“Then, in plain English,” said Isabella, with a burst of indignation this time irrepressible, “the ‘policy of war’ compels you to profess to believe a falsehood, in order to stain a spotless name.”
Sir Henry made no reply, but strided with folded arms up and down the apartment. A glance at his irritated countenance recalled Isabella to herself. “Forgive me, Sir Henry,” she said, “if, feeling only that my poor brother is a victim to this horrible ‘policy of war,’ I have spoken more boldly than was fitting a humble, miserable suitor.”
297Whether it is that the tone of submission is that which Heaven has ordained for women, and that which is the natural vehicle of a lofty sense of superiority is a falsetto in which she rarely succeeds, we cannot say; but true it is, that the moment Isabella’s voice faltered, Sir Henry’s brow relaxed, and condescending to her weakness, he said, “It can hardly be expected, Miss Linwood, that a young lady should comprehend a subject quite out of her line—we will, therefore, if you please, waive its farther discussion, and return to the drawing-room.”
“Excuse me, Sir Henry, I cannot go back to the drawing-room,” replied Isabella, in spite of her efforts bursting into tears,—“I came here solely for the purpose of obtaining something for poor Herbert, and I have utterly failed.” It is not in man—a gentleman and a soldier, to be unmoved by the tears, the real distress of a young and beautiful woman. Sir Henry too, to his friends—to those of his own household (we have it on poor Andre’s testimony), was generous and kind hearted.
“My dear girl,” he said, “pray do not make yourself so unhappy. You know not how much your brother is already indebted to you—if he were not fenced about by such friends, your father on one side, and yourself and your devoted knight on the other—do not blush, my dear young lady—he would have fared much worse than he has, I assure you. He has only to suffer durance with patience—our bark is worse than our bite, and, believe me, the war cannot last much longer.”
“And he must remain in prison while the war lasts?”
“I fear so.”
“Then, for mercy’s sake, Sir Henry, grant us one favour. My father is old. His health and fortune, as you know, are shattered. This cruel war severed him from his only son, and drew down on poor Herbert the displeasure which has ended in all this wretchedness. Something may be saved from the 298wreck, their disjointed affections may be re-united if—if they are permitted to meet?”
“If your father wished to visit your brother, he would have asked permission—it certainly would not have been refused.”
Isabella well knew that her father, after having once (to use his favourite phrase) set his foot down, would not make so violent a recession as such a step demanded; but not choosing to allude to his infirmities, and anxious to secure for Herbert a greater alleviation than a single interview, she availed herself of an obvious reason. “My father,” she said, “is still confined to his apartment. He cannot go to Herbert—if Herbert might come to him?”
“This would be indeed an extraordinary departure from all form and precedence.”
“Yes; but it would be the very essence of kindness, which is better than all form and precedence. Oh, Sir Henry, have you not sometimes sleepless hours in the silent watches of the night; and will not then the thought that you have solaced an old man, your friend, and restored peace and love to his habitation, be better than the memory of victories—dear Sir Henry, will it not?”
“I should be too happy to oblige you—it would be a very great pleasure; but indeed, indeed, my dear Miss Isabella, this is an extraordinary proposition.”
“So much the better fitting you to accede to it; you who have the power to depart from the vulgar beaten track. You may have little reason to remember with pleasure this vexatious war, Sir Henry; but the good you have done by the way will be like the manna of the wilderness.”
Isabella had touched the right cord. “Well, my dear Miss Belle, tell me precisely what you want, and what security you can give that my trust will not be abused.”
“I want an order from you to Cunningham, directing him to permit my brother to leave the prison in the evening 299between any hours you shall see fit to assign; and for your security, Sir Henry, I can offer the surest, the word not only of a man of honour, as you have said there are many and uncertain modifications of that principle, but the word of a man bound to you by every tie of gratitude and good faith.”
“You have persuaded me, my dear, against my better reason, it may be, but you have persuaded me; and tomorrow, after our cabinet-council, I will send you the order.”
“Oh, no—to-night, Sir Henry,” urged Isabella, with her characteristic decision, determining to leave nothing to the possible influence of a cabinet-council or a treacherous tomorrow; “to-night, if you would make me completely happy. Here on the table is pen, ink, and paper; and here is a chair—sit down, and write three lines, and I will go home with them, and fall down on my knees, and pray God to bless you for ever and ever.”
If Sir Henry had been told one hour before that he should be persuaded to such an act, he might have exclaimed with Hazael—“Am I a dog,” that I should be thus managed! But, like many other great men, he yielded to a superior mind, albeit in the form of woman. He wrote the order, taking care to qualify it by requiring Cunningham to guard young Linwood’s egress and ingress from observation, and stipulating that he should be attended by Cunningham himself, the most formidable of the bulldog race of jailers.
“Now,” said Sir Henry, after Isabella, with a transport of gratitude, had received the order, and was about to take her leave, “you must not run away—you, of all others, are bound to grace a fête given to Jasper Meredith’s cousin—you owe me this.”
“And most gratefully will I pay you all I can of the debt I owe you, Sir Henry,” she replied, giving him her hand, and returning to the drawing-room. The consciousness of the advantage she had gained, the buoyant spirit of youth, that 300having taken one step from the starting point believes the race won, lit up her eye and cheek with their natural brightness. If a mask had fallen from her face, the change would not have been more startling to some of her observers, nor more puzzling to others.
“I do marvel, cousin Jasper,” said Lady Anne, when they were driving home, “that you have never fallen in love with Isabella Linwood!”
“And how do you know that I have not?” he asked, willing to try the ground of her conclusions.
“How! bless me, do you think I am stone-blind?—you have not danced with her—you have scarcely spoken to her this evening, when she appeared so perfectly irresistible.”
“I fancy, my dear,” interposed Mrs. Meredith, “that your cousin Jasper, like other men of his stamp, prefers a person less prononcée—more quiescent—more ductile than Miss Linwood.”
“You mean, aunt, not shining with a light of her own—more of a reflector.”
“Pardon me, my dear Lady Anne, you interrupted me. I was going on to say, that men who are conscious of eminent talents, prefer those who, not ambitious to shine, will amuse and sooth their hours of relaxation.”
“Lesser lights—I understand you perfectly,” said Lady Anne, cutting in to escape her aunt’s tedious circumlocution: “do tell me, Jasper,” she continued, “if you observed how changed Miss Linwood appeared when she returned to the drawing-room? I was dancing with that tiresome colonel, and you were talking to me.”
“I was talking with you—how could I observe another?”
“Miss Linwood mistakes,” said Mrs. Meredith, “in assuming such violent contrasts—in making such sudden transits from grave to gay. He is a poor artist who resorts to 301glaring lights and deep shadows to set off his pictures—she wants toning down.”
The mother was not more at fault in her expressed opinion, whether sincere or not, than her son was in his mental inference from the sudden change in Isabella’s deportment. None are more fallible in their judgment than people of the world, and simply because they make no allowance for truth a
s a basis of action. Notwithstanding Meredith’s disclaimer, he had observed, and narrowly, the change so obvious, and thus had reasoned upon it:—“Isabella was piqued at my devotion to my cousin; she was, for no woman is above these little vanities, vexed at Lady Anne’s superlative dancing; but she soon rallied, and determined to appear high as the stars above me, and all these matters. Her pride is invincible; it is quite time to show her that her power is not. Women are destined to be the ‘lesser lights.’ I have most generously committed myself, while she has remained as silent, if not as cold, as a statue; therefore I am at liberty to retreat, if I should—at any future time—choose to do so. When I am with her, I feel her full supremacy; but away from her, on reflection, I can perceive that an alliance with my cousin might, in the end, be quite—that is, very tolerable, and vastly more eligible (and in these times that must be thought of) than this long, long dreamed-of marriage with Isabella Linwood.”
303CHAPTER XXVI.
“The wonder, or a woman keeps a secret.”
Isabella moulded and arranged every thing to profit by Sir Henry’s boon. She persuaded her father (one is easily led the way the heart inclines), in consideration of Herbert’s past sufferings and uncertain future, to acquiesce in a present oblivion of his offences. She exacted a promise from Herbert that he would hear her father laud King George, his ministers, and all their acts, without interposing a disqualifying word, or even a glance; and, what was a greater feat for him, that he would sit quietly and hear the names of Washington, Franklin, Jay, Hamilton, La Fayette, all that he most honoured, coupled with the most offensive epithets. This vituperation she knew was a sort of safety-valve, by which her father let off the passion that might otherwise burst on poor Herbert’s head. She felt that no sacrifice short of that of principle was too great to obtain affectionate intercourse between the father and son; that between those thus related, there never could be a “good war, nor a bad peace.”
As Sir Henry had exacted a strict secrecy as to his indulgence, Isabella congratulated herself that she had long before this persuaded her father to dismiss Jupiter (an irreclaimable gossip), on the ground that he was a useless piece of lumber; but really, because Rose had declared that it exceeded the ability of her commissary department to supply his rations. 304Rose herself was worthy of all confidence. Mrs. Archer, of course, was one of the family cabinet.
The awkwardness of the first meeting got over, all difficulties were past. Little differences, if let alone, soon melt away in the warmth of hearty affection. Herbert was obliged sometimes to bite his lips, and at others, when his frank and hasty spirit prompted a retort, a glance from Isabella kept him silent.
It was not till Herbert’s second or third visit that Mr. Linwood manifested the uneasiness incident to persons of his age and habits when put out of their accustomed track. Rivington’s Royal Gazette, issued twice a week, and the only newspaper in the city, was to Mr. Linwood, as newspapers are to most men, one of the necessaries of life. “My dear,” he asked his wife, “where is the paper?”
“I left it below, my dear; there is nothing in it.” Mrs. Linwood had ventured this omission from consideration to Herbert, whose temper she feared might boil over at the hearing of one of those high-toned tory gazettes.
“Pshaw—nothing in it! just so all women say, unless they find some trumpery murder or shipwreck. Belle, be good enough to bring the paper and read it to me; and do ask Rose to bring us in a stick of wood—it is as cold as Greenland here—five pounds I paid Morton yesterday for a cord of hickory. D—n the rebels, I wish I had their bones for firewood.”
“They do their best, sir, to make it hot for the tories,” said Herbert, very good-humouredly.
“Ah, Herbert, my son, I forgot you were here; I did indeed. But I can’t be mealy-mouthed—I must speak out, come what come will. But ’tis hard not to be able to get the wood from our own farms, is it not?”
“Very hard, sir, to be deprived of any of our rights.”
“Rights!” Isabella entered, and Mr. Linwood added in a softened tone, “Have a care, my boy; there are certain words that fall on my ear like sparks on gunpowder.”
305“Here is something to prevent your emitting any more sparks just now, Mr. Herbert,” said Isabella, giving him a Boston paper, while she retained the orthodox journal to read aloud.
“What’s that?—what’s that?” asked her father.
“A Boston paper, sir, sent to you with Colonel Robertson’s compliments.”
Herbert read aloud a few lines written on the margin of the paper, chuckling in spite of his filial efforts to the contrary: “Major-general Putnam presents his compliments to Major-general Robertson, and sends him some American newspapers for his perusal. When General Robertson shall have done with them, it is requested they be given to Rivington, in order that he may print some truth.”
“The impudent renegado! Come, Isabella, what says Rivington to-day?”
Isabella read aloud an order from Sir Henry Clinton, “That all negroes taken fighting in the rebel cause should be sold as slaves: and that all deserting should live at what occupation they pleased within the British lines!”
“Very salutary that!” interposed Mr. Linwood. “Black sons of Belial—they fighting for liberty, d—n ’em!”
Herbert cleared his throat. “My father—my upright father applauding a bounty offered to cowardice and treachery!—Oh the moral perversions engendered by war!” thought Isabella; but she wisely kept her reflections to herself, and, striking another chord, ran over one of Rivington’s advertisements of fancy articles for sale by himself, the sole editor and publisher in the city. Oh, Smetz, Stewart, Gardiner, Tryon, Bailly, ye ministers to the luxury of our city! well may ye exclaim, in your rich repositories of the arts and industry of the old world—
“Great streams from little fountains flow!”
306For the curious in such matters, we permit our heroine to read aloud verbatim: “For sale at this office, scarlet dress-frocks, with silk lining and capes, the work of celebrated operators west of London; the celebrated new-fashioned buckle, which owes its origin and vogue to the Count d’Artois, brother to the King of France; of the locket or depository for preserving the gentle Saccharissa’s hair, a great variety; crow-quills for the delicate Constantia; scarlet riding-dresses for ladies, made to suit the uniform of their husbands or lovers; canes for the gallant gay Lothario; gold and silver strings for plain walking-canes, with silver and gold tassels for plain Master Balance; vastly snug shaving equipages; brocaded shoes and slippers; ladies’ shuttles for the thrifty in the knotting amusements; songs suited to the various humours and affections of the mind.”
“Bravo, friend Rivington!” exclaimed Herbert, “you do not expend all your imagination in the invention of news.”
“Is there nothing but this nonsense in the paper, Belle? What is that in capitals about letters from England?”
Isabella resumed: “Letters from England say they will never acknowledge the Independence of the United States, while there is a soldier to be raised, or a tester to be expended, in the three kingdoms!”
“John Bull for ever! What say you to that, Mr. Herbert?” asked his father, exultingly.
“Nous verrons, sir!—but, mercy upon us! what is this?” Herbert read aloud from the Boston paper: “We regret to state that the daughter of Mrs. Lee, of Westbrook, left her mother’s house two weeks since, with the supposed intention of going to New-York. The young lady has been for some time in a state of partial mental alienation.” A description of Bessie’s person followed, and an earnest request that any information obtained might be transmitted to the unhappy mother.
307Both Herbert and Isabella were filled with consternation and anxiety; and, after revolving the past, both came to the same conclusion as to the probable origin of poor Bessie’s mental malady. Mr. Linwood, who only recollected her as a quiet, pretty little girl, exhausted his sympathy in a few inquiries and exclamations, became somewhat impatient of the sadness that had o
verclouded his children. “We are as doleful as the tombs here,” he said: “What can keep your aunt Archer tonight, Isabella?—Ah, here she comes—right glad to see you, Mary. Belle and Herbert are knocked up by an unlucky bit of news.” The news was communicated to Mrs. Archer, who entered deeply into their feelings.
“Ah,” said she, “this explains a note I received this morning from Captain Lee.”
“From Eliot?” exclaimed Herbert.
“Yes; he sent by a courier, who came to Sir Henry, a most acceptable present—a set of chessmen for the children, which he has contrived, and, aided by an ingenious private, made for them.”
“Chessmen contrived by a rebel!” said Mr. Linwood—“of course he has left out the king, queen, and bishop?”
“Pardon me—he may think kings, queens, and bishops very fit playthings.”
“But what says the note?” asked Herbert, impatiently.
“It says, that if the chessboard should fail to be of use to Ned and Lizzy, it has at least served the purpose of partially diverting his thoughts from a grief that almost drives him mad. Of course he, alludes to this sad affair.”
“Undoubtedly,” replied Herbert; “and this business of the chessboard is just like himself—he is the most extraordinary fellow! I never knew him in any trouble, small or great, that he did not turn to doing something for somebody or other by way of a solace—a balm to his hurt mind.”
“I do not wonder you love him so devotedly,” said Isabella.
308“Oh, Belle,” whispered Herbert in return, “had Heaven but have put him in Jasper’s place, or made Jasper like him!”
Mrs. Archer caught the words, and in spite of her own discretion and Isabella’s painful blushes, she uttered a deep and insuppressible “Amen.”
“Come, come, what are you all about?” said Mr. Linwood: “suppose you imitate this wonderful hero of yours in the use of his mental panacea, and comfort me with a game of whist. Do you play as deep a game as you used to, Herbert; trump your partner’s trick, and finesse with a knave and ten spot?”
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