THE CLAYTON FAMILY AND SISTER ANNE.
The family party, which was now ushered in, consisted of Clayton's
father, mother, and sister. Judge Clayton was a tall, dignified, elderly
personage, in whom one recognized, at a glance, the gentleman of the old
school. His hair, snowy white, formed a singular contrast with the
brightness of his blue eyes, whose peculiar acuteness of glance might
remind one of a falcon. There was something stately in the position of
the head and the carriage of the figure, and a punctilious exactness in
the whole air and manner, that gave one a slight impression of
sternness. The clear, sharp blue of his eye seemed to be that of a calm
and decided intellect, of a logical severity of thought; and contrasted
with the silvery hair with that same expression of cold beauty that is
given by the contrast of snow mountains cutting into the keen, metallic
blue of an Alpine sky. One should apprehend much to fear from such a
man's reason--little to hope from any outburst of his emotional nature.
Yet, as a man, perhaps injustice was done to Judge Clayton by this first
impression; for there was, deep beneath this external coldness, a
severely-repressed nature, of the most fiery and passionate vehemence.
His family affections were strong and tender, seldom manifested in
words, but always by the most exact appreciation and consideration for
all who came within his sphere. He was strictly and impartially just in
all the little minutiæ of social and domestic life, never hesitating to
speak a truth or acknowledge an error.
Mrs. Clayton was a high-bred, elderly lady, whose well-preserved
delicacy of complexion, brilliant dark eyes, and fine figure, spoke of a
youth of beauty. Of a nature imaginative, impulsive, and ardent,
inclining constantly to generous extremes, she had thrown herself with
passionate devotion round her clear-judging husband, as the Alpine rose
girdles with beauty the breast of the bright, pure glacier.
Between Clayton and his father there existed an affection deep and
entire; yet, as the son developed to manhood, it became increasingly
evident that they could never move harmoniously in the same practical
orbit. The nature of the son was so veined and crossed with that of the
mother, that the father, in attempting the age-long and often-tried
experiment of making his child an exact copy of himself, found himself
extremely puzzled and confused in the operation. Clayton was ideal to an
excess; ideality colored every faculty of his mind, and swayed all his
reasonings, as an unseen magnet will swerve the needle. Ideality
pervaded his conscientiousness, urging him always to rise above the
commonly-received and so-called practical in morals. Hence, while he
worshipped the theory of law, the practice filled him with disgust; and
his father was obliged constantly to point out deficiencies in
reasonings, founded more on a keen appreciation of what things ought to
be, than on a practical regard to what they are. Nevertheless, Clayton
partook enough of his father's strong and steady nature to be his
mother's idol, who, perhaps, loved this second rendering of the parental
nature with even more doting tenderness than the first.
Anne Clayton was the eldest of three sisters, and the special companion
and confidant of the brother; and, as she stands there untying her
bonnet-strings, we must also present her to the reader. She is a little
above the medium height, with that breadth and full development of chest
which one admires in English women. She carries her well-formed head on
her graceful shoulders with a positive, decided air, only a little on
this side of haughtiness. Her clear brown complexion reddens into a fine
glow in the cheek, giving one the impression of sound, perfect health.
The positive outline of the small aquiline nose; the large, frank,
well-formed mouth, with its clear rows of shining teeth; the brown eyes,
which have caught something of the falcon keenness of the father, are
points in the picture by no means to be overlooked. Taking her air
altogether, there was an honest frankness about her which encouraged
conversation, and put one instantly at ease. Yet no man in his senses
could ever venture to take the slightest liberty with Anne Clayton.
With all her frankness, there was ever in her manner a perfectly-defined
"thus far shalt thou come, and no further." Beaux, suitors, lovers in
abundance, had stood, knelt, and sighed protesting, at her shrine. Yet
Anne Clayton was twenty-seven, and unmarried. Everybody wondered why;
and as to that, we can only wonder with the rest. Her own account of the
matter was simple and positive. She did not wish to marry--was happy
enough without.
The intimacy between the brother and sister had been more than usually
strong, notwithstanding marked differences of character; for Anne had
not a particle of ideality. Sense she had, shrewdness, and a pleasant
dash of humor withal; but she was eminently what people call a practical
girl. She admired highly the contrary of all this in her brother; she
delighted in the poetic-heroic element in him, for much the same reason
that young ladies used to admire Thaddeus of Warsaw and William
Wallace--because it was something quite out of her line. In the whole
world of ideas she had an almost idolatrous veneration for her brother;
in the sphere of practical operations she felt free to assert, with a
certain good-natured positiveness, her own superiority. There was no one
in the world, perhaps, of whose judgment in this respect Clayton stood
more in awe.
At the present juncture of affairs Clayton felt himself rather awkwardly
embarrassed in communicating to her an event which she would immediately
feel she had a right to know before. A sister of Anne Clayton's positive
character does not usually live twenty-seven years in constant intimacy
with a brother like Clayton, without such an attachment as renders the
first announcement of a contemplated marriage somewhat painful. Why,
then, had Clayton, who always unreservedly corresponded with his sister,
not kept her apprised of his gradual attachment to Nina? The secret of
the matter was, that he had had an instinctive consciousness that he
could not present Nina to the practical, clear-judging mind of his
sister, as she appeared through the mist and spray of his imaginative
nature. The hard facts of her case would be sure to tell against her in
any communication he might make; and sensitive people never like the
fatigue of justifying their instincts. Nothing, in fact, is less capable
of being justified by technical reasons than those fine insights into
character whereupon affection is built. We have all had experience of
preferences which would not follow the most exactly ascertained
catalogue of virtues, and would be made captive where there was very
little to be said in justification of the captivity.
But, meanwhile, rumor, always busy, had not failed to convey to Anne
Clayton some suspicions of what was passing; and, though her delicacy
and pride forbade any allusion to it, she keenly felt the want of
confidence, and of course was not any more charitably disposed towards
the little rival for this reason. But now the matter had attained such a
shape in Clayton's mind that he felt the necessity of apprising his
family and friends. With his mother the task was made easier by the
abundant hopefulness of her nature, which enabled her in a moment to
throw herself into the sympathies of those she loved. To her had been
deputed the office of first breaking the tidings to Anne, and she had
accomplished it during the pleasure-party of the morning.
The first glance that passed between Clayton and his sister, as she
entered the room, on her return from the party, showed him that she was
discomposed and unhappy. She did not remain long in the apartment, or
seem disposed to join in conversation; and, after a few abstracted
moments, she passed through the open door into the garden, and began to
busy herself apparently among her plants. Clayton followed her. He came
and stood silently beside her for some time, watching her as she picked
the dead leaves off her geranium.
"Mother has told you," he said, at length.
"Yes," said Anne.
There was a long pause, and Anne picked off dry leaves and green
promiscuously, threatening to demolish the bush.
"Anne," said Clayton, "how I wish you could see her!"
"I've _heard_ of her," replied Anne, dryly, "through the Livingstons."
"And what have you heard?" said Clayton, eagerly.
"Not such things as I could wish, Edward; not such as I expected to hear
of the lady that you would choose."
"And, pray, what _have_ you heard? Out with it," said Clayton,--"let's
know what the world says of her."
"Well, the world says," said Anne, "that she is a coquette, a flirt, a
jilt. From all I've heard, I should think she must be an unprincipled
girl."
"That is hard language, Anne."
"Truth is generally hard," replied Anne.
"My dear sister," said Clayton, taking her hand, and seating her on the
seat in the garden, "have you lost all faith in me?"
"I think it would be nearer truth," replied Anne, "to say that _you_ had
lost all faith in _me_. Why am I the last one to know all this? Why am I
to hear it first from reports, and every way but from you? Would I have
treated you so? Did I ever have anything that I did not tell you? Down
to my very soul I've always told you everything!"
"This is true, I own, dear Anne; but what if you had loved some man that
you felt sure I should not like? Now, you are a positive person, Anne,
and this might happen. Would you want to tell me at once? Would you not,
perhaps, wait, and hesitate, and put off, for one reason or another,
from day to day, and find it grow more and more difficult, the longer
you waited?"
"I can't tell," said Anne, bitterly. "I never did love any one better
than you,--that's the trouble."
"Neither do I love anybody _better_ than you, Anne. The love I have for
you is a whole, perfect thing, just as it was. See if you do not find me
every way as devoted. My heart was only opened to take in another love,
another wholly different; and which, because it is so wholly different,
never can infringe on the love I bear to you. And, Anne, my dear sister,
if you could love her as a part of me"--
"I wish I could," said Anne, somewhat softened; "but what I've heard has
been so unfavorable! She is not, in the least, the person I should have
expected you to fancy, Edward. Of all things I despise a woman who
trifles with the affections of gentlemen."
"Well, but, my dear, Nina isn't a woman; she is a _child_--a gay,
beautiful, unformed child; and I'm sure you may apply to her what Pope
says:--
'If to her share some female errors fall,
Look in her face, and you forget them all.'"
"Yes, indeed," said Anne, "I believe all you men are alike--a pretty
face bewitches any of you. I thought you were an exception, Edward; but
there you are."
"But, Anne, is this the way to encourage my confidence? Suppose I am
bewitched and enchanted, you cannot disentangle me without indulgence.
Say what you will about it, the _fact_ is just this--it is my fate to
love this child. I've tried to love many women before. I have seen many
whom I knew no sort of reason why I shouldn't love,--handsomer far, more
cultivated, more accomplished,--and yet I've seen them without a
movement or a flutter of the pulse. But this girl has awakened all there
is to me. I do not see in her what the world sees. I see the ideal image
of what she can be, what I'm sure she _will_ be, when her nature is
fully awakened and developed."
"Just there, Edward--just that," said Anne. "You never see anything;
that is, you see a glorified image--a something that might, could,
would, or should be--that is your difficulty. You glorify an ordinary
boarding-school coquette into something symbolic, sublime; you clothe
her with all your own ideas, and then fall down to worship her."
"Well, my dear Anne, suppose it were so, what then? I am, as you say,
ideal,--you, real. Well, be it so; I must act according to what is in
me. I have a right to my nature, you to yours. But it is not every
person whom I _can_ idealize: and I suspect this is the great reason why
I never could love some very fine women, with whom I have associated on
intimate terms; they had no capacity of being idealized; they could
receive no color from my fancy; they wanted, in short, just what Nina
has. She is just like one of those little whisking, chattering cascades
in the White Mountains, and the atmosphere round her is favorable to
rainbows."
"And you always see her through them."
"Even so, sister; but some people I cannot. Why should you find fault
with me? It's a pleasant thing to look through a rainbow. Why should you
seek to disenchant, if I _can_ be enchanted?"
"Why," replied Anne, "you remember the man who took his pay of the
fairies in gold and diamonds, and, after he had passed a certain brook,
found it all turned to slate-stones. Now, marriage is like that brook:
many a poor fellow finds his diamonds turned to slate on the other side;
and this is why I put in my plain, hard common sense, against your
visions. I see the plain facts about this young girl; that she is an
acknowledged flirt, a noted coquette and jilt; and a woman who is so is
necessarily heartless; and you are too good, Edward, too noble, I have
loved you too long, to be willing to give you up to _such_ a woman."
"There, my dear Anne, there are at least a dozen points in that sentence
to which I don't agree. In the first place, as to coquetry, it isn't the
unpardonable sin in my eyes--that is, under some circumstances."
"That is, you mean, when Nina Gordon is the coquette?"
"No, I don't mean that. But the fact is, Anne, there is so little of
true sincerity, so little real benevolence and charity, in the common
intercourse of young gentlemen and ladies in society, and our sex, who
ought to set the example, are so selfish and unprincipled in their ways
of treating women, that I do not wonder that, now and then, a lively
girl, who has the power, avenges her sex by playing off _our_ weak
points. Now, I don't think Nina capable of trifling with a real, deep,
unselfish attachment--a love which sought her good, and was willing to
sacrifice itself for her; but I don't believe any such has ever been put
at her disposal. There's a great difference between a man's wanting a
woman to _love him_, and loving her. Wanting to appropriate a woman as a
wife does not, of course, imply that a man loves her, or that he is
capable of loving anything. All these things girls _feel_, because their
instincts are quick; and they are often accused of trifling with a man's
heart, when they only see through him, and know he hasn't any. Besides,
love of power has always been considered a respectable sin in us men;
and why should we denounce a woman for loving her kind of power?"
"Oh, well, Edward, there isn't anything in the world that you cannot
theorize into beauty. But I don't like coquettes, for all that; and,
then, I'm told Nina Gordon is so very odd, and says and does such very
extraordinary things, sometimes."
"Well, perhaps that charms me the more. In this conventional world,
where women are all rubbed into one uniform surface, like coins in
one's pocket, it's a pleasure now and then to find one who can't be made
to do and think like all the rest. You have a little dash of this merit,
yourself, Anne; but you must consider that you have been brought up with
mamma, under her influence, trained and guided every hour, even more
than you knew. Nina has grown up an heiress among servants, a
boarding-school girl in New York; and, furthermore, you are twenty-seven
and she is eighteen, and a great deal may be learned between eighteen
and twenty-seven."
"But, brother, you remember Miss Hannah More says,--or some of those
good women, I forget who: at any rate it's a sensible saying,--'that a
man who chooses his wife as he would a picture in a public
exhibition-room should remember that there is this difference, that the
picture cannot go back to the exhibition, but the woman may.' You have
chosen her from seeing her brilliancy in society; but, after all, can
you make her happy in the dull routine of a commonplace life? Is she not
one of the sort that must have a constant round of company and
excitement to keep her in spirits?"
"I think not," said Clayton. "I think she is one of those whose vitality
is in herself, and one whose freshness and originality will keep life
anywhere from being commonplace; and that, living with us, she will
sympathize, naturally, in all our pursuits."
"Well, now, don't flatter yourself, brother, that you can make this girl
over, and bring her to any of your standards."
"Who--I? Did you think I meditated such an impertinence? The last thing
I should try, to marry a wife to educate her! It's generally one of the
most selfish tricks of our sex. Besides, I don't want a wife who will be
a mere mirror of my opinions and sentiments. I don't want an innocent
sheet of blotting-paper, meekly sucking up all I say, and giving a
little fainter impression of my ideas. I want a wife for an alternative;
all the vivacities of life lie in differences."
"Why, surely," said Anne, "one wants one's friends to be congenial, I
should think."
"So we do; and there is nothing in the world so congenial as
differences. To be sure, the differences must be harmonious. In music,
now, for instance, one doesn't want a repetition of the same notes, but
differing notes that chord. Nay, even discords are indispensable to
complete harmony. Now, Nina has just that difference from me which
chords with me; and all our little quarrels--for we have had a good
many, and I dare say shall have more--are only a sort of chromatic
passages,--discords of the seventh, leading into harmony. My life is
inward, theorizing, self-absorbed. I am hypochondriac--often morbid. The
vivacity and acuteness of her outer life makes her just what I need. She
wakens, she rouses, and keeps me in play; and her quick instincts are
often more than a match for my reason. I reverence the child, then, in
spite of her faults. She has taught me many things."
"Well," said Anne, laughing, "I give you up, if it comes to that. If you
come to talk about reverencing Nina Gordon, I see it's all over with
you, Edward, and I'll be good-natured, and make the best of it. I hope
it may all be true that you think, and a great deal more. At all events,
no effort of mine shall be wanting to make you as happy in your new
relation as you ought to be."
"There, now, that's Anne Clayton! It's just like _you_, sister, and I
couldn't say anything better than that. You have unburdened your
conscience, you have done all you can for me, and now very properly
yield to the inevitation. Nina, I know, will love you; and, if you never
_try_ to advise her and influence her, you will influence her very much.
Good people are a long while learning _that_, Anne. They think to do
good to others, by interfering and advising. They don't know that all
they have to do is to live. When I first knew Nina, I was silly enough
to try my hand that way, myself; but I've learned better. Now, when Nina
comes to us, all that you and mamma have got to do is just to be kind to
her, and _live_ as you always have lived; and whatever needs to be
altered in her, she will alter herself."
"Well," said Anne, "I wish, as it is so, that I could see her."
"Suppose you write a few lines to her in this letter that I am going to
write; and then that will lead in due time to a visit."
"Anything in the world, Edward, that you say."