KATE AYLESFORD
“I love that dear old house! my mother lived there
Her first sweet marriage years. * * * *
The sunlight there seems to me brighter far
Than wheresoever else. I know the forms
Of every tree and mountain, hill and dell:
Its waters jingle like a tongue I know:
It is my home.” —Mrs. Frances K. Butler.
Kate Aylesford was an only child and an orphan. It had been her
misfortune to lose her mother, at so early a period of life, that she
retained no distinct remembrance of her, and could only recall a mild,
sweet face, which, as in a dream, seemed to have looked down on her, far
away in the past, like a Madonna in a picture.
Eighty years ago, when our story opens, the facilities for female
education were small anywhere, for it was a generation when Hannah More
was considered a prodigy and when to be able to write grammatically was
regarded as all-sufficient, even for a gentlewoman. There were few good
schools for girls in England, and none at all in America. Mr. Aylesford,
the father of Kate, held a different, and as would be said in this day,
a worthier estimate of woman, from that which was popular among his
generation. He looked back with regret to the time when ladies studied
Greek and read Virgil in the original. The story told of Lady Jane Grey,
that she preferred to stay with her tutor, Ascham, and read Plato,
rather than join the chase, was one of his favorites. He early resolved,
accordingly, that his daughter should be educated in a better manner
than was the fashion of the day. He declared she should be capable, as
he phrased it, of being a companion for a husband, instead of a mere
plaything: that is, he added, with the reverent piety which, without
being Pharisaical, formed a main ingredient of his character, “if God
willed she should be so blessed.” For, among his other old-fashioned
notions, Mr. Aylesford held that a woman is never so fortunate as when a
happy wife and mother.
Hence it was, that though he desired his daughter’s intellect to be
cultivated, he took care that her moral qualities, using that word in
its widest sense, should not run to waste. In order to have her properly
educated, he had determined that she should go to England; but unwilling
to trust her to a public school, he had sent out with her his sister, an
elderly widow lady, the relict of an officer in the army. It was a hard
trial for him to separate from his only child, and one so winning as
Kate; for not only the fond father, but every one who knew her, declared
her to be the life of the house. To the sweetness of her mother’s
disposition, she added the gay heart which had distinguished her
surviving parent when young. Fearless by nature, the life which she
necessarily led, in a then comparatively wild district of the province
of New Jersey, had given to her a courage and self-reliance above her
sex and years: for not only at an age when girls generally are still in
the nursery, had she learned to ride, so as to often accompany her
father, but frequently, with no attendant but one or two stag-hounds,
she galloped for half a morning through the woods. It was, perhaps, to
her having spent her early years in this manner, that she owed her
present blooming health and elastic step. Beauty is oftener the result
of fresh air and exercise than of cosmetics.
Three years after her arrival in England, Mr. Aylesford died, leaving
Kate one of the richest heiresses in the colonies. In part, her property
consisted of houses and stores in the city of Philadelphia, and in part
of vast tracts of land in the middle counties of West Jersey. The war
between the colonies and mother country soon after broke out, and, for a
while, it seemed as if the heiress was destined never to see her native
land again. Her guardians were averse to her return to a country
distracted by war, and her aunt, who, in spite of being an officer’s
widow, was timorous to the last degree, seconded them. But Kate
inherited the resolute spirit of her father, and had early resolved to
return, as soon as she became mistress of herself. Her fixed
determination at last influenced her guardians, so that, after she had
left school and been presented at court, a favorable opportunity
offering, they had consented to her wish. They were the more willing to
concede the point, because, at that time, the royal arms seemed about to
triumph; New York was in undisturbed possession of Sir Henry Clinton;
and the portion of New Jersey, where her estates lay, was, according to
the current reports in London, free from the presence of the enemy. We
need not add that these guardians, as well as her aunt, were warm
friends of the king. It was on this return voyage, after a successful
run of thirty days, and when, as the captain calculated, forty-eight
hours would bring them within sight of Neversink, that we have
introduced Miss Aylesford to the reader.
A long time elapsed, even after she had retired to her berth, before
Kate could sleep. A vague presentiment seemed to oppress her. In vain
she closed her eyes. The gradually increasing wind, and the rush of the
waters alongside, prevented slumber. Once or twice she forgot herself in
a doze, but a louder shriek of the rising gale, or a sudden dash of some
huge billow against the timbers at her head, roused her with a start.
Still, as there was nothing of fear in her nature, these things did not
agitate her. She never even thought that anything serious impended, for
she had heard such sounds often before during the voyage. Finally, long
after her aunt was lost in slumber, she fell asleep.
She was roused suddenly, some hours after, by the noise of her relative.
“Wake up, my child, wake, wake,” cried the good lady in accents of
terror. “We are all going to the bottom. Oh! what shall we do?”
Kate sat up in bed and looked around. She and her aunt occupied the
after cabin of the ship, which had been engaged exclusively for them;
and this apartment was now lighted by a swinging lamp, which threw a
faint yellowish hue on the surrounding objects. The floor of the cabin,
rising almost perpendicularly, and then sinking again, showed that the
ship pitched and rolled with unusual severity. Kate had never seen
anything like it. Her aunt was dressing as rapidly as a person could,
who had always to hold on to something with one hand, and often with
two.
On deck, the hurrying of feet, the rattling of blocks, the creaking of
yards, the sharp whistling of wind through the cordage, the quick, loud
word of command, and other noisy and tumultuous sounds, betokened some
important crisis. The roar of the sea had become almost deafening. It
was, however, occasionally exceeded by the thunder of the gale, which
now dying partially away, swelled again into a volume that overpowered
everything else. At rare intervals, when other noises partially
subsided, Kate fancied she could distinguish the rushing sound of rain.
The terror of her aunt called up all the courage of Miss Aylesford.
Hastily attiring herself, she staggered across the cabin floor to her
relative, and began to assist the latter’s shaking hands.
“They have fastened us down here, too, I suppose,” cried Mrs.
Warren, in a tremulous voice. “We shall be drowned, without having a
chance to get on deck.”
Kate herself knew not but that, in another moment, the ship might sink.
Certainly, all she had ever read, or imagined, of a storm at sea, was
nothing to this. She felt that if there was something tangible to meet,
if she could only get on deck and see what was going on, she would be
better able to face the peril.
“We are in God’s hands, you know, aunt. If you are not afraid of
being left alone, I will try to reach the deck, and learn what is the
matter—”
“Don’t, for mercy’s sake, leave me,” cried Mrs. Warren, clinging
to her niece. “What shall I do down here alone?” But a tremendous
surge, almost heaving the ship on her beam ends, a new terror overcame
the dread of being left for a moment, and she cried, suddenly, “Yes,
yes, go, go, and see what is the matter. Tell the captain we are in no
hurry. Perhaps it’s his carrying so much sail, as he calls it, that
makes the ship lean over so. Dear me, if I once get on dry land, I’ll
never trust myself at sea again.”
Kate did not wait for a second permission. She crept along towards the
forward cabin, which served for the dining room, reached the stairs, and
clambered up with difficulty. A moment after she stood upon the deck.
The night was now pitch dark. A cold, heavy rain was falling, hissing
and dancing as it struck the deck, and occasionally driving wildly past
in an almost horizontal direction. But Kate did not for a while even
know that it rained. Her entire energies were demanded to keep her feet,
for between the violent motion of the ship, and the fury of the wind,
she was nearly prostrated. When at last she had gained a slightly
sheltered position, and found something to hold on by, she looked
anxiously around.
The wide expanse of waters was black as ink, except where, here and
there, the white caps flashed up. Miss Aylesford, in that first
impressive moment, forgot all thought of possible peril, so overpowered
was she by the dread majesty of the scene before her. She could liken it
to nothing but the abyss of woe, surging its black waters from depths
that no plummet could ever sound, impiously against heaven, which
frowned in awful anger back; and the illusion was sustained by the white
and ghastly objects which flitted across the vision, like spectres cast
up from the profound below, and driven remorselessly past by inexorable
fates.
But this feeling of awe and admiration lasted only for a moment. She
remembered her terror-struck aunt below, and looked around to see if
there was any person of whom she could inquire. But everybody seemed
engaged in a struggle for life or death. A dim figure, in which she
fancied she recognized the captain, stood at the helm, with a speaking
trumpet at its mouth; while two stalwart forms grasped the spokes of the
wheel; and other vague shapes hurried hither and thither across the deck
through the darkness and storm. There was a wild confusion of orders,
given so rapidly that she could distinguish no words, and of noises
compounded of the wind and sea, so that she was almost stunned.
This rapid survey consumed but a moment. Looking down the sloping deck,
she saw close under the lee of the ship what seemed a vortex of foaming
water; and now, for the first time, she recognized a dull, sullen roar,
which she knew to be that of breakers. At once the whole peril of their
situation flashed upon her. Instead of being a hundred miles at sea, as
Captain Powell had supposed, they were close upon the coast; and these
superhuman exertions, which she saw master and crew making, were
designed to get an offing for the vessel.
Suddenly a loud report was heard, like the discharge of a cannon in the
air, and looking up, Kate saw what seemed a white cloud flying down to
leeward.
“God have mercy on us,” she heard a voice cry, its sharp tone of
agony rising over all the roar of wind and waters, “the main-topsail
is gone. Look out, she strikes!”
At the same instant, Kate felt a shock, which precipitated her on her
face, and instantaneously what appeared an ocean of water rushed over
and submerged her.