CHAPTER XX.
CASTE WITHOUT TONE.
Judge Custis was well out of town, riding to the north, when the littlereading-circle assembled, without his patronage, over the old store, andthe young minister directed it. In the warm afternoon the windows wereraised till Milburn's chill began to set in again, and they could hearthe mocking-bird, in his tree, tantalizing the great shaggy dog Turk bywhistling to him,
"Wsht! wsht! Come, sir! come, sir! Sic 'em! sic 'em! wh-i-it! sic 'em,Turk! wsht! wh-i-i-t! Sirrah! Ha! ha!"
Turk would run a little way, run back, see nobody, watch all the windowsof the store, and finally he seemed to think the spot was haunted, orunreliable in some way; for he would next run to the open store door,and bark, run back, and, from a distance, watch the hollow dark within,as if a vague enemy lived there, mocking his obedient nature and keepinghis mistress captive. Turk was a setter with mastiff mixing, worth alittle for the hunt and more for the watch, but as an ornament andfriend worth more than all; he was so impartial in his favors as to likeAunt Hominy and Vesta about equally, and often slept in the kitchenbefore the great chimney fire.
"Do we worry you, Mr. Milburn, by reading here?" Vesta asked.
"No, my darling. It is so kind of you to bring music to my poor loft."
William Tilghman opened his Bible at a place marked by a littleribbon-backed bristol card, inscribed in Vesta's childhood by herlearning fingers, "Watch with me." He thought of his cousin, nowfluttering between her betrayal to this Pilate and her crucifixion, andcaught her eyes looking at the Bible-marker, as if saying to him and tothe forest maiden, "Watch with me."
Tilghman started the reading, Vesta followed, and Rhoda had to do herpart, also; but she required to labor hard to keep up, as the chapterwas in the Acts, descriptive of Paul's voyage towards Rome, and hadplenty of hard words and geography in it. At one verse, Rhoda's readingwas like this:
"And--when--we--had--sailed--slowl--li--many-days--and--scare--scare--skar--skurse--I declar', Aunt Vesty, this print is blombinable!--scace--Oh,yes, scacely--scarce--were--come--over--against--Ceni--Snide--Snid--Mr.Tilghman, what is this crab-kine of word? Cnidus? Well, I declar'! a dogcouldn't spell that; it looks like Snyder spelled by his hiredman--against Cnidus--the--wind--not--snuffers--no, snuffering (hereRhoda executed the double sniffle)--yes, didn't I say snuffering? I meansuffering--suffering--us--we--sailed--under--I can't spell that nohow;nobody kin!"
"'Sailed under Crete,' dear," assisted Vesta.
"Sailed under--Crety--over--against--Sal--Sal--Salm--oh, yes, psalms!No: Sal Money."
"Salmone," explained the rector, not daring to look up; "we sailed underCrete over against Salmone; and, hardly passing it, came unto a placewhich is called the Fair Havens, nigh whereunto was the city of Lasea.'"
"Lord sakes!" exclaimed Rhoda, putting out her crescent foot, on whichwas Vesta's worked stocking, "did they have Fair Havens in them days?Was it this one over yer on the Wes'n Shu?"
"No," answered Tilghman; "Fair Havens was always a ready name forsailors finding a good port in trouble."
"Thar ain't no good port out thar on the Oushin side now but Monroe'sInlet, outen Jinkotig. The rest of 'em gits filled up, an' kadgin's theon'y way to kadge through of 'em, Misc Somers says."
"She means warping, or pulling over a shoal inlet by a rope to ananchor, as the water lifts the vessel."
"Yes, you know, Mr. Tilghman," Rhoda cried, delighted; "that'skadgin'--pullin' over the bar by the anchor line. You're all agroun',can't git nowhar, air a-bumpin' on the bar, an' the breakers is comin'dreadful in your side: you'll break all up if you stay thar. So you gitthe little anchor--the little one is better than ary too big a one--an'put it in the yawl an' paddle acrost the bar an' sot her, an' themaboard pulls as the billers lifts ye, and so they keep her headed in,and, kadging, kadging, bumpety-bump, at las' you go clar of the bar an'come home to smooth haven in Sinepuxin."
"Yes, my sisters," appended the young minister, "we need often to kedgehome, to warp over the bars of life, and Hope, in ever so little ananchor, helps a little, if we do not lose the line. Little hopes areoften better than great ones, for o'er-great hopes swamp little vessels.Even hope must be artfully shaped and skilfully dropped to take hold ofthe unseen bottoms of opportunity. All of us have entertained burdensomehopes, heavy anchors, and they would not hold us against the breakers;but there may be little hopes, carried in advance of us, that will drawus into pleasant sounds and bays."
"We owe to you, Rhoda, this comforting hope," said Vesta, "and, whileyou are with us, we shall teach you to read more confidently."
Vesta then sang Charles Wesley's hymn:
"'Jesus, in us thyself reveal! The winds are hushed, the sea is still, If in the ship Thou art. Oh, manifest Thy power divine; Enter this sinking church of Thine, And dwell in every heart.'"
The sounds of her singing reached the people, rambling curiously aroundon Sunday afternoon to see the principals in the surprising marriagethey had but lately heard of, and, as she ended, Mr. Milburn called her,saying,
"It is time for you to leave me till to-morrow."
"Is that your desire?"
"It is, kind lady. I have a servant-man, Samson, used to all my work,and you can hear of my condition through your slave girls, going andcoming. I want you to feel free as ever, though my wife at last. I didnot seek you to cloud your morning, but to share your sunshine. Go toTeackle Hall, and there I will come when I am stronger. At no time do Iever wish you to sleep in this old stable."
"May I come and sit with you to-morrow, sir?"
"Oh, do so! I must see you a little day by day."
"May I take Rhoda with me?"
"Yes, if you will do it. She is a poor girl, but that is not her fault."
Vesta bent and touched his forehead with her lips, and, as she drewback, he raised his cold hand and put a piece of paper in hers.
"Present my love to your mother," he said, in a chill; "and return herthe losses Judge Custis has named to me as her portion in Nassawongofurnace. The amount is in this check, which I give you, although it isSunday, because it represents no business among any of us, but an act ofpeace."
"You are an honorable man," Vesta said; "I have cost you dearly."
"It is the bumping of a few years on the bar," Meshach answered, tryingto smile; "be you my anchor out in calm water, and I will try to draw toyou some day. It is not the price I pay that troubles me; it is theprice you are paying."
"I am deeply interested in you," Vesta said; "if I should say more thanthat, it would not now be true."
"Thank you for that much," Milburn said; "even your pity is a treasure,and I thank God that I have made so much progress. Before you go, let mybird come in, and then shut the window, to keep the night-hawks and owlsfrom finding him."
He managed, between his rising paroxysms of the chill, to whistle a noteor two, and Tom flew in the window and fluttered viciously around hishead, as if to be revenged for exile, and then, leaping on the oldhat-box, set up a show performance, in which were all the menagerie oftown and field, and, stopping a little while to hear the bird sing hername again, Vesta and her friends withdrew.
Mrs. Custis was found in her bedroom, much improved in spirits, buthighly nervous.
"Oh, my poor, martyred, murdered idol!" she screamed, as Vesta came in;"are you alive? Is the beast dead? Don't tell me he dares to live."
"Yes, mamma, here are his teeth," Vesta said, when she had kissed hermother warmly. "He has sent you a check for all your lost money, and hislove, and me to live here with you in Teackle Hall. Liberty,restitution, as you name it, and his affection to both of us: is he nota gentleman now?"
Mrs. Custis eagerly took the check.
"Do you believe it is good, precious? Maybe he sent it to deceive mewhile he could take advantage of your gratitude. Oh, these foresters aredevils! I wish I had the money for it."
"It is good for everything he has, mamma. Not to pay it would make him abankrupt. He gave it to me al
most with gallantry. Indeed, he is the mostsingular man I ever knew."
"That is the case with all pirates," said Mrs. Custis; "something inthe female nature attracts us to lawless men, who take what theywant--ourselves included. We were, I suppose, originally, just seizedand appropriated, and are looking out for the appropriator to this day.But you, Vesta, with the Baltimore blood in you, do not expect to playthe Sabine bride tamely like that--to defend your spoiler and reconcilehim to your brethren?"
"I was thinking it was the Baltimore blood that made me appreciate Mr.Milburn, mamma. The Custises were not traders."
"Pshaw! the Custises were libertines, unless history belies them; theyhad else no popularity in the scamp court of Charley-over-the-water. Hethought the daughter of any gentleman in his following was made for hismistress, and a large percentage of the said damsels thought he wasright."
"Mr. Milburn is no Cavalier, I can see that," Vesta said; "I amattracted to him by elements of such strength and simplicity that Ifancy he is a Puritan."
"Puritan fiddlestick!" Mrs. Custis said, putting Milburn's check in herbosom and pinning it in there, and looking vigilantly at the pinafterwards. "Now, my great comfort, my only McLane! do not idealize thisforester as of any beginning whatsoever. It is all wrong. Thousands ofconvicts were exported to Chesapeake Bay from the slums of London,Bristol, Glasgow, and other places, and propagated here like thepokeweed. With instincts of larceny, and, possibly, a little rebellionin it, your man has robbed this house of your person; if he should alsotake your heart, the shame would be upon us."
"Oh, mother, you are unforgiving!"
"Of course I am; I am Scotch."
"You have not one son-in-law but this who would give you back the largeamount your husband has misspent--not one who could do it but at asacrifice you would not permit. For you and papa, to restore your faithin each other, I married our stranger creditor, forcing him to the altarrather than he me; and he has already proved himself of more delicacythan you, if I am to believe you are in your right mind. No, I am noMcLane."
"You are not, if you do not use their Scotch-Irish perseverance to getthe better of Meshach Milburn. You have obtained a marriage settlementwith him, now have it confirmed, and sue out your divorce before theLegislature! Publicly as you have been profaned, ask the State ofMaryland for reparation. The McLanes, the Custises, and all theirconnections, from the Christine River to the James, will stormAnnapolis, make your cause, if necessary, a political issue, and thecourts of this county will give you damages out of this beast'sunpopular wealth."
Vesta looked at her mother with astonishment.
"What would become of my self-respect, my maiden name, if I made thatshow of my private griefs, mother?"
"Why, you would be a heroine. Every old lover, of whom there are so manyeligible ones, would feel his zeal return. A romance would attend yourname wherever the Baltimore newspapers are taken, and you would be asgreat a heroine as Betty Patterson."
"That disobedient girl?" Vesta, still in astonishment, exclaimed.
"I saw her when the bride of Jerome Bonaparte. She was not half aslovely as you! If Jerome had seen you--you were not born, then, and Iwas in society--he would never have looked at Betty. But, you see, sheforced a settlement out of the Emperor, husbanded the income of it, andshe is rich, and freer to-day than if she had become a FrenchBonaparte."
"Weak as they may be in many things, I am a Custis," Vesta spoke, withpale scorn. "I would not drag my name through the tobacco-stainedlobbies of Annapolis to wear the crown of Josephine. The word I gave,in pity of my parents, to the man who is now my husband, to become hiswife, I would not take back to my dying day, unless he first denied hisword. I believe there is such a thing as honor yet. Mother, you fret myfather by such principles."
"They are the principles of your uncle, Allan McLane."
"A man I shrink from," Vesta said, "although he is your brother. Hisunfeeling respectability, his unchangeableness, his want of everyimpulse but hate, his appropriation of our family honor, as if he wasour lawgiver and high-sheriff, his secretiveness, formal religion, andmysterious prosperity, I do not appreciate, much as I have tried to becharitable to him. I do not like Baltimore as I do the Eastern Shore; itis fierce, hard, and suspicious."
"You shall not run down Baltimore before me," Mrs. Custis cried, hotly."It is a paradise to this region; and comparing Meshach Milburn to youruncle is blasphemy."
"I have on my finger, mother, his mother's ring."
"A pretty object it is," said Mrs. Custis, taking a peep at it andanother at her check; "it requires a microscope to find it. The nextthing you will be walking through Baltimore on your bridal tour,followed by a mob of small boys, to see Meshach's old steeple-top hat.Then I shall feel for you, Vesta."
The cruel blow struck home. Vesta's reception, so unexpected, soacrimonious, affected her with a sense of gross ingratitude, and with agreater disappointment--she had failed to restore joy to her parents byher desperate sacrifice.
She began to feel that she might have done wrong. The broad sight of heract, looking back upon it from this momentary revulsion, seemed afrightful flood, like the mouth of one of the little Eastern Shorerivers that expands to a gulf in the progress of a brook. Last night shesaw in an instant the misunderstandings and ruin she could prevent byher ready decision; now she saw the misunderstandings she never couldcorrect, the prejudices stronger than parental sympathy, the wideseparation her marriage had effected between two classes of her duty--tothink with her husband's affection and her mother's interests at thesame time.
It also occurred to her that her father, the darling of her thought, hadseemed slow to appreciate her marriage sacrifice, and was testy at herwillingness to loosen her heart with her vestal zone towards herhusband.
The whole day had passed with such relief, such satisfaction, that sheexpected to end it in the tranquillity of Teackle Hall, like some youngeagle returned to her nest with abundant prey for the old birds there,worn out with storm and time. In place of love and healing nature, Vestahad found worldliness, resentment, intrigue, and aspersion, concludingwith a reference to the one object she feared and shrank from--the hatof dark entail, the shadow upon her future life. Her eyes filled up, shelisped aloud,
"I wish I had stayed with my husband!"
"Has he become so necessary to you already?" asked Mrs. Custis.
"He does appreciate my sacrifice," Vesta said, and her low sobs filledthe room. In a moment Virgie entered, alert to her playmate's pains, andthrew her arms around her mistress and kissed her like a child.
"Oh, missy," she spoke to Mrs. Custis, "to make her cry after what shehas done for all of us--to save your home, to save me from being sold!"
No scruples of race made Vesta reject this sympathy, precious to herparched breast despite the quadroon taint as the golden sand in thebrooks of Africa, giving at once wealth and cooling. The slave girl'slong white arms, scarcely less pale than ivory--for she had slipped inat the sign of sorrow, while making her simple toilet--drew Vesta intoher lap and laid her head upon the fair maiden shoulder, as if it was ababe's. On such a shoulder, only a shadow darker, Vesta had often lainin infancy, and sucked the milk that was sweet as Eve's--the commonfount of white and black--at the breast of Virgie's mother. Thatfaithful nurse was gone; the wild plum-tree grew upon her grave; butVirgie inherited the motherly instinct and added the sisterly sympathy,and her rich hair, half unbound, streamed down on Vesta's temples amongthe dark ringlets there, while she looked into her own spirit for a wordto check those tears, and found it:
"People will say you have been crying, dear missy. The Lord knows youdid right. Don't let anybody make you lose your faith till your master,your husband, does wrong to you; he wouldn't like to have you cry."
There was a nervous chord somewhere in the slave's throat that trembledon the key of the heroic, and her nostrils, slightly rounded, her head,free of carriage as the wild colt's, and a light from her soft eyes thatseemed to be reflected on their long, silk
en lashes, bore out a spirittamed by servitude, which still could kindle to everything thatconcerned woman in her birthright.
Vesta kissed Virgie, and ceased to sob; she rose and kissed her motheralso.
"It was very wrong in me to say what I did not wish to say, about UncleAllan, mamma. I hope papa was kind to you to-day."
"Dear me!" Mrs. Custis cried; "everything is turned upside down by thatbog iron ore. A new element has come into the family to disturb it.Nobody believes anything respectable any more. Your father is aninfidel, or a radical, or something perverse; you are defending thosewild foresters! What will become of the Christian religion and societyand good principles?"
"What did papa say before he left home?"
"He acted in the strangest manner, Vesta. He came right in and kissedme, like a great booby, and sat down and wanted to talk about ourcourting days. I thought at first he was drunk again, or that theMethodists had got hold of him and fed him on camp-meeting straw. How doyou account for it?"
Virgie had slipped out as soon as the talk became confidential.
"He wants to do better, dear mamma. Do respond to his contrition andaffection! If we could all humble our hearts, it would be so easy tostart life better, and turn this accident to joy and comfort. I havefound new engagements and reliefs already. There is a young girl, Mr.Milburn's niece, whom I shall bring home this evening and occupy myselfteaching her. She is an orphan, without a mother's knowledge, barelyable to read, but pretty and quaint."
"Bring a forester in here?" Mrs. Custis exclaimed, fairly shivering."What will Allan McLane's daughters say? Your sister from Talbot hasbeen here all this day, and you have scarcely given her an hour. Betweenthis fatal marriage and your neglect, she left, with her husband,positively pale with horror. I do not know what is to follow thismarriage. I have posted a letter already to my brother Allan, tellinghim of your betrayal by your father and this bridegroom. All ourconnection will be up in arms."
Vesta's heart sank again, but she felt no fears of her husband's abilityto meet mere family opposition, secured by law and form in his rights.She only feared hostility might rouse in him severity and defiance whichwould neutralize her present influence upon him, and change hisaccommodating, almost gentle, disposition as a husband.
For, blacker than any object in her future path, she saw a little,trivial thing, like a wild boar closing her hitherto adventurousexcursion into the forest where her husband grew--the hat that hadcovered his head!
Her mother's thoughtless mention of that object made it formidable toher fears as some iron mask locked round her husband's countenance,making day hideous and the world a dungeon to all who must walk withhim.
She discerned that his combative spirit would start to the defence ofhis hat if it should become the subject of family rancor, because no manforgives an insult to his personal appearance; and this article of wearhad ringed his brain with gangrene, and war made upon it would be met bywar, while Vesta had expected to induce forgetfulness of the rusty oldtile, to charm away the remembrance of it, and to have it laid foreveraside.
"I am not the daughter of Uncle McLane," Vesta protested. "I am,besides, a woman, free of my minority. Mr. Milburn is hardly the man tosubmit to any trespass. I warn you, mamma, to put my uncle at nodisadvantage; for my husband has already beaten papa, and he will smileat your brother when he knows that I do not support any of hispretensions."
"The first thing," answered Mrs. Custis, stubbornly, "is to see that hepays this check. Oh, my dear money!"--she pressed it to her heart--"howdelightful it is to see you again. Science, love, glory, ideas: howvulgar they are without money. With this check paid, I think I shallnever read a book again; and as for the bog ores, why, I shall scream ifthere is an iron article in the house. Vesta, this house, I believe, isyours now? I had forgotten. Well, no wonder you defend the man who tookyour father's roof from over his head and gave it to you!"
"That is unkind, mamma. I value it only as a sure home for you and papa.If I gave it to him it might be in risk again."
"But suppose you continue to defend this monster of a Milburn, he andyou may require the whole house. I am too well-bred to be converted toany of his impious ideas. I am a Baltimorean, and stand by my colors."
"Let us speak of that no more," Vesta said, almost in despair, "but talkof dear papa. I know he loves you."
"It is too late," Mrs. Custis remarked, solemnly, with another fondlingof her check; "he has neglected me too long. I expect his attention andrespect, and that he shall behave himself; but no lovey and no honey forme now. Life has passed the noon and the early afternoon for him and me,and I live to be respectable, to appreciate my security, to keepupstarts at arm's-length, to enjoy my life in its appointed circle,taking care of my income, and never--no, never!--giving any human beingthe opportunity to make me a beggar again."
"Oh, mamma," Vesta said, "think of Judge Custis! Have you not made homecold to him by this formalism? We must study men, and please themaccording to their tastes, and therein lies our joy; else we are falseto the companionship God gave us to man for. Yield to your husband'sboyish-heartedness; fly with him, like the mate by the bird! He hasrepented; welcome him to your love again, and stay his feet from truantgoing, or he may dash down the precipice this sorrow has arrested himbefore, of everlasting dissipation and the death of his noble soul!"
Vesta stood above her mother, deeply moved, deeply earnest. Her motherstole another look at the bank check.
"Well, daughter, I will be humbugged by him if you desire it," she said,but with slight answering emotion. "If I had my life to go over again Iwould marry a business man, and let the aristocracy go. There is thesecond knock at the front-door. I believe I will dress myself and godown-stairs too."
There were two ladies in the parlor when Vesta went there--GrandmotherTilghman and the Widow Dennis.
"Good-evening, Vesta," said the old lady, who was stone-blind, buteasily knew Vesta's footstep. "William thought you would not go toevening service on account of Mr. Milburn's illness, so I came around tosit till church was over, when he will take me home. But what is that Ihear in this parlor, like somebody sniffling?"
"It's me, Aunt Vesty," said the voice of Rhoda Holland from thebackground.
"This is Mr. Milburn's niece, who has come here to stay with me," Vestasaid.
"Ah! then it is no Custis. The last sniffle I heard was at the ball toLafayette in the spring of 1781. The marquis had marched from Head ofElk to the Bald Friars' ferry up the Susquehanna and inland among thehills to Baltimore, and we gave him a ball which, at his request, wasturned into a clothing-party. He snuffed so much that he kept up asniffle all the evening, like--"
Here Rhoda's sniffle was heard again.
"Yes, that's a good imitation," said Grandmother Tilghman, "but I don'tlike it."
"Did the gineral dance at the ball?" asked Rhoda. "What did he do withhis swurd? Did he dance with it outen his scibburd?"
"He danced like a gentleman," Mrs. Tilghman replied, as if she wouldrather not, "and led me out in the first set. You danced with him,Vesta, at the ball in '24, forty-three years afterwards. Does he sniffleyet?"
"I don't recollect, grand-aunt. I was a little girl, and so muchflattered that I thought everything he did was perfect."
"Ah me!" exclaimed Mrs. Tilghman, pulling the feather of her turban up,and looking as much like an old belle as possible at eighty years ofage; "you danced before Lafayette with my grandson Bill. Bill hardlyremembers Lafayette at all, thinking of you that night, so wonderful inyour girl's charms. I told him Vesta would never marry him, as he wastoo plain and poor. But I never thought you would marry that--"
Here Rhoda sniffled warningly.
"Yes," exclaimed the old lady, catching the sniffle; "I never thoughtyou would marry _that_! But Bill is as dear a fool as ever. He says nowthat Meshach Milburn is a good man, too. I never thought he was abovea--"
Rhoda sniffled earnestly.
"Precisely that," exclaimed the old lady; "that was my estimate
of thestock. Bill says he is a financial genius. I don't see what is to becomeof girls in this generation. Here is Ellenora, too good to marryPhoebus, the sailor man, too poor to marry anybody else; now, ifMilburn had married her and taken her son Levin into his business, itwould have been reasonable; but to take you and pervert your happiness,almost makes me--"
Sniffle from Rhoda.
"Yes," said the old lady, snappishly; "almost! But I never did do ityet."
"Did you ever see Gineral Washin'ton, mem?" Rhoda asked. "I thought,maybe, you was old enough. Misc Somers, she see him up yer to Kint Rivera-crossin' to 'Napolis. He was a-swarin' at the cappen of the piriaugerand a dammin' of the Eas'n Shu, and he said they wan't no good rudes inMarylan' nohow; that the Wes'n Shu was all red mud, an' the Eas'n Shuyaller mud, an' the bay was jus' pizen. Misc Somers say she don't thinkit was Gineral Washin'ton, caze he cuss so. She goin' to find out whenshe kin git a book an' somebody to read outen it to her, caze shedreffle smart."
"Grand-aunt Tilghman," Vesta interposed to the blank silence of theroom, "knew General Washington intimately."
"Do tell us!" cried Rhoda. "You kin be a right interestin' ole woman, Ireckon, ef you air so quar."
In the midst of a smile, in which the blind old lady herself joined, andMrs. Custis at the same time entered the room, Mrs. Tilghman spoke asfollows:
"I went to visit Cousin Martha Washington several years before theRevolution, at Mount Vernon. I had seen her while she was the widow ofCousin Custis, and we occasionally corresponded. In those days wevisited by vessel, so a schooner of Robert Morris's father set me ashoreat Mount Vernon. Colonel Washington was then having his first portraitpainted by Wilson Peale, and he was forty years old. Peale andWashington used to pitch the bar, play quoits, and fox-hunt, whileCousin Martha, who was only three months younger than the colonel,knitted and cut out sewing for her colored girls, and heard herdaughter, Martha Custis, play the harpsichord. Poor Martha had theconsumption; she was dark as an Indian; Washington often carried heralong the piazza and into the beautiful woodlands near the house; butshe died, leaving him all her money--nearly twenty thousand dollars. WeCustises rather looked down on Colonel Washington in those days; he wasnot of the old gentry; his poor mother could barely read and write, andonce, when we went to Fredericksburg to see her, she was riding out inthe field among her few negroes as her own overseer, wearing an oldsun-bonnet, and sunburned like a forester."
"Dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Custis. "I should think she was a greatimpediment to Washington."
"I reckon that's the way her son got big," exclaimed Rhoda; "if his marhad laid down in bed all day, he couldn't have killed King George soeasy with his swurd."
"I often said to Cousin Martha, 'What did you see in this big horse of aman?' 'Oh,' she replied, 'he's the best overseer in Virginia. He looksafter my property as no other man could.'"
"Then," said Mrs. Custis, emphatically, "he was one man out of athousand."
"That's the kind of man you married, Vesta," spoke up Mrs. Dennis.
"_Her_ husband," said Mrs. Custis, "looked after her father's property,I am sure, for he got it all."
"And returned it all," exclaimed Vesta.
Mrs. Custis remarked that Washington certainly was a blue-blooded man.
"Is thar people with blue blood comin' outen of 'em?" asked RhodaHolland. "Lord sakes! I should think it would make 'em cold."
"I wonder if men are ever great?" asked Vesta; "or whether it is notgreat occasion and trial that project them. A crisis comes in our lives,and, finding what we can endure, we incur greater risks, and finallydelight in such adventure."
"That is the way with my poor boy, Levin," said Mrs. Dennis, quietly, toVesta. She was a pretty woman, somewhat past thirty, with rosy cheeks,blue eyes, neat but rather poor attire, and a simple, artless manner,and might have passed for the sister of her son.
"Is Levin coming for you to-night?" Vesta asked.
"No," blushed the widow; "James Phoebus will see me home. Levin hasgone off in his boat, and I have been worried about him all day. Sometime, I am afraid, he will go and never return. Oh, Cousin Vesta, thiswaiting for a husband neither alive nor dead is very trying."
Overhearing the remark, Mrs. Custis remarked, "Norah, you ought to beashamed to keep that faithful fellow waiting on you, when you could giveyourself a good husband and reward him so easily."
"I think you had better look out for old age," Mrs. Tilghman also said,"while you have youth and good looks to obtain the provision. OdenDennis is probably dead; if not dead, he does not mean to return, for Ican think of no circumstances in this age which would forcibly detain aman from his wife fifteen years. Even if he was in a prison, he would beallowed to write to you. He may not be dead, Norah, but he is not comingback. Get a father for your son; you cannot manage Levin."
"Maybe he has been stoled by Injins," exclaimed Rhoda, with greatfervor; "thar was a Injin captive in a shew at Nu-ark, that had beenkept nineteen years. He forgot his language, and whooped dreffle. MiscSomers say he was an imploster, an' worked on the Brekwater up toLewistown. She's always lookin' behind the shew to find out somethin'."(Slight sniffle.)
"Do get that girl a pocket-handkerchief, and show her how to use it,"exclaimed Mrs. Tilghman, breaking out. "Ah! girls, I have been a widowthirty years. I never gave up the expectation of marrying again till Ilost my eyesight; and even after that, at sixty-five, I had an offer ofmarriage; but I said to my gallant old beau, 'I will not take a man Icannot compliment by seeing him and admiring him every day. I love you,but my blindness would give you too much pain.' In our quiet towns, allthe life worth living is domestic joy. Do not lose it, Ellenora; do notput it off too long!"
"I could love Mr. Phoebus, plain as he is," the widow spoke, "if Icould persuade myself that Oden is dead. But that I cannot do. A realperson--spirit or man--is watching over me closely. My very shoes I wearto-night came from that mysterious agent. It is not my son; it is notJames Phoebus. No other stranger would so secretly assist me. I ambound up in the fear and wonder that it is my husband."
"That does beat conjecture," said old Mrs. Tilghman. "Have you no friendyou might suspect?"
"None," the widow answered. "None who have not worn out their means ofgiving long ago. Can I marry, with this ghostly visitation coming soregularly? Should I not have faith in a husband's living if I receive awife's care from an unseen hand?"
"Oden Dennis," Mrs. Custis remarked, "was hardly a man to do charity andnot be seen. He was rather self-indulgent, demonstrative, and restless.I cannot think of his nocturnal visits in the body. Besides, he wouldnot supply you in that way, Norah, if he meant to come back; and if hecannot himself come to you, neither could he send."
Not altogether relishing Mrs. Tilghman's reproof, Rhoda was again heardfrom, saying:
"Lord sakes! all the women has to talk about when they is gone is themen. When the men comes, they talks as if they never missed of 'em. MiscSomers, she never had no man, an' she talks mos' about the women thathas got one. I think Aunt Vesty has got the best man in Prencess Anne.He's the richest. He's the freest. He never courted no other gal. Heain't got no quar old women runnin' of him down--caze Misc Somers isdreffle afraid of him!" This last remark seemed apologetic and anafterthought.
"I am beginning to think my fortune is better than I deserve," Vestareplied, to soften the application, as wine, tea, and cake were broughtin. "Now, dear friends, as I am Mr. Milburn's wife, let us all beChristians this Sunday night, and drink his health and happy recovery,and that he may never repent his marriage."
They drank with some hesitation, except the bride, Rhoda, and Mrs.Dennis. Mrs. Tilghman needed the wine too much to wait long, and Mrs.Custis, finding she was observed, took a sip from her glass also,excusing herself on the ground of a recent headache from drinkingheartily.
As the conversation proceeded, now by general participation, again bycouples apart, and Vesta found herself more and more a subject ofsympathy, with no little curiosity interwoven in it, she als
o imaginedthat an undertone of belief was abroad that she had made a mercenarymarriage.
Old Mrs. Tilghman--in her prime a most caustic belle, and worldly asthree marriages, all shrewdly contracted, could make her--seemeddetermined to hold that Vesta had rejected her grandson for themoney-lender on the consideration of wealth. Vesta's own mother, too,who should have known her well, had twice hinted the same. Even theinoffensive Ellenora had accepted that idea, or another kin to it, andRhoda Holland had remembered that her uncle was the richest ofbridegrooms in Princess Anne. Vesta felt the injustice, but said toherself:
"I must make the sacrifice complete, and incur any harsh judgment it maybear. I see that I shall be driven for sympathy to the last place in theworld I anticipated: to my husband's heart. Yes, there is somethingbesides love in marriage: if I cannot love him, he can understand me."
Vesta had come to a place all come to who volunteer an act of greatsacrifice--to have it put upon a low motive from the lower plane ofsacrifice in many otherwise kind people. We give our money to aninstitution of charity, and it is said that it was for notoriety, orself-seeking, or at the expense of our kin. We lead a forlorn hope inpolitics, or some other arena, to establish a cause or assist aprinciple, with the certain result of defeat, and we are said to bejealous or malignant. Perhaps we make a book to illustrate some oldregion off the highways of observation, drawn to it by kindred stringsor early patterings, and the politician there regards it as an attack,the old family fossil as an intrusion, the very youth as if it were aqueer and gratuitous thing from such an outer source. So we wince alittle, but feel that it was necessary to be misunderstood to completethe sacrifice.
The feeling of despondency increased after the little company separated,and Vesta went to her room and laid herself upon her still maiden bed.She had said her prayer and asked the approval of God, but her nervoussystem, under the tension of almost two days' excitement and events suchas she had never known, was alert and could not fall to slumber. Oldpassages of Testament lore haunted her soul, such as: "Thy desire shallbe to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee;" "A man shall leave hisfather and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife." She began to seethat marriage was not merely the solution of a family trouble, and thegiving of her body as a hostage for a pecuniary debt, but that it was arendition of all her liberty, even the liberty of sympathy and ofsorrow, to the man to whom she must cleave.
In marrying him she had left friendship, father and mother, everything,at a greater distance than she ever dreamed; and they resented thedesertion to the degree that they now confounded her with her newinterest, let go their claim upon her, and could scarce conceive of herexcept in the dual relation of a woman subject to her husband, andselfish as himself.
"I wonder if he will grow weary of me, too," she thought, with anguish,"after his possession is established and I shall have no other source ofconfidence? What did I know of this world only yesterday? Then every wayseemed clear and open for me, my friends abundant, and love profuse;to-day I am in awful doubts, and yet I must not lose my will and driftwith every passing fear and confusion into the fickleness which makeswoman contemptible after she has given her hand. I will never give uptwo persons--my father, and my husband!"
As she turned down the lamp, it being nearly midnight, a short, fiercecry, quickly stifled, as if some wild animal had howled once innightmare and fallen asleep in his kennel again, seized on her ears andchilled her blood.
Vesta started up in bed and listened. It seemed to her that there werefootsteps, but they passed away, and she listened in vain for any othersounds, till sleep fell deep and dreamless upon her, like black Lethewinding through a desert wedding-day.
The Entailed Hat; Or, Patty Cannon's Times Page 22