Meredith took her hand: his eyes expressed the emotion she produced, and his lips all the sympathy and none of the vexation he had felt for the last few days; and then reverting to Sir Henry, he said, “I trust the current of your feelings will change when I tell you that I have obtained an order for Herbert’s release.”
“God bless you, Jasper!—Oh, mamma, do you hear?”
“Pray go, my dear madam,” added Meredith, “and prepare Mr. Linwood for good news. You interrupted me, Isabella,” he resumed, when Mrs. Linwood had left the room; “your wishes always fly over the means to the end—a moment’s reflection will show you that your brother’s release cannot be unconditional.”
“Well—the conditions are such as can in honour be complied with?—Sir Henry would propose no other.”
“Honour is a conventional term, Isabella.”
“The honour that I mean,” replied Miss Linwood, “is not conventional, but synonymous with rectitude.”
Meredith shook his head. He had an instinctive dislike of definitions, as they in Scripture, who loved darkness, had to the light. He was fond of enveloping his meaning in shadowy analogies, which, like the moon, often led astray, with a beautiful but imperfect and illusive light.
“Even rectitude must depend somewhat on position, Isabella,” he replied. “He who is under the pressure of circumstances, and crowded on every side, cannot, like him who is perfectly free, stand upright and dispose his motions at pleasure.”
“Do not mystify, Jasper, but tell me at once what the conditions are.”
Isabella’s face and voice expressed even more dissatisfaction than her words, and Meredith’s reply was in the tone of an injured man.
230“Pardon me, Miss Linwood, if my anxiety to prepare your mind by a winding approach has betrayed me into awkwardness. Certainly, Herbert’s honour, the honour of your brother, cannot be dearer to any one than to me.”
“You have always been his friend, I know,” replied Isabella, evading Meredith’s implication; “watchful nights, and more anxious days, have made me peevish—forgive me.”
Meredith kissed the hand she extended to him. “You cannot imagine, Isabella, what it costs me to infuse another bitter drop into the cup already overflowing with accumulated anxieties. But your aunt’s disasters are followed with new trials. Do not be alarmed—the threatening storm may pass over.”
“Oh, tell me what it threatens!”
“Sir Henry has, within the last hour, received a despatch from Washington, disclaiming all part and lot in Herbert’s return to the city, and expressing his deep regret that the sanctity of a flag of truce should be brought into question by one of his own officers.”
“This was to be expected.”
“Of course. But we all know that Washington has his resident spies in this city, and emissaries continually passing to and fro; in various disguises and under various pretences. However, assuming that he is exempt from any participation in this disastrous affair, common humanity would have dictated some plea for a brave and faithful officer,—some extenuation for a rash and generous youth. But Washington is always governed by this cold, selfish policy—”
“Is there not one word?”
“Not one!—There is, indeed, a private letter from Eliot Lee, stating that the motives of Herbert’s return were wholly personal, and containing the particulars you had previously stated; and a very laboured appeal to Sir Henry, with a sort of endorsement from Washington, that these statements are 231entitled to whatever weight they might derive from the unquestionable integrity of Captain Lee.”
“Thank Heaven! Eliot Lee has proved a true friend.”
“Certainly, as far as writing a letter goes; but, as you must perceive, Isabella, Sir Henry cannot act officially from the statements of a sister and friend. He will do all he can. He has empowered me to offer Herbert not only his release, but favour and promotion, provided he will renounce the bad cause to which he has too long adhered, and expiate the sin of rebellion by active service in the royal army.”
“Never, never; never shall Herbert do this!”
“You are hasty, Isabella—hear me. If I convince Herbert that he has erred, why should he not retrieve his error?”
“Ay, Jasper, if you can convince him—but the mind cannot be convinced at pleasure—we cannot believe as we would—I know it is impossible.”
Her voice faltered; she paused for a moment, a moment of the most painful embarrassment, and then proceeded with more firmness:—“I will be frank with you, Jasper. Herbert is not—you know him as well as I do—he is not of a temper to suffer long and patiently. He is like a bird, for ever singing and on the wing in sunshine, but silent and shrinking when the sky is overcast. He may—it breaks my heart to think it possible—but he may—his spirit broken by imprisonment and desertion, and stung by what will appear to him his commander’s indifference to his fate, he may yield to the temptation you offer, and abandon a cause that he still believes, in the recesses of his heart, to be just and holy.”
Meredith fixed his piercing eyes on Isabella. It seemed that something new had been infused into her mind. He forbore, however, from expressing a suspicion, and merely said, “You place me in a flattering light, Isabella,—as the tempter of your brother.”
232“Oh no—you mistake me—you are only the medium through which temptation comes to him. But remember his infirmity—the infirmity of human nature, and do not increase the force of the temptation—do not make the worse appear the better reason, Jasper. I know you will not—at least I believe, I think, I hope—”
“For Heaven’s sake, my dear friend,” interrupted Meredith, “do not reduce your confidence in my integrity to any thing weaker than a hope. Now as I perceive that you would choose accurately to limit and define my agency, I entreat you to do so—my hope, my wish, my purpose, Isabella, is to be in all things moulded and governed by your will. Let us understand each other. I go to Herbert the advocate of a cause in which I, at least, have unwavering confidence—”
“Thank Heaven for that!” said Isabella, replying courageously to the equivocal curl of Meredith’s lip.
He proceeded:—“I am permitted—am I not, to communicate Sir Henry’s generous offer?”
“His offer—but do not call it generous. Nothing remitted—nothing forgiven. His oblivion of the past, and his future favour, are to be dearly paid for.”
“Sir Henry’s offer, then, without note or comment.”
Isabella nodded assent.
“I may report, à la lettre Washington’s renunciation, disclaimer, or whatever you may be pleased to call it?”
“Literally, Jasper.”
“I may suggest to him—or do your primitive notions prohibit this?—that Washington’s communication and Eliot’s letter enable us to give an interpretation to his return to the city that will relieve him from the appearance of having been forced by circumstances into our ranks. Indeed, without any essential perversion, this return to the path of duty may appear to have been his deliberate intention in coming to the city. This, of course, would very favourably affect his standing 233with his fellow-officers—you hesitate. Isabella, forgive me for quoting the vulgar proverb—be not ‘more nice than wise.’ Why should not Herbert avail himself of a fortunate position—a favourable light?”
“Because it is a false light—a deceptive gloss. Do not, Jasper, over-estimate the uncertain, imperfect, and ignorant opinions of others—pray do not be offended; but is it not folly to look for our own image in other’s minds, where, as in water, it may be magnified, or, as in the turbid stream, clouded and distorted, when in our own bosoms we have an unerring mirror?”
“Your theory is right, undoubtedly, Isabella—your sentiments lofty—no one can admire them more than I do; but what is the use of standing on an eminence a hundred degrees above your fellow-mortals with whom you are destined to act? It is certain they will not come up to you, and as certain that, unless you are willing to live in the solitude of a hermit, useless and fo
rgotten, it is wisest to come down to them.” Meredith paused. “We do not see eye to eye,” thought Isabella; but she did not speak, and Meredith proceeded:—“God knows, Isabella, that it is my first wish to conform my opinions, my mind and heart, to you; but we must adapt ourselves to things as they are. Herbert is in a most awkward and fearful predicament. Sir Henry, like other public men, must be governed by policy. If your father’s fortune or influence were important to the royal cause, Sir Henry might make an exception to the usual proceedings in similar cases in favour of his son; but, as he remarked to me to-day, your father is injudicious in his zeal, and such a friend often harms us more than an enemy. He says, too, that he finds it essential not to relax in severity towards the rebel sons of royalists. Nothing is more common than for families to divide in this way; their fathers remain loyal, the sons join the rebels; and Sir Henry deems it most politic to cut them off from all hope of immunity 234on account of the fidelity of their fathers. If Herbert does not accept Sir Henry’s terms, it will be particularly unfortunate for him that he came into the city under the protection of a flag of truce; for, as Sir Henry remarked to me, it behooves us to seize every occasion to abate the country’s confidence in Washington’s integrity, and certainly this is a tempting one.”
“Does Sir Henry believe that Washington was privy to Herbert’s coming to the city?”
“Oh, Lord—no!”
“And yet, he will be guilty of the falsehood and meanness of infusing this opinion into other men’s minds, and call it policy!—Jasper, how is it that the religious obligations of truth, which govern man in his intercourse with his fellow—which rule us in our homes and at our firesides, have never presided in the councils of warriors nor in the halls of statesmen?”
“For no other reason that I know, Isabella, than that they would be exceedingly inconvenient there. ‘Might makes right’—those that have the power will use it.”
“Ah, Jasper,” said Isabella, without responding to Meredith’s simile; “the time is coming when that base dogma will be reversed, and right will make might. The Divinity is stirring within men, and the policy and power of these false gods, who fancy they have a chartered and transmitted right to all the good things of this fair world, shall fall before it, as Dagon fell prostrate before the ark of the Lord.”
“I do not comprehend you, Isabella.”
“I simply mean, that the time is at hand when the truth that all men are made in the image of God, and therefore all have equal rights and equal duties, will not only be acknowledged in our prayers and churchyards, but will be the basis of government, and of public as well as of private intercourse.”
“‘When the sky falls’—these are odd speculations for a young lady.”
235“Speculations they are not. The hardest metals are melted in the furnace, to be recast in new forms; and old opinions and prejudices, harder, Jasper, than any metal, may be subdued and remoulded in these fiery times.”
“And does our aunt Archer furnish the mould in which they are recast?—if she talks to you as she has to me of the redoubtable knight-errantry of the indomitable deliverer of her captive child, I do not wonder at this sudden inspiration of republicanism. It is rather a feminine mode, though, of arriving at political abstractions through their incarnation in a favourite hero.”
A deep glow, partly hurt pride, partly consciousness, suffused Isabella’s cheek. Her aunt’s was the only mind whose direct influence she felt.
“You are displeased,” he continued; “but you must forgive me, for I am in that state when ‘trifles, light as air,’ disturb me. My destiny, or rather, I should say, those hopes that shape destiny, seem to be under the control of some strange fatality, that I can neither evade nor understand. If I dared retrace to you the history of these hopes, from our childhood to this day, you would see how many times, when they have been most assured, you have dashed them by some evident and inexplicable alienation from me. At our last interview—”
“When was it—when was it?” asked Isabella, in her nervousness and confusion, forgetting they had not met since the day of the dinner at Sir Henry Clinton’s.
“When—have you forgotten our last meeting?”
“Oh, no—no; but ages have passed since—ages of anxiety and painful reflection.”
“And have these ages, compressed as they have been into five days, changed your heart, Isabella?—or was it folly and presumption to hope—I will confess the whole extent of my presumption—to believe, that that heart, the object of all my hopes—that for which I only care to live, was—mine?” It 236was well that Isabella covered her face, for it expressed what she forbade her lips to speak.
“Any thing but this mysterious silence,” continued Meredith, aware how near a suppressed agitation was to the confession he expected. “Let me, I beseech you, know my fate at once. It is more important to us both that it should now be decided than you can imagine.”
“Oh, not now—not now, Jasper!”
Meredith was too acute not to perceive how near to a favourable decision was this “not now.”
“And why not now, Isabella? Surely I have not seriously offended you. Think, for a moment, that after passing the last five days between the most anxious waiting at your door, and continued efforts for Herbert, when I at last get access to you, you receive my plans for your brother coldly and doubtingly; and I find that while I was burning with impatience to see you, you had been occupied with abstruse meditations upon the rights of man! I was galled, I confess, Isabella; and if I seemed merely to treat them with levity, I deserve credit for mastery over stronger feelings.” Isabella was half convinced that she had been unjust and almost silly. “You have it in your power,” continued Meredith, “to infuse what opinions you will into my mind—to inspire my purpose—to govern my affections—to fix my destiny for time and eternity. Oh, Isabella! do not put me off with this silence. Let this blessed moment decide our fate. Speak but one word, and I am bound to you for ever!”
That word of doom hovered on Isabella’s lips; her hand, which he had taken, was no longer cold and passive, but returned the grasp of his;—doubt and resolution were vanishing together; and the balance that had been wavering for years was rapidly descending in Meredith’s favour, when the door opened and Mrs. Linwood appeared. At first starting back with delighted surprise, and then receiving a fresh impulse 237from her husband’s impatient voice calling from his room, she said, “You must come to your father, instantly, Isabella.” Isabella gave one glance to Meredith and obeyed the summons. Meredith felt as if some fiend had dashed from his hand the sparkling cup just raised to his lips. His face, that expressed the conflict of hope just assured, and of sudden disappointment, was a curious contrast to Mrs. Linwood’s, smiling all over. She believed she at last saw the happy issue of her long-indulged expectations. She waited in vain for Meredith to speak; and finally came to the conclusion, that there were occasions in life when the best bred people forgot propriety. “I am quite mortified that I intruded,” she said; “but you know Mr. Linwood—he is so impatient, and the gout you know is so teasing, and he never can bear Isabella out of his sight, and he is just on the sofa for the first time since this attack, and I unluckily hurt his foot. You know the gout has left his stomach and gone into his foot. It is much less dangerous there, but I don’t think he is any more patient with it; and I happened just to touch the tip end of his toe in putting under the cushion, and he screamed out so for Isabella. He thinks she can do every thing so much better than anybody else. Indeed, she is a first-rate nurse—so devoted, too—she has not left her father’s bedside till now for five days and nights; she seemed to forget herself a little now (spoken in parenthesis and significantly). Whatever man may think before marriage, Mr. Meredith, he finds afterward, especially if he is subject to the gout, good nursing is every thing. I often say, All a woman need know is how to take good care of her family and of the sick. However, that and something more Isabella knows.”
“Madam?” said Meredit
h, waked from his revery by Isabella’s name, the only word of this long speech, meant to be so effective and appropriate, that he had heard. He slightly bowed and left the house.
238“How odd!—how very odd!” thought Mrs. Linwood. “When Mr. Linwood declared himself, he directly told my father and mother, and the wedding-day and all was settled before he went out of the house. I wish I knew just how matters stand. Belle will not say a word to me unless it’s a fixed thing: so I shall find out one way or the other. I am sure I used to tell my mother every thing; but Belle don’t take after me: however, she is a dear girl, and I am sure I ought to be satisfied with her.—If she should refuse Jasper Meredith!!”
This last supposition of a tremendous possibility was quite too much for a solitary meditation; and the good lady started from her position at the window, where she had stood gazing after Meredith, and returned to her customary avocations.
239CHAPTER XX.
“Un gentil-homme merveilleusement sujet à la goutte,
estant pressé par les médecins de laisser de tout l’usage des
viandes salées, avoit accoustumé de respondre plaisamment,
que sur les efforts et tourmens du mal il vouloit
avoir à qui s’en prendre; et que s’escriant et mauldissant
tantôt le cervelat, tantôt le jambon, il s’en sentoit d’sultant
allegé.”—MONTAIGNE.
Isabella returned to her father’s apartment in a frame of mind rather adverse to her performing accurately the tasks of the “best nurse in the world.”
“What the devil ails you, Belle?” exclaimed her father; “you are putting the cushion under the wrong foot!—there—there—that will do—that’s right—now kiss me, Belle, dear. I did not mean to speak cross to you; but your mother has been fidgeting here a little eternity. I wonder what the deuse is the reason she can never make any thing lie easy. She does try her best, poor soul; but she has no faculty—none in the world. What is this good news, Belle, she tells me Jasper has brought?”
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