RESTITUTION.
“Rouse to some high and holy work of love,
And thou an angel’s happiness shalt know;
Shalt bless the earth while in the world above;
The work, begun by thee, shall onward go
In many a branching stream and wider flow.”—_Carlos Wilcox._
A week after this, Mark Sutherland once more left home for a visit to
Mississippi, on business. He went to make a final settlement with
Clement Sutherland.
The miserable old man had fallen, almost into a state of idiotcy. He
gave up all the title deeds and various documents relating to Rosalie’s
estate, but could give little or no information concerning them.
The plantation was sold under the mortgage, and when all was done, and
the final accounts cast up, Mark Sutherland found that of all his wife’s
splendid fortune, but a paltry two thousand dollars was left.
With this, Mark Sutherland prepared to leave the neighbourhood of
Cashmere. But the day that he had fixed for his departure was signalized
by a catastrophe that delayed his journey for weeks. It was the dreadful
death of St. Gerald Ashley, who, during a fit of mania-a-potu, threw
himself from a second story window, and, striking his head upon the iron
trellis below, was instantly killed.
India was distracted—Clement Sutherland helpless. And Mark remained at
Cashmere to take the direction of the funeral.
Three days from the death, when all was over, Mark Sutherland sought the
presence of the widow. He went to her with no tender condolements, but
with the words of bitter truth and stern rebuke upon his lips. He found
her in her faded and dingy boudoir.
She arose at his entrance, and held out her hand to welcome him, but
before his own had touched it, she sank down in her chair, burst into
tears, and covered her face with her hands.
He took a seat, and spoke:
“I come to you, Mrs. Ashley, with no vain words of sympathy, which would
seem as untrue to your sense as they would _be_ upon my lips. I come
merely to set before you the stern realities of your position, and, if
possible, to awaken you to its duties and responsibilities.” He paused a
moment, and she lifted up her head and tearful face, saying,
“Speak, Mark! you will not find me haughty now!”
His lips curled, and then he compressed them.
“Your husband is dead! You know too well what fatal power brought down
that high, proud nature to dishonour and to death”——
“Speak—ay, speak—and spare not! I deserve it! Most of all, from you!”
she exclaimed, in a voice of anguish.
“Yet, India, for the kindred blood in our mutual veins—for the regard I
once bore you, and the anxiety I still feel for you—I would point out a
way of recovery”——
“Tell me, Mark! tell me! Oh! I know that I have been guilty! but not
wantonly guilty, as you think! God knoweth that I have not! _One_ mad,
impatient act—_one_ frantic act—led to all the rest—ruined all my life
and his!”
“Yet that act could not have been committed by any but an intensely
selfish nature, India. I speak not to indulge in _vain_ reproaches, but
to recall you to a sense of what you have already caused others to
suffer, and to a consciousness of what you owe to others. You cannot now
recall the past, but you are very young, and the long future is all
yours. Your husband is dead, your father imbecile, and there is no one
to take the direction of affairs on this plantation. You must rouse
yourself from vain regret and indolent self-indulgence. You were not
created to sit still and be waited upon. You must engage in the active
duties of life. You must redeem the past by the future. You cannot now
bring back St. Gerald Ashley from his dishonoured grave, and restore him
to the brilliant and distinguished position from which he fell—but you
can do somewhat to save his memory from reproach. He died heavily in
debt. You have property of your own. This seat of Cashmere was secured
to you on your marriage, leaving your father a life interest in it. I do
not, therefore, mean _this_. But you have other property in your own
right—devote it to the liquidation of Ashley’s debts. And more; when you
estranged him from your bosom, he sought sympathy and affection from a
poor girl who lives in the pine forest. I need not tell you the story;
doubtless, you know it. If you do not, the theme is, unhappily, so
common, that you can easily imagine it. What I mean to say is this: this
poor, fallen girl is unprovided for, desolate, and heart-broken; and
what I have to enjoin upon you is, that you seek out that poor victim of
St. Gerald’s sin, and make such a provision for herself and child as
will save her from despair and deeper vice.”
“And if I do all this—if I spend all that I have in clearing St.
Gerald’s memory from debt, and if I take this poor girl and her child
under my protection—will you think of me more leniently than you do?
Will you restore me your esteem?”
“My thoughts, my esteem, should be no motive with you. I never asked you
to do this for _my_ sake. I would not ask you to do it for heaven’s
sake; but simply I enjoin you to do it because it is _right_, whether I
ever remember your existence again or not.”
“Oh! Mark, I will do it. But you have not learned of Him, that divine,
compassionate One, who would not break the bruised reed or quench the
smoking flax!”
She raised her eyes tearfully, doubtingly, to his face.
“Is there anything else, Mark?” she asked.
“Yes, India, your people; remember, that if your life should be cut off
before you emancipate them, when your soul is in the spiritual world,
you will see those whom you have left on earth, doomed, with their
children and their children’s children, to a bondage, from which you
have no longer the power and the privilege to free them. Oh! I think,
India, it is a fearful responsibility, it is an awful one, to die and
leave them so—to let the power of righting their wrongs pass away from
you forever.”
“To do all this it would require nearly all my means—it would leave me
very poor.”
“_Be_ poor! _let_ all go but peace of mind.”
She paused a long time with her head bowed upon her hands. At last she
looked up, and stretched her hand out to him, and said—
“Mark, is this all that you require of me?”
“No; your father is imbecile in mind, and no longer capable of directing
even his most trivial affairs. You must apply to the court for the
necessary authority, and take the control of his estate. I will remain
here a few weeks longer to aid you in obtaining it, and in settling up
the accounts. You will find many a just debt which nevertheless cannot
legally be recovered of him. You must pay them all without flinching,
though the settlement should leave you penniless. You must right every
wrong that he has done, or others suffered through him.”
He had not taken the hand she had held out to him a few minutes before.
It had fallen unheeded at her side. Yet now she laid it in his, as she
asked:
“And if I do all this that you demand, _then_ will you give me back
regard?”
He looked disappointed and annoyed, and dropped her hand, as he replied:
“If the fountain be not sweet, how shall the stream be? If the motive be
not pure, how shall the act be? India! do not seek to make a trader’s
bargain with heaven, or even with me! I have not asked you to do this
from the fear of any punishment, or the hope of any reward; I have not
required it at your hands for God’s sake, least of all for mine; I have
simply demanded it in the name of the RIGHT! India! there is a sentiment
expressed, a principle laid down, or a prayer made, by one of our poets,
which, for sublime simplicity, transcends everything not written in the
Holy Scriptures. It is contained in the lines of Pope’s Universal
Prayer:
“‘What conscience dictates to be done,
Or warns me not to do—
_This_ teach me more than _hell_ to shun,
_That_ more than _heaven_ pursue.’
“There is no clap-trap there, India; it is a sublime rule! Lay it to
heart!”
He had arisen, and was about to leave the room, but seeing her arms
crossed upon the table, and her head fallen upon them in an attitude of
the most desolate grief, he turned back, and laying his hand kindly upon
the bowed head, he said:
“Dear India, I am writing to Rosalie; shall I tell her to come down and
remain with you for a few weeks?”
“No, no! not now! I could not bear her presence here; it would bring
back the memory of happier days, in too dreadful contrast with these.
Not now! It is very dark, life is very dark to me, and I am very weak
and miserable!”
“Dearest India! I wish you would let her come to you—would let her lead
you to the only true source of light, and strength, and joy!”
“I cannot! I can _die_!”
“She would teach you to live; she would teach her truth, that ‘out of
the _heart_ are the issues of life’”—
“And of _death_!” said India, in a hollow voice.
Then he could only press her hand, and leave her.
Mark Sutherland remained three weeks longer in the neighbourhood of
Cashmere. During his stay he lodged at the village of C., because he
found it impossible to remain at Cashmere, where the presence of India,
in her grief and desolation, seemed to scorch his very soul like a
spiritual fire. He laboured very industriously, and, with the assistance
of efficient lawyers and clerks, reduced the chaos of the Cashmere
accounts into something like order, and made the way straight for the
future course of India and her attorney. At the end of the third week he
completed his work, and bade adieu to India and to Cashmere.
And in twelve days he was at home again. He was met near the house by
Billy, who, with two baskets upon his arms, was proceeding upon some
household errand.
“Well! and so it’s you, is it!” observed that functionary, setting down
his baskets. “And so you’ve comed at last!”
“How is your mistress, Billy?” inquired Mr. Sutherland.
“Not bein’ of a nigger, hain’t got no missus. Ef you means _her_, in
yonder, how does you ’spects her to be being, along o’ the school and
the head-eat-oriels, and the clients? You better go see how she is! Yes,
and I can tell you, you better go see arter your paper, _too_! or you
won’t have any ’scribers left!”
“Why, how so?”
“Humph! how so? Why Mr. Bolling, he took it into his head as he’d write
a great head-eat-oriel leader—I could o’done it as well myself ef I’d
had anybody to take down my words in writin’—’cause I used to be a
_class_ leader, or least way I used to belong to a class. Well,
unbeknownest to Mrs. Sutherland, Mr. Bolling he puts on his spectacles
and sits down to write a leader. Lord, it took him a week, and then it
took a whole side of the paper to print it! And when it come out—ugh!
whew! brikey! my eyes! ef it didn’t put the whole town and county into a
hubbub. _Every_body was mad, and threatened to stop their paper—the
Dimocrats said how you’d turned Whig; and the Whigs said you’d turned
Dimocrat; and the Consarvatives said you’d become a revolutioniser and a
’cendiary; and the Free-S’ilers said how you’d betrayed your pairty! If
you could get ’lected to a lamp-lighter’s place _this_ go, _I’m_ a
Hunker!” said Billy, hitching up his baskets, and trudging off towards
the town. Very much disturbed by what he had heard, Mark Sutherland
hastened on homeward. That his paper was injured, and his income
diminished, were comparatively small matters; that his election was
lost, was not a very great one; but that public confidence was shaken,
and his influence impaired, was a misfortune. Anathematising Mr.
Bolling’s both-side-isms, which now seemed to have reached
_all_-side-ism, he passed through the green gate leading into his own
lawn.
Rosalie, who had seen his approach from afar, came down from the house
to meet him. She looked smiling and happy, as she gave him both her
hands. Her cheerful confidence raised his hopes. He greeted her fondly,
and then drew her arm within his own. And as they walked slowly back to
the house—
“Well, Rosalie!” he said, “what about this confounded editorial of Mr.
Bolling’s? It is not enough, it seems, that he should be a kill-joy in
the house and by the fireside, but he must be a mar-plot abroad, and an
evil genius to our business!”
Rosalie laughed gaily.
“Oh, it is nothing,” she said; “it was just one of Mr. Bothsides’ grand,
broad, impartial manifestoes. It took our people, both friends and
opponents, very much by surprise, perplexed them not a little, and
finally made them laugh. No one, for an instant, could have attributed
such a leader to you, even if they had not been advised of your absence
and exclusive engagement elsewhere. Besides, in to-day’s paper the
publisher explains that the article was from the pen of a transient
contributor. Why do you still look so grave? It is not possible that
poor, daft Billy has really alarmed you with his gossip. Psha! even
innocents of Billy’s mental calibre could scarcely impute the sentiments
of that foolish leader to you.”
Grave! Well he might look grave; but not upon the subject of leading
editorials, public sentiment, popular applause, or popular execration.
He wondered now, how such trifles could have discomposed him. There
_she_ was—the angel of his life—walking by his side, leaning on his
arm, looking very smiling and happy, talking cheerily, laughing
sweetly; but, oh! that face was so fair and wan—that pearly forehead
so greatly developed, so polished from the tension of the skin—those
large, shadowy eyes, so deeply luminous—those crimson flushes in the
hollow cheek, so intense and fiery—that whole countenance, irradiated
with such unearthly, supernal light! Why should he look grave? He
answered her question in some trivial way—said he was not grave, or
something to that effect, and put on a look and manner of ease and
light-heartedness—strangers, alas! to his bosom, from this time
forward many a day! He did not now express any anxiety, or care, or
thought about her health! he did not even ask her how she was; for oh!
such feelings had suddenly grown too deep, too real, too painful to be
spoken. He did not support her steps with his usual tenderness and
solicitude. A sort of fierce jealousy and antagonism to disease and
death took possession of him—a sort of instinct that, by denying their
existence, he might disable their might—a kind of feeling that, by
disbelieving Rosalie’s weakness, and disallowing her yielding to
disease, he might save her from the power of death.
With more refined spiritual insight than he possessed, Rosalie perceived
his thoughts and emotions; and, as much as possible, avoided giving him
pain. She never betrayed weariness, if the exercise of the greatest
fortitude and patience could conceal her sufferings; she never
complained, never even alluded to her mortal illness.