“Here will I lay me down and rest,” said Bessie, rolling up with her foot a pillow of crisp crimson leaves, that had fallen from a young delicate tree, fit emblem of herself, stricken by the first touch of adversity. “But first I will say my prayers, for I think this is one of God’s temples.” She knelt and murmured forth the broken aspirations of her pure heart, and then laying herself down, she said, “I wish mother and Eliot could see me now—they would be so satisfied!”
Once she raised her head, gazed at the soft mist that was curling up from the water, and seemed intently listening. “I have somewhere read,” she said, that
285“‘Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth,
Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep.’
I believe it!” again her head fell back on its sylvan pillow, and utterly incapable of farther motion or thought, she sank to deep repose. Night came on, the watchful stars shone down upon her, the planets performed their nightly course, the moon rose and set, and still the unconscious sufferer slept on.
287CHAPTER XXV.
“Alas! what poor ability’s in me
To do him good!
Assay the power you have.”—Measure for Measure.
Ah, Belle, is that you?” said Mrs. Archer, as Miss Linwood just at twilight stole into her aunt’s room to have a tête-à-tête with the only person in the world with whom she had a strictly confidential intimacy. “What is Sir Henry’s answer?”
“Just such as we might have expected. He does, to be sure, in good set terms, beg me to have no apprehensions about my brother. But he says it is impossible for him just now to grant me an opportunity to speak to him in private on the subject: ‘it would be quite useless,’ and ‘he’s particularly occupied,’ and all such trumpery excuses.”
“Then take my advice, Belle, and make the opportunity he will not grant:—go to his ball this evening. Never mind the gossip of kind friends, who will wonder you can have the heart to appear there when your brother is in such unfortunate circumstances. You and I agree in the principle of never sacrificing the greater to the less—go, Sir Henry will not refuse you his ear when you are before him; and if you cannot obtain all you desire, you may get some mitigation of poor Herbert’s condition.”
“I have made up my mind—I will go.”
“You will meet Lady Anne Seton? The ball is given in honour of her arrival, I hear.”
288“Yes.”
“You are very pensive and monosyllabic, Belle; has any thing occurred? Have you seen Jasper since that last critical conjuncture in your affairs?”
“No—oh, yes, he has called two or three times with Lady Anne.”
“Then something has not occurred, which amounts to pretty much the same thing; or, perhaps, my dear child, you are beginning to feel a little tremulous about this pretty and rich cousin?”
“No, aunt, I assure you that my first serious doubt on that subject would fix my wavering judgment.”
“And your feelings?”
“They go in the same scale with my judgment. You know that I do not expect perfection. If ever I marry, which I think very doubtful—you may smile aunt Mary, but I think it more than doubtful—I shall expect faults in abundance. Heaven knows I am no match for perfection; I only ask that they may not be such faults as affect the vitality of the character.”
“And you would cease to love, Isabella, where you suspected such?”
“If I merely suspected,” replied Isabella, faltering, “I cannot say; but if I were sure, most certainly.”
“A suspicion of ten years standing is, I should think—” assurance doubly sure, she would have added; but wondering at the subtleties of that sentiment that could mystify the perceptions of the clear-sighted Isabella Linwood, she merely said, “it matters not what I think—you will both feel and act right; and if you ought to get rid of the shackles, you will not wait till they rust off.”
Mrs. Archer had never interposed her advice in Isabella’s affair with Meredith, though she watched its progress with far more interest than if it had been a disease that might issue 289in death. She thought it was a case where she must and would work out her own salvation; and where, at any rate, she must be left to the free decision of her own heart. Still she found it impossible in their confidential womanly intercourse not to betray her own biases; and whenever they were betrayed, Isabella felt them the more, as they produced the only discord in the perfect harmony of their minds. The souls of the aunt and niece seemed to be informed by the same spirit. They had the same independence of mind, the same acute perception of truth through all the adventitious circumstances and artificial forms of society, the same restiveness under the everlasting trifling of frivolous minds, the same kindling at what was beautiful in thought, and the same enthusiasm for the beautiful in action.
After Mrs. Archer’s last words to her, Isabella sat thoughtful and silent, till her aunt reminded her that it was quite time she should go home and dress for Sir Henry’s ball.
“I will go,” she replied, “though there is nothing in life I detest quite so much as playing suitor to a great man.”
“Then, my dear child, you had best come on our side, for as long as we are colonists and wear the yoke, sueing and obsequiousness is the necessity of our condition.”
“You would take advantage of my pride to make me a republican. The very first rebel, if I remember me, was he who ‘could not bow and sue for grace with suppliant knee.’”
“An arch rebel he was, but no republican; our champions are republicans, and no rebels, since they claim only their original and indefeasible rights. But here come Ned and Lizzy to assert theirs.”
The children were attracted by Isabella’s voice. Her hearty devotion to them made them regard her much in the light of the good genii of an eastern tale, who never appears without conferring some signal happiness. “Tell me, Ned,” said she, “are you whig or tory?”
290“I used to be a tory, cousin Belle, because you were, and I thought mamma was.”
“And now?”
“I’m for Washington; but don’t you tell,” he replied, kissing her.
“And you, Lizzy, do you know what whig and tory means?”
“To be sure: I know whig means the very best man in the world, and that is Captain Lee; and I shall always love the whigs best—”
“And I begin to love their cause best, too, my dear children; and with this parting confession, which pray keep to yourselves, good-bye to you all.”
Mrs. Archer hailed the change of Isabella’s sentiments (a woman’s political conclusions are rather sentiments than opinions) as a good omen. It was a link broken in the chain that bound her to Meredith; and it indicated, as she thought, the weakness of the whole chain. She thus concluded a long revery: “Belle thinks and feels independently. No woman in the unimpaired perfection and intensity of love does this. Milton understood our nature when he put those words of dependance and tenderness into Eve’s mouth:
“‘God is thy law, thou mine: to know no more,
Is woman’s happiest knowledge, and her praise.’”
The gala days of Sir Henry Clinton’s reign in New-York are still celebrated in traditionary fireside-stories, as a brilliant period in the colonial beau-monde. However unsuited to the times, the exiled whigs, who were driven forth from their homes, might have deemed this pomp, pageantry, feasting, and revelry; however much it might have exasperated the Americans, who, half-starved and half-clothed, were contending for their rights, it served to kill the ennui of foreign officers, to bring en scene the pretty candidates for husbands, and, 291in short, to do what is done for us by the balls and company (society?) of our own gay seasons. Never, according to the grandmammas, was there such abundance of the elements of a belle’s happiness—such music!—such dresses!—so many, and such admirers!
“My dear Jasper,” said Mrs. Meredith, while Lady Anne, in Sir Henry’s antichamber, was telling a bevy of admiring young ladies that her French milliner had fashioned her dress
after one of Maria Antoinette’s, “my dear Jasper, is not your cousin looking perfectly lovely this evening?”
“For the first time I think her beautiful.”
“She is beautiful!—Colonel Davidson says she is by far the prettiest woman on this side the Atlantic.” The lady paused; and then, being in her arguments, what is called an authority lawyer, proceeded. “Sir Edward remarked, as he handed me up-stairs, how superior her air is to that of the young women here; indeed, how should they have an air, poor things, in this demi-savage world?”
Meredith could not but smile as he compared his cousin to that model of elegance enthroned in his mind. He coolly replied, “Lady Anne is easy.”
“Easy!—bless me, Jasper, Helen Ruthven is what I call easy; and a very engaging girl is she—but Lady Anne! Sir Henry himself remarked her grace, her faultless proportions. There is that troublesome St. Clair peering through the door; he means to ask her for the first dance—pray anticipate him, Jasper: it is her début; you will oblige me infinitely, my son.”
“What are you and aunt caballing about?” asked Lady Anne, approaching.
“Conspiring against the world, fair cousin. I am entreating my mother to interpose her authority, and command you to lead down the first dance with me.”
“Her authority! I cannot dance with a collar round my neck. If you wish it, authority out of the question, I will dance 292with you with all my heart. Of course you know, cousin Jasper,” she added, as at the striking up of the music Meredith led her into the dancing-room, “I prefer you to a tiresome stranger.”
“You flatter me!”
“No, indeed,” replied the young lady, without perceiving that Meredith was piqued by her unvarnished truth, “I never flatter: one gets so tired of flattery, that hears nothing else all day from her admirer down to her dressing-maid. I never should flatter where I particularly wished to please.”
Meredith was always inferring a little more than met the ear, winding in a labyrinthian path where he was not like to meet one who, like his literal cousin, went straight-forward. “Ah, my pretty coz, are you there?” thought he. “You would have me understand that though you do not wear my mother’s collar, you are well enough inclined to go where she would guide you.”
Lady Anne took the station assigned her in the dance by the ritual of precedence; but as soon as she moved, it was plain that, whatever rank was assigned her, nature and art had decreed she should there be first. Those who went before her through the mazes of the long dance, sighed, panted, and puffed to the imminent risk of breaking the bounds of their whalebone prisons, or sinking under their brocades. She, in a dress that for lightness and grace would have suited an Ariel or a Persian dancing-girl, moved like a bird through its own element. There was no sign of effort or fatigue. Her eyes, instead of being set by overpowering exertion, or wandering like an ambitious performer’s, sparkled with animation, and her coral lips parted in a childlike smile. She seemed to have surrendered herself to the music, and to be a poetic manifestation of the pleasure of motion. The observers followed her to the foot of the dance: the dancers became mere observers.
293Lady Anne received this tribute as a matter of course, and if she were not surprised, she was not elated by it. Not so Mrs. Meredith; she enjoyed it as a triumph. She had anticipated the sensation to be produced on the assembly, and had made a pretty accurate estimate of that which, by a very natural reaction, would be felt by Meredith; and when, stationed near them, she heard the eloquent flood of compliments he poured out,—heard him, this time unbidden, earnestly beg his cousin’s hand for another dance, she turned away satisfied that the first step was taken.
Every one present who might aspire to such distinction, asked Lady Anne’s hand, and each solicitation enriched the prize to Meredith, for (if it be allowed thus to speak of such high concernments), he graduated even ladies’ favours by their market value.
Miss Ruthven had not been dancing herself; she was conscious of not dancing well; but hovering about the dance, and expressing, whenever she caught Meredith’s eye, by animated gestures and significant glances, her admiration of his partner. At the first opportunity she said to Lady Anne, in a low voice, but not too low to be heard by Meredith,—“How very glad I am that my dear friend, Isabella Linwood, is not here.”
“And how very sorry I am!—but pray, Miss Ruthven, why are you glad?”
“Oh, you know—you faultless creature, I am sure you know.”
“Indeed, I cannot conjecture.”
“Then, if I must tell, one does not like to see one’s friends outshone. Isabella Linwood has so long been the brightest star in our firmament. Ah, Mr. Meredith, sic transit!—as you learned in the tongues say.”
Meredith made no reply, for at this moment he caught Isabella’s eye as she entered the room, leaning on Sir Henry’s arm. She was dressed in a white silk gown, without any ornament 294or decoration whatever, save a rich Brussels lace veil, which she had put on partly to screen and partly to apologize for her very simple and rather inappropriate toilet.
“Ah, console te mon amie!” exclaimed Lady Anne, touching Miss Ruthven’s arm with her fan, “look at that peerless creature, and tell me now whose light will wax dim. I like my own looks as well, I am sure, as anybody else likes them, but I can see that I am quite une chose terrestre compared with Isabella Linwood—n’est ce pas mon cousin.”
“Les choses terrestres are best adapted to the sphere for which they are created,” said Meredith, turning, with a bitter smile, from what he thought a very cold salutation from Miss Linwood, to begin the second dance with Lady Anne.
Isabella stood for a moment with the rest, admiring and wondering at Lady Anne’s performance; then, intent on the object which alone brought her to Sir Henry’s, she begged five minutes’ audience in the library. “There she goes,” thought Mrs. Meredith, taking a long breath, as if relieved from a load, “I knew it would make her very uncomfortable.”
“Ah,” thought Meredith, as following Isabella with his eyes he blundered in the dance—“there is something of the terrestre in that movement—I will profit by it.”
“Quite as terrestrial as the rest of us,” thought Helen Ruthven, and as she stationed herself next to Mrs. Meredith, and made some very acceptable remarks about Miss Linwood, she felt like a political manœuvrer, who having started rival candidates, flatters himself he shall run in to the goal between them.
“To what am I indebted for this grace, Miss Linwood,” asked Sir Henry, rather to relieve Isabella than to inform himself of what he already anticipated.
“I am here a beggar, Sir Henry.”
“In your brother’s behalf?—I understand,—a very painful subject, my dear young lady,—I feel, on my honour I do, 295the deepest sympathy with your father. You are aware that I have done all in my power for the misguided young man, and that he has not accepted my overtures.”
“And that his refusal is the warrant of his honour—is it not, Sir Henry.”
“Why, there are many modifications of this principle of honour. You would not hold a thief bound by his oath to his comrades, if he were offered pardon and enrolment among honest men as his reward for abandoning them?”
An indignant reply rose to Isabella’s lips, but she remembered in time that she came as a suitor, and saying that she would not waste Sir Henry’s time with arguing on a subject on which they must utterly differ, she went straight to her point. “You must, sir,” she said, “believe that my brother came to the city for the motive he avows, and for no other.”
“What proof have I of this?” asked Sir Henry, with a tormenting smile.
“The word of a man of truth.”
“And the faith of an all-believing girl. This may be very sufficient evidence in a cour d’amour—it would hardly suffice in a court-martial. But proceed, my dear Miss Linwood, and tell me precisely your wishes. You may rely on my desire to serve you.”
Sir Henry’s tone was earnest and sincere, and Isabella was encouraged. “My b
rother,” she said, “has, thank Heaven, shown himself equal to bearing well the adverse turns of a soldier’s fortune. He endures manfully his imprisonment in the dark, filthy, crowded prison allotted to the Americans—the honest yeomen of the land. He suffers, without complaint, Sir Henry, the petty tyranny of the atrocious keeper of these poor men.”
“Tut, tut, my dear,—it is the fortune of war.”
Isabella had again to quell her pride, before she could command her voice to proceed with due humility. “All he asks, 296Sir Henry, all that I ask for him, is, that you will put him on the footing of a prisoner of war, and thus relieve him from an imputation that compels General Washington to withhold all interference in his behalf, and to leave him here a degraded man, suffering for an act of rashness what is alone due to crime.”
“It is impossible, my dear girl—you overrate my powers—I am responsible—”
“To God—so are we all, Sir Henry, and happiest are those who have most of such deeds as I ask of you to present at his tribunal. But are you not supreme in these provinces? and may you not exercise mercy without fearing that man shall miscall it?”
“My powers, thanks to my gracious sovereign, are ample; but you have somewhat romantic notions of the mode of using them. I am willing to believe—or rather,” he added with a gracious smile, “to believe that you believe your brother’s story to be a true one; but, Miss Linwood, this view of the ground must not alter, to speak en militaire, our demonstration. We are bound, as I have communicated to you, through our friend Mr. Jasper Meredith—we are bound, by the policy of war, to avail ourselves of the accident, if it be one, that enables us plausibly to impute to Washington an act held dishonourable in all civilized warfare.”
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