which blossoms out of time, and loneliness has hitherto been my
lot through life. Will you deem me too bold, my friend, if I tell you
that from you I have learned my first lesson in womanly duty? Till I
knew you I dreamed not of the power of a fervent and true passion—till
I beheld you I believed my heart was cold and dead to all such gentle
impulses. You have taught me that happiness may yet be found even for
me. In loving you I am but doing homage to virtue and wisdom and
piety—in bowing down before your image I am but worshipping the noblest
attributes of human nature enshrined within your heart. I dared not pour
out the fullness of my joy until I had told you my sad tale, but now
that you know all—now that no shadow of distrust can fall upon the
sunshine of the future, come to me, and assure me with your own dear
voice that my troubled dream is now forever past, and that the dawn of
happiness is breaking upon my weary heart!”
To comprehend the full effect of this letter on Charles Allston, the
peculiarity of his character—his strict ideas of duty—his devotion to
his holy calling—his shrinking dread of any thing which could, by any
possibility, tend to diminish his influence over the consciences of his
flock—and his long cherished dread of self-indulgence—must ever be
borne in mind. He had loved Eleanor Norwood with a fervor startling even
to himself, and according to his usual distrustful habits of thought, he
had feared lest the very intensity of his feelings was a proof of their
sinfulness. Accustomed to consider every thing as wrong which was
peculiarly gratifying to himself—measuring by the amount of every
enjoyment the extent of its wickedness—restraining the most innocent
impulses because he conceived heaven could only be won by continual
sacrifices—he had shrunk in fear and trembling at his own temerity when
his overmastering passion led him to pour forth his feelings to the
object of his love. He had retired to his apartment in a state of
pitiable agitation, and while he awaited Mrs. Norwood’s reply with hope,
he yet half repented of his proffered suit, lest there should have been
too much of the leaven of mere earthly tenderness in the bosom which had
vowed to forsake all its idols. This letter therefore produced a
terrible revulsion in his feelings. His rigid sense of duty, and his
adherence to divine rather than human laws, compelled him to behold in
Eleanor Norwood only the wife of another. Vile and unworthy as
Wallingford might be, he was to Allston’s view still the husband, and
though the tie might be loosened by the hand of man it could only be
entirely severed by the will of God. All the sternness of that long
practised asceticism, which had given Allston such a twofold character,
was called forth by the thought of the sin he had so nearly committed.
The wild enthusiasm of his nature led him to regard Mrs. Norwood as a
temptress sent to try the strength of his self-denying piety. He
remembered the tale of the hermit, who for forty years abode in the
wilderness, sinless in thought and in deed, while he kept his eye ever
fixed upon the cross; but the moment of wavering came—the holy eremite
turned his gaze for one single instant from the symbol, and Satan, who
had long watched in vain, obtained the mastery over him whose life-long
piety had not availed against a moment’s weakness. Allston shuddered as
his busy fancy suggested the parallel between the monkish legend and his
own present feelings. The thought of the disgrace which would attend him
who, while reproving sin in others, could be accused of cherishing it in
his own household—of the judgment which would fall upon him who should
dare to minister to the people in holy things, while he bore the marks
of a deadly leprosy within his own bosom—until at length the spiritual
pride, which was in truth his besetting sin, subdued all lighter
emotions.
That evening Mrs. Norwood sat in her quiet room, with the light of a
shaded lamp falling upon the gentle beauty of a face now lighted up with
hope, and which, but for the restless and hurried glance which was
occasionally turned upon the quaintly fashioned clock, might have seemed
the picture of placid happiness. A soft glow flushed her cheek, her eyes
were full of radiance, and, as she raised her head in the attitude of a
listener, a smile of almost childlike joyousness parted her flexible
lips. A step resounded on the gravel walk without. Her first impulse led
her to spring forward to welcome the expected visitant, but womanly
pride checked her in mid career, and she yet stood in half uncertainty
when the door opened to admit a servant who handed her a small parcel.
Her cheek grew ashy pale as she broke the seal. A paper dropped from the
envelop—it was her own letter to Allston; and she sank into a chair as
she unfolded the note which accompanied it. Written in Allston’s hand,
yet so blotted, and traced in such irregular characters, that the
agitation of the writer might well be divined, were these words:
“I will not express the agony of mind with which I have perused the
enclosed papers. I have been tried almost beyond my strength, but I have
been mercifully spared the commission of a crime at which my soul
shudders. I will not upbraid you, madam, for your cruel concealment;
your own conscience will be your accuser, and it will not fail to remind
you that your deception has nearly hurled me from an eminence which it
has been the labor of my life to reach. But you have been only an
instrument in the hands of a higher power. I fancied myself superior to
temptation, and God has sent you to teach me the necessity of closer
watchfulness over my still frail nature. Eleanor Norwood, I have loved
you as I never loved earthly creature before, but sooner would I suffer
the keenest pangs of that chronic heartbreak, to which the martyrdom of
the pile and fagot is but pastime, than take to my arms the wife of a
living husband. You have made me wretched but you cannot make me
criminal. Henceforth we meet no more on earth, for I have vowed to tear
your image from my heart, though, even now, every fibre bleeds at the
rude sundering of such close knit ties. Receive my forgiveness and my
farewell.”
When Mrs. Norwood’s faithful old servant entered the room, about an hour
after the receipt of this letter, she found her mistress lying senseless
on the floor. Suspecting something like the truth, the woman prudently
gathered up the papers from view, and then summoned assistance. Mrs.
Norwood was carried to her apartment and medical aid was immediately
procured. The physician pronounced her to be suffering from strong
nervous excitement, and, after giving her a sleeping draught, prescribed
perfect quiet for the next few days. But ere morning she was in a state
of delirium, and fears were entertained for her intellect if not for her
life. Several days passed in great uncertainty, but at length hope
revived and Mrs. Norwood once more awoke to consciousness. Feeble as an
infant, however, she required great care to raise her from the brink of
the grave, and the springs of life, so sadly shattered by long continued
sorrow, were now in danger of being broken by a single stroke. Disease
seemed undetermined in its final attack, and at length assumed the form
under which it most frequently assists the insidious labors of secret
sorrow. A hectic cough now racked her feeble frame, and it was evident
that consumption would soon claim another victim. Just at this time a
letter, sealed with black, was forwarded to Mrs. Norwood’s address, and
after being withheld from her several weeks, by advice of her physician,
was finally given to her because all hope of prolonging her life was at
an end. The perusal of this letter seemed rather to soothe than to
excite the sinking invalid. “It comes too late,” was her only
exclamation as she deposited it in a little cabinet which stood beside
her bed, and from that moment she made no allusion to its contents.
It was remarked in the village that Mr. Allston had become excessively
severe in his denunciations of error, while his habits had become more
rigid and reserved than ever. His former persuasive eloquence had given
place to violent and bitter revilings of sin, while those who applied to
him for religious consolation were terrified rather than attracted by
the threatenings of the fiery zealot. Once only did he seem moved by
gentler feelings. An aged clergyman, who occasionally visited him from a
distant town, was summoned to the bedside of Mrs. Norwood, and when he
returned to Mr. Allston’s study he feelingly described the bodily pangs
and angelic patience of the gentle sufferer. The frame of the stern man
shook as he listened, and tears—such tears as sear rather than relieve
the heart—fell from his eyes. It was one of the last struggles of human
feeling in the breast of one who vainly fancied himself marked out for a
higher than human destiny—one more was yet to come, and then earth held
no claim upon his heart.
It was not long delayed, for the time soon arrived when the bell tolled
for her whose sorrowful life and early death had been the penalty of a
single error. Allston stood beside the coffin and saw within its deep
shadow the pale and stony features of the being whom he had loved; and
even while his heart smote him as the shortener of her brief and
melancholy span of life, he yet nerved himself with the high, stern
resolve of one who suffers in the cause of duty. With that cold brow
beneath his gaze, he poured forth, from the depths of an agonized heart,
a prayer whose solemn eloquence thrilled every listener like a voice
from the grave. No sound escaped his lips as the clods of the valley
fell rattling on the coffin-lid which shrouded the heart so sorely tried
in life, but, in the deep midnight, groans and bitter cries, which rived
his stern bosom, were heard issuing from the pastor’s lonely closet.
Mrs. Norwood’s old servant inherited the property in Elmsdale, and one
of her first duties was to place in Mr. Allston’s hands the cabinet
which she said her mistress had requested might be given him after her
death. It contained only Mrs. Norwood’s letter and her lover’s reply,
together with a _third_, in an unknown hand, bearing a black seal. This
last was dated _some months earlier_ than the others, and contained the
tidings of Mr. Wallingford’s death. He had fallen a victim to his own
misdeeds in Italy, and at the moment when Allston had considered himself
the subject of a temptation intended to try his strength, the divorced
wife was in reality free from every shadow of a tie.
Why had she not disclosed these tidings to her scrupulous lover? Ask
rather why she who had twice suffered from man’s wayward nature, and who
had escaped from the _vices_ of one only to perish by the too rigid
_virtues_ of another, should place trust in any earthly affection? Sick
of life, hopeless of future peace, sinking under a fatal disease, she
had taken a lesson from the inferior creation:
“mute
The camel labors with the heaviest load,
And the wolf dies in silence.”
* * * * *
TOUSKY WOUSKY.
BY EPES SARGENT.
“O, manners! that this age should bring forth such creatures!
that nature should be at leisure to make them!”
Ben Jonson.
I became acquainted with Count Tousky Wousky in Paris somewhere in the
year 1836. For some reason or other, which I did not at first
understand, he devoted himself chiefly to the society of strangers, and,
of all strangers, most affected the company of Americans. At that time
there were several fair daughters of the Pilgrims in the gay metropolis,
a few Knickerbockers, and at least one descendant of the Huguenot race
in the person of Miss P . . . . . of Charleston. In this circle Tousky
Wousky aspired to figure. He was a tall, handsome fellow, who had seen
perhaps eight and twenty summers, with fine long and dark locks, to say
nothing of the most unexceptionable whiskers and imperial. He smiled
enchantingly, and the glimpses of his ivory-white teeth between their
cushions of well-dyed bristles were quite “killing.” Altogether he was a
most personable individual—waltzed charmingly—attitudinized beyond any
dancer at the opera-house—and, though he said nothing except in a sort
of mute challenge to man and woman to “look and admire,” he carried away
more captive hearts than any man of his day.
In French society the count was very generally eschewed. Having no
apparent means of livelihood, and being well understood to carry as
little in his pocket if possible as in his head, the young men about
town were somewhat shy of him, and he was considered not much better
than a professed gambler. This would of course never have been known,
had it not been that his familiarity was such with the few Americans of
wealth who visited Paris during the winter of 1836, that he had made
fourteen distinct matrimonial proposals. So susceptible was he, that he
fell desperately in love with no less than fourteen of the sex in the
same season—compassed fourteen courtships by his languishing and silent
adoration—was fourteen times on his knees to fourteen fair creatures
varying in age from fourteen to forty—fourteen times was referred to
_Monsieur_, _mon père_, or to _Monsieur_, _mon frère_—had his character
submitted to fourteen inquisitions, and was fourteen times politely
informed that “his addresses must be discontinued.”
I left Paris, and thought nothing more of Count Tousky Wousky till I was
walking some months afterward in Broadway. My friend Lieutenant P
. . . . of the army, whom Commodore Elliot will probably recollect, if
he recollects having been in the Mediterranean, was my guide-book and
index on the occasion, for having been absent some years, the faces of
my townsmen and townswomen were quite strange to me.
“P . . . .,” said I; “indicate the individual we have just passed. I
have seen him a thousand times, but for the life of me I cannot
recollect where or when.”
“That!” exclaimed P . . . .; “I should know from your question, that you
were just off the salt water. But how very odd! That man is Count Tousky
Wousky. How the deuce did it happen that you, who were so long in Paris,
did not know Tousky Wousky?”
“Tousky Wousky!” I rejoined. “That’s his name sure enough—but what is
Tousky Wousky doing here?”
“That’s neither your business nor mine. He is the handsomest man on the
_pavé_, and has the entire run of the city, from the eight shilling
balls at Tammany to the most brilliant routes in Bond street or Waverley
Place.”
“Quite a range, P . . . . But does he patronize Tammany?”
“To be sure he does; and why not? It’s all one to him; and he has got
the idea that there is good picking in the Bowery. He has heard of
butchers’ families, where good _ribs_ were to be had, and is not sure
that he might not get pretty well suited at some wealthy tailor’s. In
short, he is in search of a rich wife, and he is not over particular who
or what she may be as long as she can plank the pewter.”
“That is to say, P . . . ., he is a penniless adventurer, who cannot
find a wife in his own country, and proposes to confer the honor on us.
Is that the arrangement?”
“You are not far out of the way in your guess.”
“But how is the individual received?”
“O, with open arms, to be sure. He gave out on his passage, that he was
coming to this country to marry a fortune; that he should do it in about
six months, and return to Paris.”
“How excessively condescending! And what credentials did he bring with
him?”
“O, he carries his credentials on his face. The only necessary passports
now to society are whiskers—moustache—imperial! They are the _open
sesame_ to the hearts of the ladies.”
“But what says papa?”
“I understand there was a general meeting of all our millionaires, and
that they voted him forthwith the freedom of the city, and suggested
that he should do the country the honor to marry some one of their
daughters.”
“And what said the count?”
“Why, the count said that he would quarter on ’em a while before
pitching his tent; that he would dine about with the old prigs, and
drink their good wine, and that as soon as he became well assured in
regard to the respective fortunes of the young ladies, he would just
fling his handkerchief at one of them, and she is expected to drop
forthwith into his arms.”
Not long after this conversation, it was my lot to meet Tousky Wousky on
several occasions in society. It seemed to be the prevailing belief
among those upon whom he condescended to shed the light of his smiles,
that he was the sole remaining representative of a noble and ancient
family, and that he was visiting the United States solely in pursuit of
relaxation from arduous military duties in Algiers. Such was his own
story, and such was the story which his defenders believed.
I must plead guilty to never having been able to discover the peculiar
charm of the count’s manners and appearance. I had heard much of the
_air noble_, which was said to be his distinguishing trait, but could
see nothing but the air _puppyish_, if I may so characterize a manner of
supreme indifference to the comfort and convenience of those around him.
In a ball-room, I have seen him extend himself at full length upon a
sofa, after a quadrille, and fan himself with his perfumed handkerchief,
while dozens of ladies were near in want of a seat. At other times he
would place himself astride of a chair, with his face to the back, and
his long legs protruded so as to endanger the necks of those, who might
venture to step over them. These little liberties were regarded merely
as the elegant _abandon_ of one accustomed to the first society of
Europe; and instances were cited of a similar aristocratic disregard of
conventional decency among certain English noblemen, who had visited the
country.
But what seemed to certify the count’s claims to nobility was the
erudition he displayed in all that related to gastronomy. Did you ever
notice the air of sagacity with which a chicken sips water, cocking her
head after every bill full, and apparently passing judgment upon its
quality? Of such an act would Tousky Wousky remind you when he took
soup. Occasionally his criticisms would be given with a vivacity and
_esprit_, which would excite general surprise. He could tell at a glance
the name of the most recondite Parisian _pâté_. His decisions in regard
to _entremets_, _hors d’œuvres_, and _vol au vents_ were unimpeachable;
and he would discourse upon _sole en matelotte Normande_ with tears in
his eyes. There was something earnest and affecting in the count’s
manner when he touched upon these topics; whereas when questioned
concerning events having relation to his military career, his answers
were confused, imperfect and unsatisfactory.
After some months of investigation and hesitation, Tousky Wousky fixed
his eyes upon the daughter of a retired tailor of the name of Remnant.
Mature deliberation and inquiry convinced him that she was the most
_eligible_ of the candidates that had yet been presented to his notice.
Old Remnant had commenced life as a journeyman—sat cross-legged upon
the counter from his fourteenth to his twenty-first year—then opened a
sort of slop-shop somewhere in Maiden Lane—married his master’s only
daughter—succeeded to his business and wealth—and accumulated a large
fortune.
Heaven forbid that I should breathe a flippant word against a vocation,
in which I have encountered more than one ornament to humanity—men, in
whom the Christian virtues of patience and forbearance were signally
developed; of whose capacities for long suffering I could relate the
most affecting instances. But I blame Remnant, not for having been a
tailor, but for his foolish ambition in after life to sink all memorials
of the shop, and launch into fashionable life. We all remember the story
of the English member of Parliament, who, on being twitted by some sprig
of nobility with having been bred a tailor, retorted, “if the gentleman
himself had been so bred he would have been a tailor still.” The reply
was as just as it was spirited, and showed a noble pride on the part of
the speaker, in comparing his past with his present position. Remnant
began by discontinuing his annual tribute to the Tailors’ Charitable
Fund. Then he neglected to attend their annual ball at Tammany; and
finally he _cut_ his old associates in trade when he met them in
Broadway—visited Europe, returned, built an elegant house—and set up a
carriage with a liveried driver and footman. In all these procedures I
have reason to believe that he was mainly influenced by his wife, whose
fashionable _furor_ was inextinguishable.
Through his endorsements for certain “genteel” speculators, Remnant
contrived to get introduced with his family into what they believed to
be the “fashionable circles.” The daughter, Sophia Ann, was a pretty,
good-natured, frank, and unpretending girl, who, having received a fair
education, bore her part extremely well in gay life, and betrayed few
symptoms of the character of her parentage. Rumor whispered that she
entertained a secret penchant for young Allen, a clerk in Flash,
Fleetwood & Co.'s, establishment in Broadway. It was noticed that she
always made her purchases at that shop, and frequently she remained much
longer in conversation than was absolutely necessary for the closing of
her bargains. Where was the propriety too of negotiating for a pair of
gloves or a skein of silk in so very low and mysterious a tone of voice?
It was suspicious, to say the least of it.
The ecstasy of Mrs. Remnant when Tousky Wousky condescended to ask an
introduction to herself and daughter was beyond all reasonable bounds;
and when, the next morning, he honored them with a call, it was as if
she and all her family had received a brevet of nobility.
“Who knows, Sophia Ann,” said she after the count had taken his
departure, “who knows but the count has been struck with your
appearance, and intends making proposals?”
“And if he does, mamma,” replied Sophy, “you may be very sure he will
propose in vain, so far as I am concerned. A vulgar, coarse,
ill-mannered fop! Did you notice the crumbs of bread upon his odious
moustaches?”
“A very good proof of his gentility, my dear. It shows that he has just
breakfasted. I am amazed at your language, Sophia Ann.”
“Indeed I thoroughly detest the fellow. I hope you will not invite him
to the house.”
“Indeed and indeed I shall, Miss Pert. I see the drift of your
objections. You have taken a fancy to that low-bred fellow, Allen, and
would disgrace your family by an unequal match. But let me advise you to
beware how you encourage any such presumption. Your father is as
determined as I am to cut you off with a shilling should you ever marry
without our consent.”
Here Sophia rose, and, with her handkerchief to her eyes, left the room,
while Mrs. Remnant sat down and penned a note to Tousky Wousky, asking
the honor of his company at dinner the next day.