At Last Part 18

"You don't imagine for one instant that she would be annoyed by any such scruples as beset you!" cried Mrs. Sutton scoffingly. "Why, the woman would sooner go to the altar with a handsome, das.h.i.+ng libertine, who had broken hearts by the dozen, than marry a quiet, honest Christian, who had never breathed of love to any ears except hers. The aim of her life is to create or experience a sensation. I don't quite see how she could have made trouble in that sad affair, but I should like to be positive that she did not."

"You may safely acquit her of that sin," rejoined Mabel. "There was neither need nor room for her interference. Whatever may have been her inclination, she was shrewd enough to perceive that the natural course of events was bringing about the desired end--if it were a desirable one to her--without her help or hindrance. But, aunt! doesn't it strike you that this is a very profitless talk, and very uncharitable? It is a sorry task, this volunteering our a.s.sistance to the dead past to bury its dead. And I, for one, have too much bound up in the future to offer my service in the painful work. Look! is not this pretty?"

She was embroidering a white merino cloak for an infant, in a pattern so rich and elaborate, that Mrs. Sutton groaned in commingled admiration and sympathy as she inspected it.

"You are throwing time and strength away upon this work!" she expostulated. "I don't know another lady in your circ.u.mstances who would not take her friends' advice, and put out all the sewing you need to have done. But your eyes and fingers have labored incessantly for six months upon the finest work you could devise, and you begin to look like a shadow. I don't wonder Mr. Dorrance seems uneasy sometimes. He complained this morning that you did not take enough exercise in the open air."

"He is not anxious, nor should he be. I am well, and stronger than you will believe. As to the work, it has been one great delight of my existence during the period you speak of. I could not endure that anybody but myself should a.s.sist in fas.h.i.+oning the dainty, tiny garments that make my hope an almost present reality. Every st.i.tch seems to bring nearer the fulfilment of the dear promise. I only regret that this is the last of the set. I shall be at a loss for occupation for the next two months. And I fear from something Herbert said to-day, that he does not intend for me to return to Albany until the spring fairly opens. Dr.

Williams has been talking to him about my cough."

"Dr. Williams is a fussy old woman, and Mr. Dorrance"--began Mrs.

Sutton.

Mabel quietly took up the word.

"Mr. Dorrance is ignorant of diseases and medicines, as men usually are who have not studied these with a view to practise upon themselves or others. I have said that he is not really uneasy; but he says, and with truth, that the Northern March and April are raw and cold, and will try my strength severely. Winston and Clara share in his fears. It is very kind in them to tender me the hospitalities of their house for so long a time, but I should feel more at home in my own, during my illness and convalescence."

"Why not tell your husband this plainly?"

"Because it might bias his judgment and embarra.s.s his action. I am willing to do as he thinks best."

There were not many subjects upon which Mrs. Sutton was irascible, but she patted the floor with her foot now as if this was one of them--her discontent finding vent at length in what she regarded as a perfectly safe query.

"Will he remain with you?"

"He cannot. His business is large and increasing. He can afford but this one fortnight vacation."

"How do you expect to get along without him?"

"I expect my dear old aunt to come often and see me," said Mabel affectionately, parrying the catechism "Clara suggested, of her own accord, when the extension of my visit was discussed, that you should be invited to be with me late in April--and I don't want you to refuse.

Do you understand, and mean to be complaisant? You are all the mother I have ever known, auntie."

"My lamb! you need not fear lest I shall not improve every opportunity of seeing and comforting you. I shall return a civil and grateful reply to Mrs. Aylett's invitation, for your sake! and for the same reason try and remember, while I remain her guest, that her right to be and to reign at Ridgeley is superior to yours or mine."

The good lady was not to be harshly censured if she now and then, in private confabulation with her favorite, let fall a remark which was the reverse of complimentary to her niece-in-law. Mabel's marriage was the signal for a radical reorganization of the Ridgeley domestic establishment, by which Mrs. Sutton was reduced from the busy, responsible situation of housekeeper to the unenviable one of unnoticed and unconsulted supernumerary.

"Not that I wish you to desert your old quarters, still less to feel like a stranger with us," said Mrs. Aylett graciously, while she affixed s.h.i.+ning bra.s.s labels to the keys of closets, sideboards, and store-rooms--the keys Aunt Rachel could distinguish from one another, and all others in the world, in the darkest night, without any labels whatever; which had grown smooth and bright by many years' friction of her nimble fingers. "But Mr. Aylett wishes me to a.s.sume the real, as well as nominal, government of the establishment"--Mrs. Aylett was fond of the polysyllable as conveying better than any other term she could employ the grandeur of her position as Baroness of Ridgeley. "He insists that the servants are growing worthless and refractory under the rule of so many. Hereafter--this is his law, not mine--hereafter, those attached to the house department are to come to me about their orders, and the plantation workmen to him. I shall undoubtedly have much trouble in curing the satellites appointed to me of their irregular habits, and reducing them to something resembling system; but Winston's extreme dissatisfaction with the anarchy that prevailed under the ancien regime moves me to the undertaking."

"They have always--for generations back, I may say--been called excellent servants; faithful in the discharge of their duties, and attached to their owners," returned Mrs. Sutton tremulously. "And since I have been in charge--ever since my dear sister's death, I have done my best with them, as with everything else committed by my nephew to my care. But of course I have nothing to urge against your plan. If I can help you in any way"---

"Thank you! You are extremely kind, my dear madam," honeyedly. "But I should be ashamed and sorry to be compelled to call upon you for a.s.sistance in performing what you have done so easily and successfully for fifteen years. I must learn confidence in my own powers, if I would be respected by underlings. They would be quick to detect the power behind the throne; let me hold counsel with you ever so secretly, and my authority would be weakened by the discovery. I have not the vanity to believe that my maiden attempt at housewifery will be attended by the distinction that has crowned yours, but practice will perfect in this, as in other labors. And my dear Mrs. Sutton, Mr. Aylett bids me say, in his name, as it gives me pleasure to do in my own, that although your occupation is gone, you are ever welcome to a home at Ridgeley, free of all expense. It is our hope that you may still content yourself here, even if Mabel has gone from the nest. I suppose, however, nothing will satisfy her, when she goes to housekeeping, but having you with her as a permanent inst.i.tution. My brother intimated as much to me before his marriage."

Declining with mild hauteur, that gave great, but secret amus.e.m.e.nt to her would-be benefactress, the handsome offer of a free asylum, Mrs.

Sutton went to live with a cousin of her late husband's, whose snug plantation was situated about twelve miles from the Aylett place, and in the neighborhood of the Tazewells. It was a pleasant, but not a permanent arrangement, she gave out to her numerous friends, any of whom would have accounted themselves favored by an acceptance of a home for life in their families.

"Ridgeley was changed and lonely since Mabel's departure, and her own habits were too active to be conformed to those of so small a household.

Indeed, there was nothing for her to do there any longer, so she was glad to avail herself of Mrs. William Sutton's invitation to stay a while with her. The children made the house so lively. In the fall, the house Mr. Dorrance was having built for his Southern bride would be ready for them, and Mabel's claim upon her aunt's society and services must take precedence of all others."

The fall came, and Mabel wrote detailed descriptions of the beautiful home Herbert had prepared for her; wrote, moreover, with more feeling and animation, of the new and precious hopes of happiness held out to her loving heart in the prospect of what the spring would give into her arms, but said nothing of her aunt's coming to her for the winter, or for an indefinite period, the bounds of which were to be set only by her beloved relative's wishes. The omission was trying enough to the foster-mother's heart and patience, even while she believed the knowledge of it to be confined to herself. She could still hold up her head bravely among her kindred and acquaintances, and talk of the "dear child's" good fortune and contentment with it; how popular and beloved she was among them, and what an elegant house her generous husband had bestowed upon her; could still hint at the instability of her own plans, and the possibility that she might, at any day or hour, determine to leave her native State and follow her "daughter" into what the latter represented was not an unpleasant exile.

An end was put to this innocent deception--for, if any deception can be termed innocent, it is surely that by which he who practises it is himself beguiled--the blameless guile was then arrested by a story repeated to her by her indignant hosts, as having emanated directly from Mrs. Aylett. She had given expression, publicly, at a large dinner-party, to her amazement and pity at the self-delusion under which "poor, dear Mrs. Sutton" labored, in expecting to take up her residence with Mr. and Mrs. Dorrance.

"My brother laments her hallucination as much, if not more than his wife does," she said, in her best modulations of creamy compa.s.sion. "But, indeed, my dear Mrs. Branch, they are not accountable for it. Not a syllable has ever escaped either of them which a reasonable person could construe into a request that she should become an inmate of their household. So careful have they been to avoid exciting her expectations in this regard, that they have refrained from extending to her an invitation for even a month. Those who are most familiar with the poor lady's peculiarities do not require to be told how ill-advised would be the arrangement she desires. Mabel is a thoroughly sensible woman, and too devoted a wife to advocate anything so injudicious, while her husband is naturally jealous for her dignity and the inviolability of her authority in her own house. Mrs. Sutton left Ridgeley in opposition to our earnest entreaties that she would spend the evening of her days with us. I was a.s.sured then, as I am now, that she would receive the same love and respect nowhere else. But she could not brook the semblance of interference with her rule where she had reigned so long and irresponsibly. And while we may deplore, we can hardly find fault with this weakness. It must have been a trial--and not an ordinary one--to be obliged, at her age, to resign the sceptre she had swayed for upward of fifteen years."

"'Their words are smoother than oil, but in their mouths is a drawn sword,'" quoted Mrs. Sutton, in meek protest against the sugared malice of this slander when it was told to her. "This is none of Mabel's doings. She loves me dearly as ever, but one might as well hope to move the Blue Ridge as to teach that pragmatical husband of hers to consult her wishes and her good, before he does his own. His head is hard as a flint, and his heart--never mind! Heaven forgive me if I am unjust to him! I should be thankful that he does not really mean to misuse my darling. Now, my dears, you see how undesirable an inmate of any house I am rated to be. If you wish to retract your offer of a hiding-place for my old head, I shall not take it amiss. Thanks to Providence and my dear Frederic I have enough, to maintain me decently anywhere in this country. I shall never be chargeable to anybody for my food, victuals, and lodgings. If you are willing to let me board here and do odd st.i.tches for the children when they tear their ap.r.o.ns and rub out the knees of their trowsers--just to keep me out of mischief, you understand!--I promise to be as little officious in housewifely concerns as it is in my nature to be."

William Sutton and his wife--a woman who was both sagacious and amiable--reiterated their a.s.surances that she could not confer a greater boon upon them than by remaining where she was, and with them she had stayed until Mr. Aylett sent over the Ridgeley carriage, one day in the third week in February, with a note from Mabel, begging her aunt to present herself, without needless delay, at the homestead, since she was not reckoned sufficiently strong to attempt the uneven and muddy roads that still separated them. Mrs. Aylett also dispatched a billet by the coachman, the graceful burden of which was the same as that of Mabel's pet.i.tion, and the two long-sundered friends were speedily together; fellow-partakers of a bountiful and painstaking hospitality, which kept them continually in mind that they were guests, and not at home.

The dialogue relative to Rosa Tazewell's matrimonial project took place on the third day of Mrs. Sutton's visit, in Mabel's chamber, and when the former, having talked off the topmost bubbles of her righteous wrath, recollected several very important letters--business and friendly--she ought to have written a week ago, and trotted off to her room where she could perform the neglected duty without visible and outward temptation to that she was more fond of doing--to wit, talking--the young wife continued to work steadily, and with apparent composure. It was not a bright face on which the light from the western windows fell, yet it was not unhappy. She had never pretended to herself that her marriage was a step toward happiness, but she had believed that it would secure to her a larger share of peace, immunity from disturbance, and independence of thought and action, than fell to her lot in her brother's house, and for these negative benefits she longed wearily.

Mr. Aylett was not wantonly or openly unkind to his ward, and ungenerous persecution was utterly incompatible with the temper and habits of his lady wife, but between them they had contrived to make the girl's life very miserable. It was Winston's cue--adopted, let us hope, from the strict sense of duty he avowed had ever actuated him in his treatment of the charge bequeathed him by his father--to deport himself with calm, seldom-relaxed severity to one who had showed herself to be entirely unworthy of confidence; to exercise unremitting surveillance upon her personal a.s.sociation with young people out of the family and her correspondence, and to curb by look and oral reproof the most distant approach to what he condemned as indiscreet levity. In a thousand ways--many of them ingenious, and all severe, she was made to feel the curtailment of her liberty, and given to understand that it was the just retribution of her unlucky love-affair with an unprincipled adventurer.

Mrs. Aylett professed to discountenance this policy--to be Mabel's secret friend and ally, while she deemed it unwise to combat her husband's will by overt measures for his sister's protection.

Thus, for a year, the object of his real displeasure and her affected commiseration lived under a cloud, too proud to complain of her thraldom, but feeling it every second; mourning, in the seclusion of the trebly barred chambers of her heart, over her shattered idol and squandered affections, and fancying, in the morbid distrust engendered by the discovery of her lover's baseness, and the weight of her brother's unsparing reprobation of her insane imprudence, that she descried in every face, save Aunt Rachel's, contempt or rebuke for the faux pas that had so nearly cast a stigma upon her name and lineage.

In Herbert Dorrance's honest admiration and a.s.siduous courts.h.i.+p the most suspicious scrutiny could detect no tincture of either of these feelings, and it was not long before she took refuge in his society from the risk of being wounded and angered by the supposed exhibition of them in others. Here was one man who could not but know of her folly, in all its length, breadth, and depth, who was a witness of her daily chastis.e.m.e.nt for it at her guardian's hands, yet who esteemed her unsullied by the unworthy attachment, undegraded by punishment.

Grat.i.tude had a powerful auxiliary in her feverish longing to escape from scenes that kept alive to the quick, memories she would have annihilated, had her ability been commensurate with her will. All other a.s.sociations with the house in which she, and her father before her, had been born, and in which she had pa.s.sed her childhood and girlish days, were overrun by the thickly thronging and pertinacious recollections of the two short weeks Frederic Chilton had spent there with her. He haunted her walks and drives; trod, by her side, the resounding floor of the vine-covered portico, sat with her in parlor and halls; sang to her accompaniment when she would have exorcised the phantom by music--was always, whenever and wherever he appeared--the tender, ingenuous, manly youth she had loved and reverenced as the impersonation of her ideal lord; the demi-G.o.d whom she had wors.h.i.+pped, heart and soul--set, in her exulting imagination no lower than the angels, and beheld in the end,--with besmirched brow and debased mien, a disgraced sensualist, not merely a deceiver of another woman's innocent confidence, and her tempter to dishonor and wretchedness, but a poltroon--a whipped coward who had not dared to lift voice or pen in denial or extenuation of his crime.

The law of reaction is of more nearly universal application in moral and in physical science than men are willing to believe. We have seen how cunningly Rosa calculated upon it, and wiser people than she, every day, attribute the most momentous actions of their lives to its influence.

"My advice to every woman is to marry for GOODNESS--simple integrity of word and deed!" said a lady, once in my hearing.

She was an excellent scholar, attractive in person and in manner, gifted in conversation and opulent in purse. Her hand had been sought in marriage by more than one, and in early womanhood she had made choice among her suitors of a man whose plausible exterior was the screen of a black heart and infamous life. Convinced of her mistake barely in time to escape copartners.h.i.+p in his stained name and ruined fortunes, she set up the history of her deadly peril as a beacon to others as ardent and unwary as her old-time self. Either to put a double point upon the moral, or to insure herself against similar mishap in the future, she wedded an amiable and correct fool, a mere incidental in the work of human creation, who was as incapable of making his mark upon the age that produced him as an angle-worm is of lettering solid granite.

Mabel's husband was not a simpleton, or characterless; but if he had been, his prospects of success would not have been materially damaged by her knowledge of his deficiencies. A union with him was a safe investment, and must be several degrees more supportable than was her position at Ridgeley, banned by its owner and patronized by his wife. I neither excuse nor blame her for thus deciding and transacting. Should I censure, a majority of my readers--nearly all of the masculine portion--would pick holes in my unpractical philosophy, scout my reasoning as illogical, brand my conclusions as pernicious--winding up their protest with the sigh of the mazed disciples, when stunned by the great Teacher's deliverance upon the subject of divorce, "If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry!"

Which dogma I likewise decline to dispute--falling back thankfully upon the blessed stronghold of unambitious story-tellers--namely, that my vocation is to describe what IS--not make fancy-sketches of millennial days, when rect.i.tude shall be the best, because most remunerative policy; when sincerity shall be wisdom--proven and indisputable, and consistency the rule of human faith and practice the world over, instead of being, as it now is, one of the lost (or never invented) fine arts.

CHAPTER XIII. -- JULIUS LENNOX. --

"You are puttin' your eyes out, workin' so stiddy, honey, and it's gettin' dark."

Mabel aroused herself from her intent att.i.tude, and looked at the window. There was a bra.s.sy glimmer in the cloudy west; the rest of the sky was covered by thick vapors.

"The days are still very short," she said, folding her work, and becoming aware that her eyes ached from long and close study of the intricate pattern.

It was Mammy Phillis who had interrupted her reverie, and she now laid an armful of seasoned hickory wood upon the hearth, and set herself about mending the fire, taking up the ashes which had acc.u.mulated since morning, putting the charred sticks together, and collecting the embers into a compact bed.

"We're goin' to have fallin' weather 'fore long," she observed, oracularly. "The wind has changed since dinner, and when the wind whirls about on a sudden, we upon this ridge is the fust to find it out. I must see that them lazy chil'len, Lena and Lizy, fills your wood-box to-night with dry wood; I'd be loth to have you ketch cold while you are here."

"You are very good, Mammy, but why do you trouble yourself to attend to my fire? You should have sent up Lena with that great load of logs."

"I ain't easy without I see to you myself, at least once a day. It 'minds me of the good ole times to wait upon you. O, Lord! how long?"