“If ‘nice young officers’ are the birds of your paradise, Lady Anne, it is.”
“The beau cousin might perhaps be admitted into yours,” retorted the young lady, archly looking at Isabella for the 273blush she expected to provoke; but the blush called for came not to Isabella Linwood’s cheek.
Mrs. Meredith explored another face. Jasper’s brilliant eyes impulsively turned towards Isabella, and there came a revelation from them that she would not admit, and yet could not misunderstand. “My dear son,” said she, “I must trouble you to order a carriage for us. I am quite forgetting myself in the happiness of meeting an old friend.”
Mrs. Linwood interposed. The time had not yet passed away when such primitive hospitalities were frankly offered and unceremoniously accepted, and she insisted on her friends staying to pass the day. Mrs. Meredith declined as resolutely as courtesy would permit; but Lady Anne, independent in all her proceedings, expressed so strong an inclination to remain, and brushed away her aunt’s objections with such evident and relentless assurance of their flimsiness, that Mrs. Meredith was reduced, as a last resource, to yielding with grace.
The day, on many accounts, was oppressive to Isabella. Her sisterly thoughts were much with Herbert; she was anxious for his future, and in imagination painfully contrasted his solitary prison with the seeming cheerfulness of his father’s house. There was something in Meredith’s manner that offended her. It was constrained and elaborate, and it was evident to her that he shunned disclosing their actual relations to his mother, and sheltered them from her penetration by appearing quite engrossed in playful devotion to his pretty cousin. She was annoyed with Mrs. Meredith’s hollow and emphasized superlatives. She bore a strong personal resemblance to her son. Isabella was now and then painfully startled by a corresponding mental resemblance, which affected her somewhat like those family likenesses where an ugly face, by a sort of travesty, brings into question the beauty of a more 274fortunate one. The qualities that were glaring and obtrusive in the mother, were in the son sheltered by a nicer tact, and a more acute perception of their effect on others. “But,” Isabella asked herself, “were they less real or less hopeless?”
Isabella, in her turn, was the subject of passing speculation to Mrs. Meredith. At first, when she appeared all radiant with animation, the sagacious lady concluded that she had taxed all her powers to take the heart of Jasper’s mother by a coup-de-théatre; but afterward she could find no satisfactory solution to Isabella’s abstractedness and apparent carelessness whether she pleased her or not. Nothing is so incomprehensible to a mere worldly spirit, spell-bound within a narrow circle of selfish interests, as the workings of an independent, lofty mind.
Isabella’s sole enjoyment that day was from a source whence it would be least expected—from her probable rival—from the light-hearted, good-humoured Lady Anne; and before they parted they had made fair progress towards an intimacy.
The intimacies that occur between persons of powerful and inferior character, probably result from the same necessity of the mind that drives a statesman to relaxation over a senseless game of cards, or (if, as with Edmund Burke, his heart overflows with the milk of human kindness) leads him to play at leap-frog with children. The same principle may furnish a solution for some puzzling disparities in matrimonial alliances.
“And what sort of a person is this Lady Anne?” asked Mr. Linwood of his daughter, who had been giving him such particulars of the day as she thought might entertain him.
“Very pretty, and graceful, and agreeable too. I am sure you will like her, papa. It is amusing to see how she goes straight forward to her point, like a bird by an air line, while her aunt winds about as if she were manœuvring a ship into 275port in presence of an enemy; oh, above all things, I like truth, straight-forwardness. Lady Anne is not brilliant, nor has she, I imagine, great depth of feeling; but she is independent, true, and kind-hearted, and in such good-humour with herself that she makes small demands on others—I like her.”
“And do not fear her, Belle?”
Isabella answered to her father’s probing glance proudly. “Fear her!—no, sir—no,” she reiterated, but in a less assured tone.
“Bravo, my girl! but depend on’t she will be a star in our firmament, this Lady Anne. What a match she would have been for Herbert—obstinate, foolish, dear boy.”
“Thank you for that, papa! he is dear and noble, and like his father in clinging to what he believes to be right.”
“That is like me,” replied Mr. Linwood, wiping the mist from his eyes; “but not like me, Belle, not at all like me, in mistaking wrong for right.”
Strangely is the human mind compounded. Mr. Linwood had been informed of Herbert’s rejection of Sir Henry Clinton’s proffer. This bona fide intimation of the resemblance Herbert had manifested to his father in this rejection, placed the action in a fresh and favourable aspect. Vanity has its uses.
277CHAPTER XXIV.
“Come può ritrarre il piede
Inesperto pellegrino
Dagli Inciampi che non vede,
Dai Perigli che non sa?”—METASTASIO.
It was long before the dawn of one of the few soft days of October, 1779, that Bessie Lee left her safe home to begin a perilous journey. The light of reason was not quite extinct, and with some forecast she took a few coins, keepsakes, that had long lain idly in a drawer, and transferred them to her pocket; then placing in her bosom the little ivory box containing, as she wildly fancied, the charms that bound her to Jasper Meredith, she equipped herself for her journey. A regard to dress is an innate idea in woman that no philosopher can deny to the sex. In all her mutations, that remains.
The resemblance of the dress of an insane person to the ill-sorted and imperfect equipment in a dream, verifies Rush’s remark, that derangement is a long dream—a dream a short derangement. Bessie, after looking over her moderate wardrobe, selected the only gala dress it contained—a white silk petticoat and blue bodice; but after dressing herself in them, either from the instinct of neatness or from the glimmering of the unfitness of such travelling apparel, she took off the silk petticoat, and after tying it in a handkerchief with some more essential articles, she laced the bodice 278over a dimity skirt, and put over that a long linen nightgown. Delighted with her own provident sagacity in arraying herself for day and night, she threw over the whole a brown silk cardinal, and a chip gipsy hat tied down with a blue gauze handkerchief. “He always told me I had inspiration in dress,” she said, as she gave a pleased, parting glance at the glass. In passing her mother’s door, she paused: “I have heard it was a bad sign,” thought she, “to leave home without your parent’s blessing, but I go forth with Heaven’s, and hers must follow.” She then proceeded to equip her horse, and set out on the New-York road, which she pursued unerringly. She fancied that the same providential exemption from the necessity of sustenance vouchsafed to her was extended to her horse Steady, and the animal, happening to be full-fed, sturdy and of hardworking habits seemed to acquiesce in his supposed destiny, save now and then, when he resolutely halted at a stream of water to slake his thirst. The part of New-England through which Bessie’s route lay was steril and sparsely settled. She was unmolested, and for the most part unobserved. She would sometimes pass a house where the children would pause from their play, stare, and ask, one of the other, who that pretty lady could be? and wonder, that with such a nice cloak, she should ride without gloves! Once a kind-hearted farmer stopped her, and after asking her numberless questions to which he received no satisfactory replies, he earnestly begged her to stop at his house for some refreshment. She declined his hospitality with an assurance that she did not need it, and a smile that so little harmonized with her blanched cheek, and wild and melancholy eye, that the good man said her looks haunted him. In truth, so unearthly was her appearance, that two gossips, whom she passed on the road, stopped, drew nearer to each other, and without speaking, gazed after her till she was out of sight; and then, with feminine part
icularity, compared their observations.
279“She’s master beautiful!” exclaimed one of them.
“Call you that beautiful!” replied her companion, “why, she has neither flesh nor blood—I felt a chill when I looked at her.”
“And I felt my blood rush to my heart, as if I had seen something out of nature. I might have taken her for an angel but for her silk cardinal, and her horse, that looked more like our old roan than like the horses in Revelations.”
Nancy was less imaginative. “I did not see nothing mysterious,” she said, “but her pale little hands, that looked as if they could hardly hold a thread of silk.”
“My! did not you see those long curls that streamed down below the hood of her cloak, looking as bright and soft as Judith’s baby when we laid it out—poor thing! and the colour of her cheeks, that were as white as my poor man’s fresh tombstone—and her eyes, that shone like stars of a frosty night! don’t tell me, Nancy! we must expect to see visions, and dream dreams when there’s war in the land and famine at the door!” The unconscious subject of this colloquy went on, her innocent heart dilating with a hope as assured and buoyant as that of a penitent on her way to a shrine where absolution and peace await her.
It was late in the afternoon when, emerging from a wood, she observed that at a short distance before her the road forked. She was hesitating which direction to take, when seeing two men seated on a log by the fence, she reined her horse towards them. They were soldiers returning from service, who had deposed their knapsacks and halted to refresh themselves with some coarse food, which was spread on the ground. Bessie was close upon them, and had stopped her horse, when their broad insolent stare awakened her timidity, and she was turning away when one of them seized her bridle, exclaiming, “Not so fast, my pretty mistress! first thoughts are best; what did you come here for?”
280“Oh!” she answered confused and stammering, “I—I—I do not know—I came for—for—nothing.”
“Then don’t be scared—for nothing can come of nothing—(a rare sight, a petticoat, hey, Mart?)—come, dismount, lady fair.”
Bessie seemed paralyzed. Mart’s face expressed an emotion of compassion—“I say, Raphe,” he interposed, “be civil; let her go on.”
“I mean to be civil, you sir; don’t you see her horse is half starved” (the poor beast was eagerly cropping the grass), “and she looks as if she had not tasted victuals for a month—come, come, little one, what are you ’fraid of?” and slipping her foot from the stirrup, he lifted her from the saddle and seated her on the log. He then took up the blue check handkerchief on which their repast (coarse brown bread, slices of raw pork, and apples) was spread; “come, take some and eat away,” he continued, “that’s a nice girl!” Bessie, the delicate, shrinking Bessie, seized the food thus offered and thus served, and ate ravenously. In her disordered state she seemed to exist in two separate natures; the mind took no cognizance of the necessities or sensations of the body, and the body, at the first opportunity, asserted and gratified its cravings. While she ate, the men talked apart. “This is droll, by jiminy!” said Mart, “who or what do you guess she is, Raphe?”
“Some stray cast-off of some of the old country folks—German gin’rals or English lords.”
“She don’t look like it,” said Mart, after having cast at Bessie a surveying glance, in which pity was mingled with curiosity.
“Don’t look like it! you can’t tell what she does look like—she’s worried, and pale, and scared out of her wits—but I tell you what does look like it—do you see that fandango finery 281(Bessie’s blue bodice) peeping out of the neck of her gown! By the living jingo, she eats like a Trojan, don’t she? This way she’ll soon get the blood back to her pretty cheeks. But I say, Mart, we must make some sort of a calculation what to do—”
“What to do—that’s plain enough, let her go her way, and we’ll go ours.”
“You’re a fool, Mart, and t’ant the first time I’ve thought so.”
“And you’re a rogue, Raphe, nor is it the first time I’ve thought so.”
Raphe’s angry blood mounted to his cheeks, but well aware this was not the moment for a broil, he gulped down his passion, and resumed in a more conciliating tone. “There’s no use in falling out, Mart; we’ve had lean fortin long enough, and when a streak of fat comes, I don’t see no reason in turning our plates bottom side upwards—do you?”
“No.”
“It’s plaguy tedious walking barefoot,” he looked significantly at the horse; “there’s a hundred long miles to foot it before I see home.”
“And a hundred and fifty to boot, before I see the top of our steeple.”
“Then I conclude ’twould be an accommodation to you, as well as to me, to ride and tie that stout beast?”
“And she?” said Mart, interrogatively, and pointing to Bessie.
“Why, she—she’s as light as a feather; she can ride behind while she behaves and holds her tongue, and we find it convenient; the like of her can’t expect to pick and choose.”
“You’re a d—d rascal, Raphe!” This exclamation spoken with energy and in a louder voice than the previous conversation, roused Bessie’s attention, and she listened to and comprehended what followed. “I’m going home, to our folks,” 282continued Mart, “and do you think I could look mammy in the face after such a trick as that?”
“Well, well, man—don’t be mad; if one shoe don’t fit, another may. Supposing we just slip into this wood with this traveller, just so far that she can’t rouse people on the high road here with crying ‘stop thief,’ and then we’ll be off on the beast, that, on my conscience, I believe is no more hers than ours.” Before the sentence was finished, Bessie had sprung into her saddle. Raphe, whose fierce passions had been kept in abeyance by the necessity of his companion’s co-operation, now sprang forward and seized her bridle. “Oh, mercy! mercy!” cried the terrified girl.
A blow from Mart’s fist on his side obliged Raphe to turn and defend himself; and Bessie, thus released, urged her horse onward, leaving her champion to do battle in her righteous cause, which he did so manfully and thoroughly that Raphe was disabled for the present, and left to curse his own folly and to pursue his pedestrian journey alone.
Bessie’s horse fortunately selected the right road; and refreshed by his half hour’s rest, he obeyed his mistress’ signals to hasten onward. These signals she reiterated from an impression of some indefinite danger pursuing her. By degrees, however, her thoughts reverted to their former channels, and she dwelt no more on her recent alarm than a dreamer does on an escaped precipice. A languor stole over her that prevented her from observing Steady’s motions. From a fast trot he had slackened to a walk, and after thus creeping on for a mile or two, he stood stock still.
Bessie sat for a while as if waiting his pleasure, and then looking at the setting sun, she said, “Well, Steady, you have done your day’s duty, and I’ll not be unmerciful to you. I too have a tired feeling,” and she passed her hand over her throbbing temples; “but, Steady, we will not stay here by the 283roadside, for I think there be bad people on this road, and besides, it is better to be alone where only God is.”
The country through which Bessie was now passing was rocky, hilly, and wooded, excepting narrow intervals and some few cleared and cultivated slopes. She had just passed a brook, that glided quietly through a very green little meadow on her left, but which on her right, though screened from sight, sounded its approach as in the glad spirit of its young life it came leaping and dancing down a rocky gorge. Bessie, as it would seem, from the instinct of humanity, let down some bars to allow her hungry steed admittance to the meadow, saying as she did so, “You shall have the green pastures and still waters, Steady, where those home-looking willows are turning up their silvery leaves as if to kiss the parting sunbeams, and the sunflower and the golden-rod are still flaunting in their pride—poor things! but I will go on the other side, where the trees stand bravely up, to screen and guard me—and
the waterfall will sing me to sleep.”
She crossed the road and plunged into the wood, and without even a footpath to guide her, she scrambled along the irregular margin of the brook; sometimes she swung herself round the trunk of a tree by grasping the tough vines encircling it; sometimes, when a bald perpendicular rock projected over the water, she surmounted it as if the danger of wetting her feet must be avoided at all pains and risks; then, a moss covered rock imbedded in the stream attracting her eye, she would spring on to it, drop her feet into the water, doff her little chip hat, and bathe her burning temples in the cool stream: and when she again raised her head, shook back her curls and turned her face heavenward, her eye glowing with preternatural brightness, she might have been mistaken for a wanderer from the celestial sphere gazing homeward. After ascending the stream for about a hundred yards, she came to 284a spot which seemed to her excited imagination to have been most graced
“By the sovereign planter when he formed
All things for man’s delightful use;”
and, in truth, it was a resting-place for the troubled spirit, far more difficult to find than a bed of down for the wearied body.
The thicket here expanded and spread its encircling arms around a basin worn into the earth by the force of the stream, which leaped into it over a rock some thirty feet in height. Here and there a rill straggled away from the slender column of water, and as it caught the sun’s slant ray, dropped down the rock in sparkling gems. The trees were wreathed with grape-vines, whose clusters peeped through the brown leaves into the mirror below. The leaves of the topmost branches of the trees were touched with the hues of autumn, and hung over the verdant tresses below them like a wreath of gorgeous flowers. The sky was clear, and the last rays of the setting sun stole in obliquely, sweet and sad, as the parting smile of a friend, glancing along the stems of the trees and flashing athwart the waterfall.
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