The Thorn rankles.
We left the quiet town of Sudbury snow-clad and sparkling in all the glory
of a frosty moonlight night; we now return to it, and discover it decked
out in its bravest summer garniture. A short distance above the hill upon
which it is built, the water of the river that glides along its base may be
seen springing over the low dam that obstructs its passage, sparkling,
glistening, dancing in the sunlight, as it falls splashing on the stones
below; and then, as though subdued by the fall and crash, it comes
murmuring on, stopping now and then to whirl and eddy round some rock or
protruding stump, and at last glides gently under the arch of the bridge,
seemingly to pause beneath its shadow and ponder upon its recent tumble
from the heights above. Seated here and there upon the bridge are groups of
boys, rod in hand, endeavouring, with the most delicious-looking and
persuasive of baits, to inveigle finny innocents from the cool depths
below.
The windows of the mills are all thrown open, and now and then the voices
of some operatives, singing at their work, steal forth in company with the
whir and hum of the spindles, and mingle with the splash of the waterfall;
and the united voices of nature, industry, and man, harmonize their
swelling tones, or go floating upward on the soft July air. The houses upon
the hill-side seem to be endeavouring to extricate themselves from bowers
of full-leafed trees; and with their white fronts, relieved by the light
green blinds, look cool and inviting in the distance. High above them all,
as though looking down in pride upon the rest, stands the Academy, ennobled
in the course of years by the addition of extensive wings and a row of
stately pillars. On the whole, the town looked charmingly peaceful and
attractive, and appeared just the quiet nook that a weary worker in cities
would select as a place of retirement after a busy round of toils or
pleasure.
There were little knots of idlers gathered about the railroad station, as
there always is in quiet towns--not that they expect any one; but that the
arrival and departure of the train is one of the events of the day, and
those who have nothing else particular to accomplish feel constrained to be
on hand to witness it. Every now and then one of them would look down the
line and wonder why the cars were not in sight.
Amongst those seemingly the most impatient was Miss Ada Bell, who looked
but little older than when she won the heart of the orphan Clarence, years
before, by that kind kiss upon his childish brow. It was hers still--she
bound it to her by long years of affectionate care, almost equalling in its
sacrificing tenderness that which a mother would have bestowed upon her
only child. Clarence, her adopted son, had written to her, that he was
wretched, heart-sore, and ill, and longed to come to her, his almost
mother, for sympathy, advice, and comfort: so she, with yearning heart, was
there to meet him.
At last the faint scream of the steam-whistle was heard, and soon the
lumbering locomotive came puffing and snorting on its iron path, dashing on
as though it could never stop, and making the surrounding hills echo with
the unearthly scream of its startling whistle, and arousing to desperation
every dog in the quiet little town. At last it stopped, and stood giving
short and impatient snorts and hisses, whilst the passengers were
alighting.
Clarence stepped languidly out, and was soon in the embrace of Miss Ada.
"My dear boy, how thin and pale you look!" she exclaimed; "come, get into
the carriage; never mind your baggage, George will look after that; your
hands are hot--very hot, you must be feverish."
"Yes, Aunt Ada," for so he had insisted on his calling her "I am ill--sick
in heart, mind, and everything. Cut up the horses," said he, with slight
impatience of manner; "let us get home quickly. When I get in the old
parlour, and let you bathe my head as you used to, I am sure I shall feel
better. I am almost exhausted from fatigue and heat."
"Very well then, dear, don't talk now," she replied, not in the least
noticing his impatience of manner; "when you are rested, and have had your
tea, will be time enough."
They were soon in the old house, and Clarence looked round with a smile of
pleasure on the room where he had spent so many happy hours. Good Aunt Ada
would not let him talk, but compelled him to remain quiet until he had
rested himself, and eaten his evening meal.
He had altered considerably in the lapse of years, there was but little
left to remind one of the slight, melancholy-looking boy, that once stood a
heavy-hearted little stranger in the same room, in days gone by. His face
was without a particle of red to relieve its uniform paleness; his eyes,
large, dark, and languishing, were half hidden by unusually long lashes;
his forehead broad, and surmounted with clustering raven hair; a glossy
moustache covered his lip, and softened down its fulness; on the whole, he
was strikingly handsome, and none would pass him without a second look.
Tea over, Miss Ada insisted that he should lie down upon the sofa again,
whilst she, sat by and bathed his head. "Have you seen your sister lately?"
she asked.
"No, Aunt Ada," he answered, hesitatingly, whilst a look of annoyance
darkened his face for a moment; "I have not been to visit her since last
fall--almost a year."
"Oh! Clarence, how can you remain so long away?" said she, reproachfully.
"Well, I can't go there with any comfort or pleasure," he answered,
apologetically; "I can't go there; each year as I visit the place, their
ways seem more strange and irksome to me. Whilst enjoying her company, I
must of course come in familiar contact with those by whom she is
surrounded. Sustaining the position that I do--passing as I am for a white
man--I am obliged to be very circumspect, and have often been compelled to
give her pain by avoiding many of her dearest friends when I have
encountered them in public places, because of their complexion. I feel mean
and cowardly whilst I'm doing it; but it is necessary--I can't be white and
coloured at the same time; the two don't mingle, and I must consequently be
one or the other. My education, habits, and ideas, all unfit me for
associating with the latter; and I live in constant dread that something
may occur to bring me out with the former. I don't avoid coloured people,
because I esteem them my inferiors in refinement, education, or
intelligence; but because they are subjected to degradations that I shall
be compelled to share by too freely associating with them."
"It is a pity," continued he, with a sigh, "that I was not suffered to grow
up with them, then I should have learnt to bear their burthens, and in the
course of time might have walked over my path of life, bearing the load
almost unconsciously. Now it would crush me, I know. It was a great mistake
to place me in my present false position," concluded he, bitterly; "it has
cursed me. Only a day ago I had a letter from Em, reproaching me for my
coldness; yet, God help me! What am I to do!"
Miss Ada looked at him sorrowfully, and continued smoothing down his hair,
and inundating his temples with Cologne; at last she ventured to inquire,
"How do matters progress with you and Miss Bates? Clary, you have lost your
heart there!"
"Too true," he replied, hurriedly; "and what is more--little Birdie (I call
her little Birdie) has lost hers too. Aunt Ada, we are engaged!"
"With her parents' consent?" she asked.
"Yes, with her parents' consent; we are to be married in the coming
winter."
"Then they know _all_, of course--they know you are coloured?" observed
she.
"They know all!" cried he, starting up. "_Who_ said they did--_who_ told
them?--tell me that, I say! Who has _dared_ to tell them I am a coloured
man?"
"Hush, Clarence, hush!" replied she, attempting to soothe him. "I do not
know that any one has informed them; I only inferred so from your saying
you were engaged. I thought _you_ had informed them yourself. Don't you
remember you wrote that you should?--and I took it for granted that you
had."
"Oh! yes, yes; so I did! I fully intended to, but found myself too great a
coward. _I dare not_--I cannot risk losing her. I am fearful that if she
knew it she would throw me off for ever."
"Perhaps not, Clarence--if she loves you as she should; and even if she
did, would it not be better that she should know it now, than have it
discovered afterwards, and you both be rendered miserable for life."
"No, no, Aunt Ada--I cannot tell her! It must remain a secret until after
our marriage; then, if they find it out, it will be to their interest to
smooth the matter over, and keep quiet about it."
"Clary, Clary--that is _not_ honourable!"
"I know it--but how can I help it? Once or twice I thought of telling her,
but my heart always failed me at the critical moment. It would kill me to
lose her. Oh! I love her, Aunt Ada," said he, passionately--"love her with
all the energy and strength of my father's race, and all the doating
tenderness of my mother's. I could have told her long ago, before my love
had grown to its present towering strength, but craft set a seal upon my
lips, and bid me be silent until her heart was fully mine, and then nothing
could part us; yet now even, when sure of her affections, the dread that
her love would not stand the test, compels me to shrink more than ever from
the disclosure."
"But, Clarence, you are not acting generously; I know your conscience does
not approve your actions."
"Don't I know that?" he answered, almost fiercely; "yet I dare not tell--I
must shut this secret in my bosom, where it gnaws, gnaws, gnaws, until it
has almost eaten my heart away. Oh, I've thought of that, time and again;
it has kept me awake night after night, it haunts me at all hours; it is
breaking down my health and strength--wearing my very life out of me; no
escaped galley-slave ever felt more than I do, or lived in more constant
fear of detection: and yet I must nourish this tormenting secret, and keep
it growing in my breast until it has crowded out every honourable and manly
feeling; and then, perhaps, after all my sufferings and sacrifice of
candour and truth, out it will come at last, when I least expect or think
of it."
Aunt Ada could not help weeping, and exclaimed, commiseratingly, "My poor,
poor boy," as he strode up and down the room.
"The whole family, except her, seem to have the deepest contempt for
coloured people; they are constantly making them a subject of bitter jests;
they appear to have no more feeling or regard for them than if they were
brutes--and I," continued he, "I, miserable, contemptible, false-hearted
knave, as I am, I--I--yes, I join them in their heartless jests, and wonder
all the while my mother does not rise from her grave and _curse_ me as I
speak!"
"Oh! Clarence, Clarence, my dear child!" cried the terrified Aunt Ada, "you
talk deliriously; you have brooded over this until it has almost made you
crazy. Come here--sit down." And seizing him by the arm, she drew him on
the sofa beside her, and began to bathe his hot head with the Cologne
again.
"Let me walk, Aunt Ada," said he after a few moments,--"let me walk, I feel
better whilst I am moving; I can't bear to be quiet." And forthwith he
commenced striding up and down the room again with nervous and hurried
steps. After a few moments he burst out again----
"It seems as if fresh annoyances and complications beset me every day. Em
writes me that she is engaged. I was in hopes, that, after I had married, I
could persuade her to come and live with me, and so gradually break off her
connection with, coloured people; but that hope is extinguished now: she
is engaged to a coloured man."
Aunt Ada could see no remedy for this new difficulty, and could only say,
"Indeed!"
"I thought something of the kind would occur when I was last at home, and
spoke to her on the subject, but she evaded giving me any definite answer;
I think she was afraid to tell me--she has written, asking my consent."
"And will you give it?" asked Aunt Ada.
"It will matter but little if I don't; Em has a will of her own, and I have
no means of coercing her; besides, I have no reasonable objection to urge:
it would be folly in me to oppose it, simply because he is a coloured
man--for, what am I myself? The only difference is, that his identity with
coloured people is no secret, and he is not ashamed of it; whilst I conceal
my origin, and live in constant dread that some one may find it out." When
Clarence had finished, he continued to walk up and down the room, looking
very careworn and gloomy.
Miss Bell remained on the sofa, thoughtfully regarding him. At last, she
rose up and took his hand in hers, as she used to when he was a boy, and
walking beside him, said, "The more I reflect upon it, the more necessary I
regard it that you should tell this girl and her parents your real position
before you marry her. Throw away concealment, make a clean breast of it!
you may not be rejected when they find her heart is so deeply interested.
If you marry her with this secret hanging over you, it will embitter your
life, make you reserved, suspicious, and consequently ill-tempered, and
destroy all your domestic happiness. Let me persuade you, tell them ere it
be too late. Suppose it reached them through some other source, what would
they then think of you?"
"Who else would tell them? Who else knows it? You, you," said he
suspiciously--"_you_ would not betray me! I thought you loved me, Aunt
Ada."
"Clarence, my dear boy," she rejoined, apparently hurt by his hasty and
accusing tone, "you _will_ mistake me--I have no such intention. If they
are never to learn it except through _me_, your secret is perfectly safe.
Yet I must tell you that I feel and think that the true way to promote her
happiness and your own, is for you to disclose to them your real position,
and throw yourself upon their generosity for the result."
Clarence pondered for a long time over Miss Bell's advice, which she again
and again repeated, placing it each time before him in a stronger light,
until, at last, she extracted from him a promise that he would do it. "I
know you are right, Aunt Ada," said he; "I am convinced of that--it is a
question of courage with me. I know it would be more honourable for me to
tell her now. I'll try to do it--I will make an effort, and summon up the
courage necessary--God be my helper!"
"That's a dear boy!" she exclaimed, kissing him affectionately; "I know you
will feel happier when it is all over; and even if she should break her
engagement, you will be infinitely better off than if it was fulfilled and
your secret subsequently discovered. Come, now," she concluded, "I am going
to exert my old authority, and send you to bed; tomorrow, perhaps, you may
see this in a more hopeful light."
Two days after this, Clarence was again in New York, amid the heat and dust
of that crowded, bustling city. Soon, after his arrival, he dressed
himself, and started for the mansion of Mr. Bates, trembling as he went,
for the result of the communication he was about to make.
Once on the way he paused, for the thought had occurred to him that he
would write to them; then reproaching himself for his weakness and
timidity, he started on again with renewed determination.
"I'll see her myself," he soliloquized. "I'll tell little Birdie all, and
know my fate from her own lips. If I must give her up, I'll know the worst
from her."
When Clarence was admitted, he would not permit himself to be announced,
but walked tiptoe upstairs and gently opening the drawing-room door,
entered the room. Standing by the piano, turning over the leaves of some
music, and merrily humming an air, was a young girl of extremely _petite_
and delicate form. Her complexion was strikingly fair; and the rich curls
of dark auburn that fell in clusters on her shoulders, made it still more
dazzling by the contrast presented. Her eyes were grey, inclining to black;
her features small, and not over-remarkable for their symmetry, yet by no
means disproportionate. There was the sweetest of dimples on her small
round chin, and her throat white and clear as the finest marble. The
expression of her face was extremely childlike; she seemed more like a
schoolgirl than a young woman of eighteen on the eve of marriage. There was
something deliriously airy and fairylike in her motions, and as she
slightly moved her feet in time to the music she was humming, her thin blue
dress floated about her, and undulated in harmony with her graceful
motions.
After gazing at her for a few moments, Clarence called gently, "Little
Birdie." She gave a timid joyous little cry of surprise and pleasure, and
fluttered into his arms.
"Oh, Clary, love, how you startled me! I did not dream there was any one in
the room. It was so naughty in you," said she, childishly, as he pushed
back the curls from her face and kissed her. "When did you arrive?"
"Only an hour ago," he answered.
"And you came here at once? Ah, that was so lover-like and kind," she
rejoined, smiling.
"You look like a sylph to-night, Anne," said he, as she danced about him.
"Ah," he continued, after regarding her for a few seconds with a look of
intense admiration, "you want to rivet my chains the tighter,--you look
most bewitching. Why are you so much dressed to-night?--jewels, sash, and
satin slippers," he continued; "are you going out?"
"No, Clary," she answered. "I was to have gone to the theatre; but just at
the last moment I decided not to. A singular desire to stay at home came
over me suddenly. I had an instinctive feeling that I should lose some
greater enjoyment if I went; so I remained at home; and here, love, are
you. But what is the matter? you look sad and weary."
"I am a little fatigued," said he, seating himself and holding her hand in
his: "a little weary; but that will soon wear off; and as for the sadness,"
concluded he, with a forced smile, "that _must_ depart now that I am with
you, Little Birdie."
"I feel relieved that you have returned safe and well," said she, looking
up into his face from her seat beside him; "for, Clary, love, I had such a
frightful dream, such a singular dream about you. I have endeavoured to
shake it out of my foolish little head; but it won't go, Clary,--I can't
get rid of it. It occurred after you left us at Saratoga. Oh, it was
nothing though," said she, laughing and shaking her curls,--"nothing; and
now you are safely returned, I shall not think of it again. Tell me what
you have seen since you went away; and how is that dear Aunt Ada of yours
you talk so much about?"
"Oh, she is quite well," answered he; "but tell, Anne, tell me about that
dream. What was it, Birdie?--come tell me."
"I don't care to," she answered, with a slight shudder,--"I don't want to,
love."
"Yes, yes,--do, sweet," importuned he; "I want to hear it."
"Then if I must," said she, "I will. I dreamed that you and I were walking
on a road together, and 'twas such a beautiful road, with flowers and
fruit, and lovely cottages on either side. I thought you held my hand; I
felt it just as plain as I clasp yours now. Presently a rough ugly man
overtook us, and bid you let me go; and that you refused, and held me all
the tighter. Then he gave you a diabolical look, and touched you on the
face, and you broke out in loathsome black spots, and screamed in such
agony and frightened me so, that I awoke all in a shiver of terror, and did
not get over it all the next day."
Clarence clutched her hand tighter as she finished, so tight indeed, that
she gave a little scream of pain and looked frightened at him. "What is the
matter?" she inquired; "your hand is like ice, and you are paler than ever.
You haven't let that trifling dream affect you so? It is nothing."
"I am superstitious in regard to dreams," said Clarence, wiping the
perspiration from his forehead. "Go," he asked, faintly, "play me an air,
love,--something quick and lively to dispel this. I wish you had not told
me."
"But you begged me to," said she, pouting, as she took her seat at the
instrument.
"How ominous," muttered he,--"became covered with black spots; that is a
foreshadowing. How can I tell her," he thought. "It seems like wilfully
destroying my own happiness." And he sat struggling with himself to obtain
the necessary courage to fulfil the purpose of his visit, and became so
deeply engrossed with his own reflections as to scarcely even hear the
sound of the instrument.
"It is too bad," she cried, as she ceased playing: "here I have performed
some of your favourite airs, and that too without eliciting a word of
commendation. You are inexpressibly dull to-night; nothing seems to enliven
you. What is the matter?"
"Oh," rejoined he, abstractedly, "am I? I was not aware of it."
"Yes, you are," said Little Birdie, pettishly; "nothing seems to engage
your attention." And, skipping off to the table, she took up the newspaper,
and exclaimed,--"Let me read you something very curious."
"No, no, Anne dear," interrupted he; "sit here by me. I want to say
something serious to you--something of moment to us both."
"Then it's something very grave and dull, I know," she remarked; "for that
is the way people always begin. Now I don't want to hear anything serious
to-night; I want to be merry. You _look_ serious enough; and if you begin
to talk seriously you'll be perfectly unbearable. So you must hear what I
am going to read to you first." And the little tyrant put her finger on his
lip, and looked so bewitching, that he could not refuse her. And the
important secret hung on his lips, but was not spoken.
"Listen," said she, spreading out the paper before her and running her tiny
finger down the column. "Ah, I have it," she exclaimed at last, and
began:--
"'We learn from unimpeachable authority that the Hon. ---- ----, who
represents a district of our city in the State legislature, was yesterday
united to the Quateroon daughter of the late Gustave Almont. She is said to
be possessed of a large fortune, inherited from her father; and they
purpose going to France to reside,--a sensible determination; as, after
such a _mesalliance_, the honourable gentleman can no longer expect to
retain his former social position in our midst.--_New Orleans Watchman_.'"
"Isn't it singular," she remarked, "that a man in his position should make
such a choice?"
"He loved her, no doubt," suggested Clarence; "and she was almost white."
"How could he love her?" asked she, wonderingly. "Love a coloured woman! I
cannot conceive it possible," said she, with a look of disgust; "there is
something strange and unnatural about it."
"No, no," he rejoined, hurriedly, "it was love, Anne,--pure love; it is not
impossible. I--I--" "am coloured," he would have said; but he paused and
looked full in her lovely face. He could not tell her,--the words slunk
back into his coward heart unspoken.
She stared at him in wonder and perplexity, and exclaimed,--"Dear Clarence,
how strangely you act! I am afraid you are not well. Your brow is hot,"
said she, laying her hand on his forehead; "you have been travelling too
much for your strength."
"It is not that," he replied. "I feel a sense of suffocation, as if all the
blood was rushing to my throat. Let me get the air." And he rose and walked
to the window. Anne hastened and brought him a glass of water, of which he
drank a little, and then declared himself better.
After this, he stood for a long time with her clasped in his arms; then
giving her one or two passionate kisses, he strained her closer to him and
abruptly left the house, leaving Little Birdie startled and alarmed by his
strange behaviour.