Miles Wallingford Part 44

Mr. Hardinge met me at the gate of the little lawn, took me in his arms, and blessed me aloud. We entered the house in silence, when the good old man immediately set about showing me, by ocular proof, that everything was restored as effectually as I was restored myself. Venus accompanied us, relating how dirty she had found this room, how much injured that, and otherwise abusing the Daggetts, to my heart's content. Their reign had been short, however; and a Wallingford was once more master of the five structures of Clawbonny. I meditated a sixth, even that day, religiously preserving every stone that had been already laid, however, in my mind's intention.

The next day was that named by Lucy as the one in which she would unite herself to me for ever. No secret was made of the affair; but notice had been duly given that all at Clawbonny might be present. I left home at ten in the morning, in a very handsome carriage that had been built for the occasion, accompanied by Moses attired as a bride's-maid. It is true his dumpy, square-built frame, rather caricatured the shorts and silk stockings; and, as we sat side by side in this guise, I saw his eye roaming from his own limbs to mine. The peculiarity of Moses's toilette was that which all may observe in men of his stamp, who come out in full dress. The clothes a good deal more than fit them. Everything is as tight as the skin; and the wearer is ordinarily about as awkward in his movements and sensations, as if he had gone into society, in _puris naturalibus_. That Moses felt the embarra.s.sment of this novel attire, was sufficiently apparent by his looks and movements, to say nothing of his speech.

"Miles, I do suppose," he remarked, as we trotted along, "that them that haven't had the advantage of being brought up at home never get a fair growth. Now, here's these legs of mine; there's plenty of them, but they ought to have been put in a stretcher when I was a youngster, instead of being left to run about a hospital. Well, I'll sail under bare poles, this once, to oblige you, bride-maid fas.h.i.+on; but this is the first and last time I do such a thing. Don't forget to make the signal when I'm to kiss Miss Lucy."

My thoughts were not exactly in the vein to enjoy the embarra.s.sment of Moses, and I silenced him by promising all he asked. We were not elegant enough to meet at the church, but I proceeded at once to the little rectory, where I found the good divine and my lovely bride had just completed their arrangements. And lovely, indeed, was Lucy, in her simple but beautiful bridal attire! She was unattended, had none of those gay appliances about her that her condition might have rendered proper, and which her fortune would so easily have commanded. Yet it was impossible to be in her presence without feeling the influence of her virgin mien and simple elegance. Her dress was a spotless but exquisitely fine India muslin, well made and accurately fitting; and her dark glossy hair was embellished only by one comb ornamented with pearls, and wearing the usual veil. As for her feet and hands, they were more like those of a fairy than of one human; while her countenance was filled with all the heartfelt tenderness of her honest nature. Around her ivory throat, and over her polished shoulders, hung my own necklace of pearls, strung as they had been on board the Crisis, giving her bust an air of affluent decoration, while it told a long story of distant adventure and of well-requited affection.

We had no bride's-maids, (Marble excepted), no groom's-men, no other attendants than those of our respective households. No person had been asked to be present, for we felt that our best friends were with us, when we had these dependants around us. At one time, I had thought of paying Drewett the compliment of desiring him to be a groom's-man; but Lucy set the project at rest, by quaintly asking me how I should like to have been _his_ attendant, with the same bride. As for Rupert, I never inquired how he satisfied the scruples of his father, though the old gentleman made many apologies to me for his absence. I was heartily rejoiced, indeed, he did not appear; and, I think, Lucy was so also.

The moment I appeared in the little drawing-room of the rectory, which Lucy's money and taste had converted into a very pretty but simple room, my "bright and beauteous bride" arose, and extended to me her long-loved hand. The act itself, natural and usual as it was, was performed in a way to denote the frankness and tenderness of her character. Her colour went and came a little, but she said nothing. Without resuming her seat, she quietly placed an arm in mine, and turned to her father, as much as to say we were ready. Mr. Hardinge led the way to the church, which was but a step from the rectory, and, in a minute or two, all stood ranged before the altar, with the divine in the chancel. The ceremony commenced immediately, and in less than five minutes I folded Lucy in my arms, as my wife. We had gone into the vestry-room for this part of the affair, and there it was that we received the congratulations of those humble, dark-coloured beings, who then formed so material a portion of nearly every American family of any means.

"I wish you great joy and ebbery sort of happiness, Ma.s.ser Mile," said old Venus, kissing my hand, though I insisted it should be my face, as had often been her practice twenty years before. "Ah! dis was a blessed day to _old_ ma.s.ser and missus, could dey saw it, _but._ And I won't speak of anoder blessed saint dat be in heaven. And you too, _my_ dear young missus; now, we all so grad it be _you,_ for we did t'ink, a one time, _dat_ would nebber come to pa.s.s."

Lucy laid her own little white velvet-like hand, with the wedding ring on its fourth finger, into the middle of Venus's hard and h.o.r.n.y palm, in the sweetest manner possible; reminding all around her that she was an old friend, and that she knew all the good qualities of every one who pressed forward to greet her, and to wish her happiness.

As soon as this part of the ceremony was over, we repaired to the rectory, where Lucy changed her wedding robe, for what I fancied was one of the prettiest demi-toilette dresses I ever saw. I know I am now speaking like an old fellow, whose thoughts revert to the happier scenes of youth with a species of dotage, but it is not often a man has an opportunity of pourtraying such a bride and wife as Lucy Hardinge. On this occasion she removed the comb and veil, as not harmonizing with the dress in which she reappeared, but the necklace was worn throughout the whole of that blessed day. As soon as my bride was ready, Mr. Hardinge, Lucy, Moses and myself, entered the carriage, and drove over to Clawbonny. Thither all Lucy's wardrobe had been sent, an hour before, under Chloe's superintendence, who had barely returned to the church in time to witness the ceremony.

One of the most precious moments of my life, was that in which I folded Lucy in my arms and welcomed her to the old place as its mistress.

"We came very near losing it, love," I whispered; "but it is now ours, unitedly, and we will be in no hurry to turn our backs on it."

This was in a tete-a-tete, in the family room, whither I had led Lucy, feeling that this little ceremony was due to my wife. Everything around us recalled former scenes, and tears were in the eyes of my bride as she gently extricated herself from my arms.

"Let us sit down a moment, Miles, and consult on family affairs, now we _are_ here," she said, smiling. "It may be early to begin, but such old acquaintances have no need of time to discover each other's wishes and good and bad qualities. I agree with you, heart and mind, in saying we will never turn our backs on Clawbonny--dear, dear Clawbonny, where we were children together, Miles; where we knew so well, and loved so well, our departed Grace,--and, I hope and trust, it will ever be our princ.i.p.al residence. The country-house I inherit from Mrs. Bradfort is better suited to modern tastes and habits, perhaps, but it can never be one half so dear to either of us. I would not speak to you on this subject before, Miles, because I wished first to give you a husband's just control over me and mine, in giving you my hand; but, now, I may and will suggest what has been pa.s.sing in my mind on this subject. Riversedge"--so was Mrs.

Bradfort's country-house called--"is a good residence, and is sufficiently well furnished for any respectable family. Rupert and Emily must live somewhere, and I feel certain it cannot long be in Broadway. Now, I have thought I would reserve Riversedge for their future use. They can take it immediately, as a summer residence; for I prize one hour pa.s.sed here more than twenty-four hours pa.s.sed there."

"What, rebel!--Even should I choose to dwell in your West-Chester house?"

"You will be here, Miles; and it is on your account that Clawbonny is so dear to me. The place is yours,--I am yours,--and all your possessions should go together."

"Thank you, dearest. But will Rupert be able to keep up a town and country house'!"

"The first, not long, for a certainty; how long, you know better than I.

When I have been your wife half-a-dozen years, perhaps you will think me worthy of knowing the secret of the money he actually has."

This was said pleasantly; but it was not said without anxiety. I reflected on the conditions of my secresy. Grace wished to keep the facts from Lucy, lest the n.o.ble-hearted sister should awaken a feeling in the brother that might prevent her bequest from being carried into effect. Then, she did not think Lucy would ever become my wife, and circ.u.mstances were changed, while there was no longer a reason for concealing the truth from the present applicant, at least. I communicated all that had pa.s.sed on the subject to my-deeply-interested listener. Lucy received the facts with sorrow, though they were no more than she had expected to learn.

"I should be covered with shame, were I to hear this from any other than you, Miles," she answered, after a thoughtful pause; "but I know your nature too well, not to feel certain that the sacrifice scarce cost you a thought, and that you regretted Rupert's self-forgetfulness more than the loss of the money. I confess this revelation has changed all my plans for the future, so far as they were connected with my brother."

"In what manner, dearest? Let nothing that has happened to me influence your decisions."

"In so much as it affects my views of Rupert's character, it must, Miles.

I had intended to divide Mrs. Bradford's fortune equally with my brother.

Had I married any man but you, I should have made this a condition of our union; but _you_ I know so well, and so well know I could trust, that I have found a deep satisfaction in placing myself, as it might be, in your power. I know that all my personal property is already yours, without reserve, and that I can make no disposition of the real, even after I come of age, without your consent. But I had that faith in you, as to believe you would let me do as I pleased."

"Have it still, love. I have neither need, nor wish, to interfere."

"No, Miles; it would be madness to give property to one of such a character. If you approve, I will make Rupert and Emily a moderate quarterly allowance, with which, having the use of my country-place, they may live respectably. Further than that, I should consider it wrong to go."

It is scarcely necessary to say how much I approved of this decision, or the applause I lavished on the warm-hearted donor. The sum was fixed at two thousand dollars a year, before we left the room; and the result was communicated to Rupert by Lucy herself, in a letter written the very next day.

Our wedding-dinner was a modest, but a supremely happy meal; and in the evening, the blacks had a ball in a large laundry, that stood a little apart, and which was well enough suited to such a scene. Our quiet and simple festivities endured for several days; the "uner" of Neb and Chloe taking place very soon after our own marriage, and coming in good time to furnish an excuse for dancing the week fairly out.

Marble got into trowsers the day after the ceremony, and then he entered into the frolic with all his heart. On the whole, he was relieved from being a bride's-maid,--a sufficiently pleasant thing,--but having got along so well with Lucy, he volunteered to act in the same capacity to Chloe. The offer was refused, however, in the following cla.s.sical language:

"No, Misser Marble; colour is colour," returned Chloe. "You's white, and we's black. Mattermony is a berry solemn occerpashun; and there mustn't be no improper jokes at my uner with Neb Clawbonny."

Chapter x.x.x.

"This disease is beyond my practice: yet I have known those which have walked in their sleep, who have died holily in their beds."

Macbeth.

The honeymoon was pa.s.sed at Clawbonny, and many, many other honeymoons that have since succeeded it. I never saw a man more delighted than Mr.

Hardinge was, at finding me actually his son-in-law. I really believed he loved me more than he did Rupert, though he lived and died in ignorance of his own son's true character. It would have been cruel to undeceive him; and nothing particular ever occurred to bring about an _eclairciss.e.m.e.nt_.

Rupert's want of principle was a negative, rather than an active quality, and was only rendered of account by his vanity and selfishness.

Self-indulgence was all he aimed at, and he was much too self-indulgent and shrewd to become an active rogue. He would have spent Lucy's and my joint fortunes, had they been put at his control; but, as they never were, he was fain to limit his expenditures to such sums as we saw fit to give him, with certain extra allowances extorted by his debts. Our intercourse was very much restricted to visits of ceremony, at least on my part; though Lucy saw him oftener; and no allusion was ever made to the past. I called him "Mr. Hardinge" and he called me "Mr. Wallingford." "Rupert"

and "Miles" were done with for ever, between us. I may as well dispose of the history of this person and his wife, at once; for I confess it gives me pain to speak of them, even at this distance of time.

Rupert lived but four years, after my marriage to his sister. As soon as he found it necessary to give up the Broadway house, he accepted the use of Riversedge and his sister's $2000 a-year, with grat.i.tude, and managed to get along on that sum, apparently, down to the hour of his death. It is true, that I paid his debts, without Lucy's knowledge, twice in that short period; and I really think he was sensible of his errors, to a certain extent, before his eyes were closed. He left one child, a daughter, who survived him only a few months. Major Merton's complaints had carried him off previously to this. Between this old officer and myself, there had ever existed a species of cordiality; and I do believe he sometimes remembered his various obligations to me and Marble, in a proper temper.

Like most officials of free governments, he left little or nothing behind him; so that Mrs. Hardinge was totally dependent on her late husband's friends for a support, during her widowhood. Emily was one of those semi-worldly characters, that are not absolutely wanting in good qualities, while there is always more or less of a certain disagreeable sort of calculation in all they do. Rupert's personal advantages and agreeable manners had first attracted her; and believing him to be Mrs.

Bradfort's heir, she had gladly married him. I think she lived a disappointed woman, after her father's death; and I was not sorry when she let us know that she was about to "change her condition," as it is termed in widow's parlance, by marrying an elderly man, who possessed the means of giving her all that money can bestow. With this second, or, according to Venus's nomenclature, _step_-husband, she went to Europe, and there remained, dying only three years ago, an amply endowed widow. We kept up a civil sort of intercourse with her to the last, actually pa.s.sing a few weeks with her, some fifteen years since, in a house, half-barn, half-castle, that she called a palace, on one of the unrivalled lakes of Italy. As _la Signora Montiera,_ (Montier) she was sufficiently respected, finis.h.i.+ng her career as a dowager of good reputation, and who loved the "pomps and vanities of this wicked world." I endeavoured, in this last meeting, to bring to her mind divers incidents of her early life, but with a singular want of success. They had actually pa.s.sed, so far as her memory was concerned, into the great gulf of time, keeping company with her sins, and appeared to be entirely forgot. Nevertheless, la Signora was disposed to treat me and view me with consideration, as soon as she found me living in credit, with money, horses, and carriages at command, and to forget that I had been only a skip-master. She listened smilingly, and with patience, to what, I dare say, were my prolix narratives, though her own recollections were so singularly impaired. She did remember something about the wheelbarrow and the ca.n.a.l in Hyde Park; but as for the voyage across the Pacific, most of the incidents had pa.s.sed out of her mind. To do her honour, Lucy wore the pearls, on an occasion in which she gave a little _festa_ to her neighbours; and I ascertained she did remember them.

She even hinted to one of her guests, in my hearing, that they had been intended for _her_ originally; but "we cannot command the impulses of the heart, you know, _cara mia_," she added, with a very self-complacent sort of a sigh.

What of all this? The _ci-devant_ Emily was no more than a summary of the feelings, interests, and pa.s.sions of millions, living and dying in a narrow circle erected by her own vanities, and embellished by her own contracted notions of what is the end and aim of human existence, and within a sphere that _she_ fancied respectable and refined.

As for the race of the Clawbonnys, all the elderly members of this extensive family lived and died in my service; or, it might be better to say, I lived in theirs. Venus saw several repet.i.tions of her own charms in the offspring of Neb and Chloe, though she pertinaciously insisted to the last, that Cupid, as a step-husband, had no legitimate connection with any of the glistening, thick-lipped, chubby set. But, even closer family ties than those which bound my slaves to me, are broken by the pressure of human inst.i.tutions. The conscript fathers of New York had long before determined that domestic slavery should not continue within their borders; and, one by one, these younger dependants dropped off, to seek their fortunes in town, or in other portions of the State; until few were left beside Neb, his consort, and their immediate descendants. Some of these last still cling to me; the parents having instilled into the children, in virtue of their example and daily discourse, feelings that set at naught the innovations of a changeable state of society. With them, Clawbonny is still Clawbonny; and I and mine remain a race apart in their perception of things. I gave Neb and Chloe their freedom-papers, the day the faithful couple were married, and at once relieved their posterity from the servitude of eight-and-twenty, and five-and-twenty years, according to s.e.x, that might otherwise have hung over all their elder children, until the law, by a general sweep, manumitted everybody. These papers Neb put in the bottom of his tobacco-box, not wis.h.i.+ng to do any discredit to a gift from me; and there I accidentally saw them, in rags, seventeen years later, not having been opened, or seen by a soul, as I firmly believe, in all that time. It is true, the subsequent legislation of the State rendered all this of no moment; but the procedure showed the character and disposition of the man, demonstrating his resolution to stick by me to the last. He has had no intention to free _me_, whatever may have been my plans for himself and his race.

I never had more than one conversation with either Neb or his wife, on the subject of wages, and then I discovered how tender a thing it was, with the fellow, to place him on a level with the other hired people of my farm and household.

"I won'er what I done, Ma.s.ser Mile, dat you want to pay me wages, like a hired man!" said Neb, half-disposed to resent, and half-disposed to grieve at the proposal. "I was born in de family, and it seem to me dat quite enough; but, if dat isn't enough, I went to sea wid you, Ma.s.ser Mile, de fuss day you go, and I go ebbery time since."

These words, uttered a little reproachfully, disposed of the matter. From that hour to this, the subject of wages has never been broached between us. When Neb wants clothes he goes and gets them, and they are charged to "Ma.s.ser Mile;" when he wants money he comes and gets it, never manifesting the least shame or reluctance, but asking for all he has need of, like a man. Chloe does the same with Lucy, whom she regards, in addition to her having the honour to be my wife, as a sort of subst.i.tute for "Miss Grace."

With this honest couple, Mr. and Mrs. Miles Wallingford, of Clawbonny, and Riversedge; and Union Place, are still nothing but "Ma.s.ser Mile" and "Miss Lucy;"--and I once saw an English traveller take out her note-book, and write something very funny, I dare say, when she heard Chloe thus address the mother of three fine children, who were hanging around her knee, and calling her by that, the most endearing of all appellations. Chloe was indifferent to the note of the traveller, however, still calling her mistress "Miss Lucy," though the last is now a grandmother.

As for the children of the house of Nebuchadnezzar, truth compels me to say, that they have been largely influenced by the spirit of the age, and that they look on the relation that existed for more than a century, between the Wallingfords and the Clawbonnys, with eyes somewhat different from those of their parents. They have begun to migrate; and I am not sorry to see them go. Notwithstanding, the tie will not be wholly broken, so long as any of the older stock remain, tradition leaving many of its traces among them. Not one has ever left my rule without my consent; and I have procured places for them all, as ambition, or curiosity, has carried them into the world.

As for this new spirit of the age that is doing so much among us, I am not twaddler enough to complain of all change, for I know that many of these changes have had the most beneficial effects. I am far from thinking that domestic slavery, as it once existed at Clawbonny, is a picture of domestic slavery as it existed throughout the land; but I do believe that the inst.i.tution, as it was formerly known in New York, was quite as much to the disadvantage of the white man, as to that of the black. There was always something of the patriarchal character in one of our households, previously to the change in the laws; and the relation of master and slave, in old, permanent families, in which plenty was no stranger, had ever more or less of that which was respectable and endearing. It is not so much in relation to the abolition spirit, (if it would only confine its exertions to communities over which it may happen to possess some right of control,) that I feel alarmed as in reference to a certain spirit, which appears to think there always must be more and more change, and that in connection with any specific interest, whatever may have been its advancement under previous _regimes_; nothing in social life being fully developed, according to the creed of these movement philosophers. Now, in my view of the matter, the two most dangerous of all parties in a state, are that which sets up conservatism as its standard, and that which sets up progress: the one is for preserving things of which it would be better to be rid, while the other crushes all that is necessary and useful in its headlong course. I now speak of these opposing principles, as they are marshalled in _parties_, opposition giving pertinacity and violence to each. No sane man can doubt that, in the progress of events, much is produced that ought to be retained, and much generated that it would be wiser to reject. He, alone, is the safe and wise legislator, who knows how, and when, to make the proper distinctions. As for conservatism, Lafayette once characterized it excellently well, in one of his happiest hits in the tribune. "Gentlemen talk of the just medium (_juste milieu_)"

he said, "as if it embraced a clear political creed. We all know what the just medium is, as relates to any particular question; it is simply the truth, as it is connected with that question. But when gentlemen say, that they belong to the _juste milieu_, as a _party_, and that they intend to steer a middle course in all the public events of the day, they remind me of a case like this--A man of exaggerated notions lays down the proposition that four and four make ten; another of more discretion and better arithmetic combats this idea, by maintaining that four and four make only eight; whereupon, your gentleman of the _juste milieu_, finds himself obliged to say, 'Messieurs, you are equally in the wrong; the truth never lies in extremes, and four and four make nine.'"

What is true of conservatism, as a principle, is still more true as to the movement; for it often happens in morals, as well as in physics, that the remedy is worse than the disease. The great evil of Europe, in connection with interests of this nature, arises from facts that have little or no influence here. There, radical changes have been made, the very base of the social edifice having been altered, while much of the ancient architecture remains in the superstructure. Where this is the case, some errors may be pardoned in the artisans who are for reducing the whole to the simplicity of a single order. But, among ourselves, the man who can see no end to anything earthly, ever maintaining that the best always lies beyond, if he live long enough to succeed, may live long enough to discover that truth is always on an eminence, and that the downward course is only too easy to those who rush in so headlong a manner at its goal, as to suffer the impetus of the ascent to carry them past the apex. A social fact cannot be carried out to demonstration like a problem in Euclid, the ramifications being so infinite as to reduce the results to something very like a conclusion from a mult.i.tude of interests.

It is next inc.u.mbent to speak of Marble. He pa.s.sed an entire month at Clawbonny, during which time he and Neb rigged the Grace and Lucy, seven different ways, coming back to that in which they found her, as the only rig in which she would sail; no bad ill.u.s.tration, by the way, of what is too often the winding up of experiments in overdone political movements.

Moses tried shooting, which he had heard belonged to a country life; and he had a sort of design to set up as a fourth or fifth cla.s.s country gentleman; but his legs were too short to clamber over high rail-fences with any comfort, and he gave up the amus.e.m.e.nt in despair. In the course of a trial of ten days, he brought in three robins, a small squirrel, and a crow; maintaining that he had also wounded a pigeon, and frightened a whole flock of quails. I have often bagged ten brace of woodc.o.c.ks of a morning, in the shooting-grounds of Clawbonny, and as many quails in their season.