 | CHAPTER III. Redwood |  |
3. CHAPTER III.
Cannot forfeit nature's claim;
Skins may differ, but affection
Dwells in white and black the same.”
Cowper.
Henry Redwood was a native of
Virginia, that State of the Union where
the patrician rank has escaped in the
greatest degree, the levelling principle
of republicanism. His father was a rich
planter: adhering pertinaciously to the
custom of his predecessors, he determined
that his eldest son should inherit
his large landed property. To Henry
he gave a good education, and designed
that he should resort to the usual expedient
of unportioned gentility, compensating
his inheritance. He was early destined
to be the husband of Maria Manning,
the only daughter of Mr. Redwood's
sister, a rich widow who resided in
Charleston, South-Carolina.
Henry Redwood had originally a
highly gifted mind, and strong affections;
under happy influences he might
have become the benefactor of his country,
its ornament and blessing; or he
might in domestic life have illustrated
the virtues that are appropriate to its
quiet paths. His father trained his eldest
son in his own habits, which were
those of an English country squire.
Henry was left to follow the bent of his
own inclinations, and possessing a less
robust constitution than his brother, and
a contemplative turn of mind, he preferred
sedentary to active pursuits. He
early manifested a decided taste for
literature; he felt the beauty, and confessed
the power of the moral sublime;
pages of the moralist, and he sympathized
with the examples of heroism
which the poet and the historian have
rescued from the ashes of past ages.
But unhappily he saw few resemblances
in life to these fair portraits.
His father's character was of the coarsest
texture; his life when not devoted to
the gaming table, the excitements of
the race-ground, or the stimulating
pleasures of the chase, was wasted in
the most perfect indolence at home: his
mother had been a beauty, and possessed
many of the gentle qualities of her sex,
but, unresisting and timid in her nature,
she had fallen into such habits of unqualified
submission to her husband, that
she had no longer courage to assert the
rights of virtue, or power to impress
them on her children. Young Redwood
had one friend, the son of a neighbouring
planter, whom he called his
good genius, and his elevated character
The influence of his virtues
and affection might, perhaps, have preserved
Henry from the errors of his
after life, but their opportunities of intercourse
were rare and brief, in consequence
of a political animosity between
their parents; and before Henry had
received impressions deep enough to
mature into principle the strong inspirations
of feeling, he was sent to college;
there, by one of those unlucky
chances that sometimes give a colour to
the destiny of life, he was led, first to
an acquaintance, and subsequently to an
intimacy, with an unprincipled man, by
the name of Alsop. This man possessed
plausible talents and insinuating manners;
but his mind had been contaminated
by the infidelity fashionable at
that period, and his vanity was stimulated
by the hope of adding to his
little band of converts a young man of
Redwood's acknowledged genius.
The unfeeling and audacious wit of
Voltaire, the subtle arguments of Hume,
and all that reckless and busy infidelity
has imagined and invented, were arrayed
by this skilful champion against the
accidental faith of Henry Redwood:
for that faith may surely be called accidental
which knows no reason for its
existence, but is the result of being born
in a christian community, and of an
occasional attendance at church. The
triumph was an easy one. Redwood's
vision, like that of other unbelievers,
was dazzled by the ignus fatuus that his
own vanity had kindled; and like them,
he flattered himself, that he was making
great discoveries, because he had turned
from the road which was travelled by
the vulgar throng.
In the free and even licentious speculation
of the closet, young Redwood,
was not surpassed by any of his new
intimates; but he had a purity and
refinement of taste, which, though it
barrier to strong temptation, deterred
him from associating himself with them
in their gross and profligate pleasures.
He was sometimes disgusted, but
never shocked by their profligacy. He
maintained that whatever a man called
good was good to him; and that, released
from the thraldom of fearing a
visionary future, he was at liberty to
disengage himself from the galling
fetters which virtue and religion impose,
and to expatiate without apprehension
or compunction in a religion of perfect
liberty. A little reflection, and a very
short experience taught him, that these
principles would dissolve society, and
then like some other philosophers, he
adopted expediency for his rule of right.
He found it to be impossible so suddenly
to emancipate men from the slavery of
prejudice; “some hundred years must
pass away before the downfall of the
prevailing systems of superstition.” The
ignorant are the majority; and a man's
conduct must be graduated by the
standard of the community in which
he lived.
Opinion was the rule, and ignorance
the presiding deity, in this new creed.
Still Henry Redwood's reason was not
quite obscured, nor his heart quite
depraved. He often turned from the
heartless pages of infidelity to the
inspiration of virtue, and found that
while the first controlled his judgment,
the latter could alone sway his affections.
A virtuous action would send an involuntary
glow to his cheek, and make
him wish he had never doubted the
reality of the principle that produced it.
Redwood was ambitious; and after
having won the first literary honours of
his college, he returned to his family
elated with his success, and proud of his
superiority. He again met the friend
of his youth Edmund Westall, who, during
man; and in whose family Redwood
found irresistible attractions.
Westall was a few years older than
Redwood; and there was an authority
in his example that could not well be
evaded, and a persuasion in his goodness
that touched Redwood's heart. He felt
it like an excrcism that conjured out of
him every evil spirit.
But the state of his own mind will be
best shown by a letter which he wrote
at this time to his infidel friend.
“Some months have elapsed, dear
Alsop, since we parted, and parted with
a truly juvenile promise to keep up
an unremitting epistolary intercourse.
And this I believe is the first essay made
by either of us; a fair illustration of the
common proportion which performance
bears to such promises. You, no doubt,
have been roving from pleasure to pleasure,
with an untiring impulse, and your
cried, `give, give.' If one of your
vagrant thoughts has strayed after me,
you have doubtless fancied me immured
in my study, pursuing my free inquiries,
abandoning the fallen systems of vulgar
invention, and soaring far over the
misty atmosphere of imposture and credulity.
Or, perhaps, you deem that I
have adopted your sapient advice, have
returned to my home a dutiful child,
gracefully worn the chains of filial obedience,
made my best bow to papa, and
with a, `just as you please, Sir,' fallen,
secundum artem, desperately in love
with my beautiful, and beautifully rich
cousin; have rather taken than asked
her willing hand, and thus opened for
myself the path of ambition, or the
golden gates that lead to the regions of
pleasure, and which none but fortune's
hand can open, But, alas! the most
reasonable hopes are disappointed by
our fantastic destiny. We are the sport
deity, you are bound not to deride any
of the whimsical dilemmas into which
his votaries are led. Alsop, you have
often commended the boldness of my
mind, while you laughed at a certain
involuntary homage I paid to the beautiful
pictures of goodness, which some
dreaming enthusiasts have presented to
us, or to the moral beauty which among
all the varieties of accidental combination,
is sometimes exhibited in real
life.
“Have I prepared you to hear the
confession that I am at this present
moment the blind and willing dupe of
goodness, (I mean what the moralists
call goodness,) embodied in a form that
might soften a stoic, convert an infidel,
or perform any other miracle.
“You have heard me make honourable
mention of my friend Westall.
He is by some years my elder, three or
four at least. I think I never related
to each other; I am quite certain I did
not, for you would have laughed at
them; they may now serve to elucidate
to you my friend's character, and to
account for our early and reciprocal
interest.
“My father had among his servants
a native African; one of those men
whom nature has endowed with a giant
frame, and correspondent qualities of
mind. At the time my father purchased
him, he was separated from his wife
and two children, girls; the only boy
my father purchased with him, whether
because he thought the presence of the
child would help to keep the father in
heart, or from a transient feeling of
compassion for the poor wretch, I know
not. The wife had suffered deplorably
from the voyage, and was knocked
down with her two girls to a Georgian
for a trifle. You do not know my
father: suffice it to say, that selfishness
to the sufferings of these poor devils,
whom he classes with other brutes born
for our service. But there was something
extraordinary in the strong affections
and unconquerable temper of this
man. His wife and little ones were
torn from his strong grasp, and when
resistance was hopeless, and he turned
from them, the large muscles of his
neck swelled almost to bursting, and
he set up a desperate howl, that made
every heart quake or melt. Some one
of the throng around him, put his boy
into his arms: the sight of him changed
the current of his feelings; he soon
became silent, and, a few moments after,
his tears fell thick and heavy on the
child. My father brought him home.
He performed his appointed tasks well,
but he was retired and sulky, and the
smallest services that were imposed on
his child seemed to exasperate his spirit.
It was not many months after he came
a cruel worthless dog, beat the child
who had unwarily offended him, unmercifully.
The father interposed and rescued
the child at the expense of some
cutting lashes on his own back, which
he seemed to regard no more than the
idle wind. The very night after, the
child disappeared, and it was believed
the unhappy father had put an end to
the boy's life. The fact was never
ascertained, though no one doubted it;
for as you will readily believe my
father was not very zealous to establish
a truth which would have deprived him
of one of his most valuable slaves. These
circumstances transpired before I was
old enough to remember them; but
when I first heard the report of them
among our domestic annals, I felt an
involuntary respect for this man, who
with a spirit more noble than Cato's,
cut the cord that bound his son to captivity,
and manfully continued to
Was not this a glorious illustration of
the truth of our old friend Seneca's
remark, that `sometimes to live is
magnanimity?'
“Time passed on, but Africk (for
that was the name my father had given
him,) remained unaltered. I think I
see him now, going to his daily task,
always apart from the herd, and quite
alone; his firm and slow step, the curling
of his lip, which would have better
become a monarch than a slave, and his
fixed downcast eye.
“His mind, which like adamant had
resisted the influence of time, was at last
subdued by fanaticism, which you know,
like some chemical powers, will dissolve
substances that no chemical force can
impress. My father (a little alarmed
himself, as I suspect, by an eloquent
harangue,) permitted a zealous Methodist
or Moravian, I am not certain which,
but a member of one of these tribes of
A great sensation was produced, and
among the rest, Africk eagerly seized
every opportunity of communication
with the preacher. He had never before
sought human communion or sympathy.
He soon became a convert; his
fierce manner was changed to gentleness;
he no longer avoided his fellows;
and though still reserved and silent, it
seemed to me that his religion brought
him back to the human family, and by
uniting him to the common Father of
all, restored the broken links of fraternity.
“Whether his faith had an enfeebling
influence on his body as well as his
mind, I know not; but his health fell
into decay. The overseer complained
that he kept long vigils after his daily
labour; that he spent the nights which
were made to prepare him for his labour,
in prayers that exhausted his spirits and
his strength. My father inquired of
wretch replied, that he never entered a
complaint till that remedy had failed,
It did no more good, he said, to whip
him, than to beat the air; he bore it
without complaint, and without shrinking.
My father then recommended an
abatement of Africk's daily food.
“That,” Buckley said, “he had tried
till the rascal was so weak he could
scarcely stand. I was present at this
conference, and my nature rebelled
against the intolerable oppression the
poor wretch was suffering. I interposed,
and entreated my father to adopt
kind treatment.
“He swore at my boyish impertinence,
as he called it; but it was not,
however, without effect, for he recommended
to Buckley milder usage. But
the fellow's habits of cruelty were too
firmly fixed for any essential change.
It was not long after that Africk interposed
horrible lash of this tyrant: his fury,
averted from the woman, fell with redoubled
violence on Africk, till no
longer stimulated by resistance, he turned
away from his silent victim, and left
him to crawl (for he could not walk)
to his little cabin. The following
morning he was missing; the plantation
was searched in vain, and I was
despatched by my father in quest of
him, as he deemed it probable that some
of the negroes of our neighbours might
have harboured and concealed him;
these sort of courtesies being not unfrequent
among our slaves.
“I went, but with the determination
never to reveal, if I discovered his concealment,
and to afford him every aid
in my power, for my youthful imagination
had been powerfully excited by his
heroism and his sufferings, and neither
philosophy nor experience had yet
of human misery. Would to God they
never had!
“I began my expedition on foot,
being just then inspired with a passion
to emulate the feats of some European
pedestrians, of whom I had heard. I
cannot remember a period of my life
when some such whim did not rule the
hour. I had entered on Mr. Westall's
grounds, and in order to cross by a
straight line to the cabins of the negroes,
I left the circuitous road, and turned
into some low ground, covered with
pines. It soon became marshy, and
almost impassable, but I had proceeded
too far for retreat or extrication, and I
continued to push forward through the
snarled bushes and interwoven branches
of the trees; the daylight and my
strength were almost exhausted, and my
patience entirely, when I perceived the
ground harden to my tread, and pressing
eagerly forward, I issued from the wood
around which the trees
grew so thick, that they formed an almost
impenetrable wall, a natural defence
for this sequestered retreat. To
my amazement I saw before me, and
just on the skirt of the wood, a rudely
constructed hut; two of its sides were
formed by slabs resting on the ground
at one end, meeting at the top, and
supported by poles inserted into two
notched posts; the third side was filled
by brush cut from the adjoining wood,
and piled loosely together; the fourth,
towards which I advanced, was quite
open to the weather.
“Alsop, I had proceeded thus far in
my narrative, when I threw down my
pen; my fancy had restored me to this
scene of my youth; I had insensibly
reverted to the influences that then
governed my mind, and I felt that I
was exposing the offices of the temple to
the derision of the unbelievers. I protest
ridicule: I know all these things
are the illusions of youth and ignorance,
but I sometimes think them better,
certainly far happier, than the realities
I have since adopted. Still vacillating,
you say between philosophy and superstition!
amiable superstition! I have
described this spot with some particularity.
It is, with all its accompaniments,
indelibly stamped on my memory.
As I said, I advanced towards the habitation,
and unperceived by its occupants,
I had leisure to observe and to listen to
them. Africk was lying extended on
some straw with which the ground (for
there was no floor) had been strewn for
this slight accommodation; his head
was supported by an old negro woman;
with one hand he grasped the hand of my
friend, with the other he held firmly a
saphie, which was suspended around his
neck; his short and spasmodic breathing
with death.
“Edmund Westall knelt beside him,
and might have been mistaken for a
bright vision from another and a higher
sphere, so beautiful was the combination
of faith, hope, and charity, as the enthusiast
paints them, in his fair and innocent
face. The last rays of the setting
sun entering an aperture in the
wall, fell athwart his brow, burnished
his light brown hair, and rested there,
a bright halo, which seemed the seal of
the celestial ministry. My ear caught
the broken sentence of the dying man.
“`No no,' he said; `Mr. Edmund, I
had no peace. I would have given my
life for one moment of freedom. I
looked for revenge. I thought of my
wife and my little ones; and I could
have poured out the blood of white men,
till it should run like the big waters
over which they brought us. But the
and I was an altered man. And when
I prayed that blessed prayer, that I
might be forgiven even as I forgive
others, the fire in my heart was quenched,
and the terrible storm that had raged
here (and he pressed Edmund's hand
on his naked breast) was laid; and there
was peace, Mr. Edmund; God's peace.
I was a slave, and I was wretched, but
the sting was taken away. Do not
pray for me, nor for mine. I have been
on my knees for my helpless ones, night
after night, and all night long, and my
prayer is heard. But pray for your
father's land, and your father's children.
Pray to be saved from the curse that is
coming. Oh! (he exclaimed,) and his
voice became stronger, and his deep
tones seemed to bear to our ears the
sure words of prophecy; oh, I hear the
cry of revenge; I hear the wailings of
your wives and your little ones; and I
see your fair lands drenched with their
day, for it will surely come.' His voice
was spent; his eyes closed, as I believed
for ever, and I sprang towards the bed.
I then perceived that it was a momentary
exhaustion; he still grasped Edmund's
hand, and I noticed the feeble
beatings of his heart. The old woman
signed to me to withdraw from before
him; and I silently took my station
beside her. After a few moments, he
again languidly opened his eyes and
said, in a scarcely audible voice, `I
thought I was in my own land; and I
heard the rustling of our leaves, and the
voices of my kindred, and I was feeding
my little ones with their kouskous as
when the destroyers came. My spirit
will pass easier, if I hear the voice of
your prayer, blessed young man. Pray
for my master; for Buckley.' He paused;
and Edmund, in a low tender voice,
began his supplication. At the close of
each petition Africk murmured amen;
for his oppressors, he opened his eyes,
clasped his hands and in the intensity
of his feeling, half rose from the straw.
The effort exhausted him; he sunk
back on the breast of the old woman,
and expired. She released herself from
him, and then stretching her arms towards
Heaven, as if in acknowledgment
to Him who had broken the bonds of
Africk's captivity, she clapped her hands
and shouted, `he is free! he is free!'
Edmund and I laid our faces together
on the straw beside the poor negro,
and wept as youth is wont to do.
“Forgive me, Alsop, I have told you
a very long, and it may be a very dull
story, though I think not; for nothing
is dull to you that is connected with the
philosophy of the human mind. You
will ridicule me for ever having deemed
of importance the particulars of a vulgar
being, extinct after a few years of life,
and that for the most part passed in
abject slavery; but like a true philosopher,
the past for the causes that have influenced
my character and governed my
destiny. And yet, `poor play things
of unpitying fate,' why should we be
so anxious to penetrate the mysteries
of a being which may cease for ever
to-morrow? The epicureans were more
consistent than we are; and we may
learn from the author of a faith that we
deride, the truest wisdom for us; `let
us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.'
“This scene has haunted my imagination:
the memory of it has sometimes
seemed to me like a voice from Heaven;
for a long while it kept alive a dying
spark of faith. I cherished it as a testimony,
that God had not left the creatures
he had formed to wander without
him in the world: I fancied there was
a supernatural ministry to the spirit of
this much-injured man, that had converted
his just and unrelenting hatred
to forgiveness—his pride to submissiveness—and
there seemed a witness to the
countenance of my friend.
“Yes, Alsop, I confess it—the memory
of this scene has sometimes been an
impassable barrier to your infidel and
most ingenious arguments.
“You know one of the boldest, as
well as one of the most charming of
female sceptics, said, `in the silence of
the closet, or the dryness of discussion, I
can agree with the atheist or the materialist,
as to the insolubility of certain
questions; but when in the country, or
contemplating nature, my soul, full of
emotion, soars aloft to the vivifying
principle that animates them, to the
almighty intellect that pervades them,
and to the goodness that makes the scene
so delightful to my senses!'
“Thus it is with me: nature and the
beautiful traits of nature we sometimes
see in man, appeal irresistibly to my
feelings, and force their way to my convictions.
“My purpose was, frankly to tell you
been led into too serious a train of feeling
to proceed any farther, and certainly
to let you into the arcana of my present
perplexities.
“I explained to Edmund my intentions
in regard to Africk. We found
that we had participated in a strong
feeling of compassion towards him,
and this sympathy at once created
a bond of union between us. This
hiding-place had been contrived by
Westall's people for a refuge for the
runaways from the neighbouring plantations;
not at all for their own benefit,
for the conduct of the Westalls to their
slaves was noted for its benevolent and
paternal character. The retreat was
kept secret from Mr. Westall, (the
father;) for the negroes rightly concluded
that he would have been compelled
in honour to surrender, as the
property of his neighbours, the refugees
who took shelter there. The son had
been conducted to the place by the old
she might safely confide the secret to
his custody, and who could not believe
that any case was so desperate that he
could not bring some alleviation to it.
We agreed that Africk's body should
be conveyed during the night to the
cabin of one of the negroes, and should
in the morning be restored to my father.
“Before we parted from the remains
of the released slave, we examined the
saphie, which to his last breath, he had
so pertinaciously grasped. You must
know these saphies, are boxes made of
horn, shell, or some other durable mate
rial; they contain some charon, usually
a sentence from the Koran, which serves
as an amulet to keep off evil spirits.
Africk had changed the object of his
superstition, and the infidel charm had
been expelled to give place to the following
sentence, written at his request
by Westall: `Forgive me my trespasses,
even as I forgive those who trespass
against me.'
“At Edmund's instigation, I made
this the occasion of benefit to the other
negroes. I applied to my father in their
behalf, and found my way to his understanding
by the sure and well-trodden
path of selfishness. I convinced him
that Buckley's cruelty had shortened
Africk's life, and that the tyrant's
harsh treatment of the slaves prevented
half the profit that might
otherwise be derived from their labour.
My father, exasperated by his
recent loss, readily yielded to my arguments.
Buckley was dismissed, and an
efficient and tolerably humane overseer
employed in his place. I possessed then,
Alsop, some enthusiasm in the cause of
benevolence, and could have envied, and
possibly might have emulated the fame
of a Howard. But notwithstanding
this strange confession, you need not
now despair of your disciple and friend,
This epistle very naturally excited
his dominion over the mind of his young
disciple. He wrote to him repeatedly,
and received but few, and those brief
replies, till about the expiration of a
year, when an answer to an earnest
solicitation to Redwood to accompany
him to Europe, whither he was going
in a public service, and to his setting
forth in the most tempting manner the
advantages that he offered, he received
the following letter:
“I am grateful for your interest, and
convinced by your arguments that I
ought no longer to doze away my brief
existence in this retirement. I have obtained
my father's consent to the arrangement
you propose; and what is still
more indispensable, an ample supply in
consideration of a promise I have given
to him, that I will solicit the hand of my
cousin immediately after my return.
“Alsop, I find it necessary to recollect
all the arguments in favour of
virtue and vice being only conventional
terms, artificial contrivances for man's
convenience; for conscience, conscience,
`that blushing shame-faced spirit that
mutinies in a man's bosom,' tells me that
if it is not so, I am the veriest wretch
alive. I am married to a young creature
without fortune, without connexions;
innocent, and beautiful, and religious;
an odd union, is it not? I have not intimated
my free opinions to her, for why
should I disturb her superstition? It is
quite becoming to a woman, harmonizes
well with the weakness of her sex, and
is perhaps necessary to it. No one but
the priest (and he is trust-worthy) knows
our secret. My pride, my ambition,
rebel against the humble condition of
life to which this rash indulgence of
boyish passion condemns me. If my
father knew it, he would spurn me; for
my marriage disappoints his favourite
his most inveterate prejudices;
and my mother, my timid mother,
would never forgive me for presuming
to offend my father: there is no tolerable
alternative; the fact must be concealed
for the present. Who knows
but one of the tides, which, `taken at
the flood lead on to fortune,' may await
me? any thing is better than to lose
this bright opportunity of pleasure and
advantage. Poor Westall is dead, and
died with unbroken confidence in my
virtue. Is goodness thus credulous? He
has committed his only son, a boy of
four years, to my guardianship. I will
not betray his trust, so help me God.
Redwood had determined to keep his
intended departure a secret, to save himself
from the remonstrances and entreaties
which he naturally expected from
his abused wife. He had no intention
in the family of a Mr. Emlyn, as
teacher to his children, and might remain
there for one, or even two years if
necessary; and in the meantime, an unforeseen
accession of fortune, political
advancement, or any of the thousand
chances that happen to fortune's favourites,
might relieve her husband from
his present embarrassments, and enable
him to invest her with her rights without
too great a personal sacrifice. By
such and similar considerations he endeavoured
to soothe his conscience into
acquiescence; but neither these, nor the
sophistries of his friend, availed him to
silence the voice of nature within him,
that incessantly reproached him with
the wrong he was about to inflict on
a young, and innocent, and helpless
being.
On the night before his departure, he
summoned resolution to visit her, intending
to impart to her his designs,
and arguments as he could marshal to
his aid. He found her alone in the little
parlour, which had been kindly assigned
to her. She started at his entrance, and
was hurrying a sheet of paper on which
she was writing into the desk at which
she sat. “Treason, treason,” said he,
detaining the paper, and at the same
time kissing her pale cheek. “Then it
is treason against my own heart,” she
replied, “for that is but too faithful to
you.” Redwood was conscience-stricken,
and to shelter his embarrassment, he
affected to read the letter he had seized:
it was blotted with his wife's tears.
“No, do not read it,” said she, laying
her hand on it, “it is only a little scolding;
you know I have so few of the
privileges of a wife, that I cannot but
use those that are not denied me.” Redwood's
eyes were still fixed on the letter,
of which, however, he had not read
a single word. She continued, “I am
sometimes I think you do not love me.”
“Not love you, Mary?” exclaimed Redwood,
in whose breast there was not at this
moment any feeling so strong as his tenderness
for the lovely being before him.
“Yes, Henry,” she replied, with more
courage than she had ever before shown,
“and have I not much reason to think
so? I am sure I could not make any
one suffer as you make me; I could not
live and let such a curse rest upon your
blessings.” “A curse, Mary, what do
you mean?” replied her husband.
“Oh, is it not a curse,” said she, “to
feel the misery of guilt and the punishment
of folly; to be suspected of crime;
to feel the blood freezing in my veins,
from the fear of detection; to see, or
fancy that I see, the smiles of derision
and contempt on the faces of the very
slaves of the plantation, as I pass by
them; and to blush and feel humbled,
when, at the mention of your name, my
Oh Henry, I am a woman, and
I cannot bear such suspicions; I am a
wife, and I ought not to bear them.”
Redwood was affected by his wife's
appeal; but there was in it an assertion
of rights that mortified his pride and
surprised him; surprised him, because
Mary had always showed herself a timid
being, with unquestioning dependence
on his will, and submissive conformity
to his wishes. He defended himself
as well as he was able: he pleaded his
dependence on his father—his dread to
excite his tyrannical passions; he reminded
her that she had consented to their
clandestine marriage and intercourse.
“But,” she replied, “I was young
and inexperienced, and quite alone; and
I thought, Henry, you could not ask me
to do any thing it was not right to do;
and you promised, before God, to love
and cherish me, and I was quite sure
could shield me from.”
“And you shall not, Mary,” he replied;
“only have a little patience.”
“Ah, Henry, patience is the resource
of the miserable; and I,” she added,
turning on him a look full of the confiding
spirit of affection, “I ought not to
be miserable.”
“But what can I do?” said he impatiently.
“Withhold no longer the name to
which you have given me a right; save
me from cruel suspicions and remarks,
and I will endure silently and patiently
any other evil; I will live separate from
you, if your father requires it, or you
wish it; I will never see you again; any
thing will be better than to endure the
torment of shame, for from this torment
the consciousness of innocence has not
preserved me.”
Redwood felt the justice of his wife's
best impulses of his nature, but he
thought he had gone too far with Alsop
to recede; he mentally resolved to shorten
his absence as much as possible, and
to return to make his wife happy. Having
appeased his conscience by this compromise,
he appealed to her compassion;
he represented, with tenfold aggravation,
the embarrassments in which he
was involved, and he soothed her with professions
of tenderness. Gentle and affectionate,
she soon relapsed into trustful
acquiescence, and, with a self-devotion
not singular in a woman, she resolved
and promised to abide his pleasure. Before
they parted, there was an allusion
made to a flirtation Redwood had had
with his cousin Maria Manning, and to
some tender letters she had written to
him since his marriage, to win him back
from what she supposed to be his indifference.
These letters had frequently
been the subject of raillery between the
and Redwood, in no humour now to
deny any thing which he could grant
without too great a sacrifice, promised
he would send her the letters the next
morning. He then parted from her,
but not without betraying real anguish,
which his tender-hearted wife blamed
herself for having inflicted on him.
The next morning a pacquet was
brought to her. It continued a brief
farewell from her husband, the most
plausible apology he could frame for his
departure, and a sum of money larger
than he could well afford to spare from
the allowance that he had received
from his father, but by which, as he said,
he meant to enable her to withdraw (if
she should prefer to do so during his
absence) from the situation she then
held. In the hurry of his departure
Redwood had sent, instead of the promised
pacquet, his correspondence with
Alsop. What a revelation it contained
in him the unqualified and unsuspecting
confidence of youth; she had believed
him to be just what he seemed—the natural
conclusion of inexperience. How
terrible are the reverses of opinion,
when those most tenderly loved are the
subjects of them! It seemed to Mary
Redwood, that she had fallen into an
abyss of hopeless misery. She read
over and over again these fatal letters,
till her head turned, and heart sunk
with the strange confusion of horrible
ideas which they communicated. The
language of the world, of philosophy,
(falsely so called) of infidelity, was an
unknown tongue to her; a strange jargon,
which introduced into her mind but
one definite idea, and that a deep conviction
that her husband was corrupt, more
corrupt in principle than in conduct;
and his conduct the natural and necessary
result of his principles. Ignorant as
she was of the world, and all its intolerance
never dreamed that her lowly fortune
and rank opposed a barrier to her acknowledgment.
The love of women is sometimes
ranked with incurable diseases. Mary
Redwood's at least was not so; perhaps
her husband seemed to her to lose his
identity from the moment that she discovered
his real sentiments; however
that may be, the discovery cut the cord
that bound her to him; and the repose
and happiness of trustful affection, and
feminine dependence, and the confidence
of youthful expectation, gave place to
deep despondency, and to all the apathy
of complete alienation. It was impossible
for her to conceal a change so suddenly
wrought in her feelings, and the
good people with whom she was living,
believed young Redwood's departure
for Europe to be the cause of it.
They had for a long time been apprised
of his secret visits, and suspicious
of Mary's manners rebuked
suspicion, and they hesitated to communicate
their observations to her:
besides they were engaged with their
own concerns, and the transient love
affair (as they deemed it) of an obscure
young girl, seemed to them of no great
moment. They felt some regret, when,
after the lapse of a few days, she announced
her wish to relinquish the
care of their children, assigning as a
reason the evident decline of her health,
and she did not leave them without
generous tokens of their gratitude for
her fidelity. At the time of her departure,
her friend, Mrs. Westall, was
absent on a visit to a distant plantation;
this she esteemed fortunate, for she
wished to escape any observation that
would have been stimulated by affection.
She resolved never to reveal the secret
of her marriage; and thanking
from this world, and that none remained
to be deeply affected with her misfortunes,
she determined to seek out some
retreat where she might be sheltered
from notice. As the carriage drove
away that conveyed her from the door of
Mr. Emlyn, Mrs. Emlyn turned from
the window where she had stood gazing
after her, and said to her husband, “is
it not strange that Mary should not
have felt more at parting with the
children? she did not seem to notice
their caresses, and poor things, they
cried as if their little hearts would break;
she is kind-hearted too.” “And did
you not mind mother,” asked one of the
little girls, “that when I offered that
pretty shell-box Mr. Redwood gave me
for a keepsake, she shivered as if she
had the ague, and dropped it on the
floor?”
“Ah,” said Mr. Emlyn, looking significantly
at his wife, “it is easy enough
you my dear, that fellow has nearly
broken the girl's heart. It is just so
with all your tribe; `all for love, or the
world well lost.' But she will come to
her senses. `Sur les aile du temps la tristesse
s'envole.”'
| CHAPTER III. Redwood | |